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Covid19 epidemic in the USA, 2020

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[Dec 29, 2020] It's no way to run a country, lying your ass off all the time, as the results show.

Dec 29, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Bemildred , Dec 28 2020 20:13 utc | 9

Well, it's no way to run a country, lying your ass off all the time, as the results show. I have long been mystified by the political hacks here faith in the efficacy of bullshit for running a country. But then I realized that is not what they want to do, they want to exploit the country and get rich, and then depart like their 3rd world collaborators. And bullshit is what they do.

[Dec 29, 2020] Fauci blunders and chameleon style behaviour

Dec 29, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Anthony Fauci says lockdowns are not possible in the United States (January 24):

When asked about the mass quarantine containment efforts underway in Wuhan, China back in January, Fauci dismissed the prospect of lockdowns ever coming to the United States :

"That's something that I don't think we could possibly do in the United States, I can't imagine shutting down New York or Los Angeles, but the judgement on the part of the Chinese health authorities is that given the fact that it's spreading throughout the provinces it's their judgement that this is something that in fact is going to help in containing it. Whether or not it does or does not is really open to question because historically when you shut things down it doesn't have a major effect."

Less than two months later, 43 of 50 US states were under lockdown – a policy advocated by Fauci himself.

... ... ...

Surgeon General Jerome Adams tweeted against masks on February 29. Anthony Fauci publicly discouraged mask use in a nationally broadcast 60 Minutes interview on March 7. At a March 30 World Health Organization briefing its Director-General supported mask use in medical settings but dissuaded the same in the general public.

By mid-summer, all had reversed course and encouraged mask-wearing in the general public as an essential tool for halting the pandemic. Fauci essentially conceded that he lied to the public in order to prevent a shortage on masks, whereas other health officials did an about-face on the scientific claims around masking.

  1. Anthony Fauci 's decimal error in estimating Covid's fatality rates (March 11)

Fauci testified before Congress in early March where he was asked to estimate the severity of the disease in comparison to influenza. His testimony that Covid was "10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu" stoked widespread alarm and provided a major impetus for the decision to go into lockdown.

The problem, as Ronald Brown documented in an epidemiology journal article , is that Fauci based his estimates on a conflation of the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) and Case Fatality Rate (CFR) for influenza, leading him to exaggerate the comparative danger of Covid by an order of magnitude. Fauci's error – which he further compounded in a late February article for the New England Journal of Medicine – helped to convince Congress of the need for drastic lockdown measures, while also spreading panic in the media and general public. As of this writing Fauci has not acknowledged the magnitude of his error, nor has the journal corrected his article.

  1. Anthony Fauci credits lockdowns for beating the virus in Europe (July 31)

In late July Anthony Fauci offered additional testimony to Congress. His message credited Europe's heavy lockdowns with defeating the virus, whereas he blamed the United States for reopening too early and for insufficient aggressiveness in the initial lockdowns. As Fauci stated at the time, "If you look at what happened in Europe, when they shut down or locked down or went to shelter in place -- however you want to describe it -- they really did it to the tune of about 95% plus of the country did that."

The message was clear: the United States should have followed Europe, but failed to do so and got a summer wave of Covid instead. Fauci's entire argument however was based on a string of falsehoods and errors.

  1. Anthony Fauci touts New York as a model for Covid containment (June-December)

By all indicators, New York state has suffered one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the world. Its year-end mortality rate of almost 1,900 deaths per million residents exceeds every single country in the world. The state famously bungled its nursing home response when Governor Andrew Cuomo forced these facilities to readmit Covid-positive patients as a way to relieve strains on hospitals. The policy backfired as most hospitals never reached capacity, but the readmissions introduced the virus into vulnerable nursing home populations resulting in widespread fatalities (to this day New York intentionally undercounts nursing home fatalities by excluding residents who are moved to a hospital from its reported numbers, further obscuring the true toll of Cuomo's order).

New York has also fared poorly during the fall "second wave" despite reimposing harsh restrictions and regional lockdown measures. By mid-December, its death rate shot far above the mostly-open state of Florida, which has the closest comparable population size to New York. All things considered, New York's weathering of the pandemic is an exemplar of what not to do.

Cuomo's policies not only failed to contain the virus – they likely made it far more deadly to vulnerable populations. Enter Anthony Fauci, who has been asked multiple times in the press what a model Covid response policy would look like. He gave his first answer on July 20th : "We know that, when you do it properly, you bring down those cases. We have done it. We have done it in New York."

Fauci was operating under the assumption that New York, despite its bad run in the spring, had successfully brought the pandemic under control through its aggressive lockdowns and slow reopening. One might think that the fall rebound in New York, despite locking down again, would call this conclusion into question. Not so much for Dr. Fauci, who told the Wall Street Journal on December 8 : "New York got hit really badly in the beginning" but they did "a really good job of keeping things down, and still, their level is low compared to the rest of the country."

[Dec 28, 2020] Twelve Times The 'Lockdowners' Were Wrong - ZeroHedge

Dec 28, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Twelve Times The 'Lockdowners' Were Wrong BY TYLER DURDEN SUNDAY, DEC 27, 2020 - 23:35

Authored by Phillip Magness via The American Institute for Economic Research,

This has been a year of astonishing policy failure. We are surrounded by devastation conceived and cheered by intellectuals and their political handmaidens...

The errors number in the thousands, so please consider the following little more than a first draft, a mere guide to what will surely be unearthed in the coming months and years. We trusted these people with our lives and liberties and here is what they did with that trust.

  1. Anthony Fauci says lockdowns are not possible in the United States (January 24):

When asked about the mass quarantine containment efforts underway in Wuhan, China back in January, Fauci dismissed the prospect of lockdowns ever coming to the United States :

"That's something that I don't think we could possibly do in the United States, I can't imagine shutting down New York or Los Angeles, but the judgement on the part of the Chinese health authorities is that given the fact that it's spreading throughout the provinces it's their judgement that this is something that in fact is going to help in containing it. Whether or not it does or does not is really open to question because historically when you shut things down it doesn't have a major effect."

Less than two months later, 43 of 50 US states were under lockdown – a policy advocated by Fauci himself.

  1. US government and WHO officials advise against mask use (February and March)

When mask sales spiked due to widespread individual adoption in the early weeks of the pandemic, numerous US government and WHO officials took to the airwaves to describe masks as ineffective and discourage their use.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=830

Surgeon General Jerome Adams tweeted against masks on February 29. Anthony Fauci publicly discouraged mask use in a nationally broadcast 60 Minutes interview on March 7. At a March 30 World Health Organization briefing its Director-General supported mask use in medical settings but dissuaded the same in the general public.

By mid-summer, all had reversed course and encouraged mask-wearing in the general public as an essential tool for halting the pandemic. Fauci essentially conceded that he lied to the public in order to prevent a shortage on masks, whereas other health officials did an about-face on the scientific claims around masking.

While mainstream epidemiology literature stressed the ambiguous nature of evidence surrounding masks as recently as 2019 , these scientists were suddenly certain that masks were something of a magic bullet for Covid. It turns out that both positions are likely wrong. Masks appear to have marginal effects at diminishing spread, especially in highly infectious settings and around the vulnerable. But their effectiveness at combating Covid has also been grossly exaggerated, as illustrated by the fact that mask adoption reached near-universal levels in the US by the summer with little discernible effect on the course of the pandemic.

  1. Anthony Fauci 's decimal error in estimating Covid's fatality rates (March 11)

Fauci testified before Congress in early March where he was asked to estimate the severity of the disease in comparison to influenza. His testimony that Covid was "10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu" stoked widespread alarm and provided a major impetus for the decision to go into lockdown.

The problem, as Ronald Brown documented in an epidemiology journal article , is that Fauci based his estimates on a conflation of the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) and Case Fatality Rate (CFR) for influenza, leading him to exaggerate the comparative danger of Covid by an order of magnitude. Fauci's error – which he further compounded in a late February article for the New England Journal of Medicine – helped to convince Congress of the need for drastic lockdown measures, while also spreading panic in the media and general public. As of this writing Fauci has not acknowledged the magnitude of his error, nor has the journal corrected his article.

  1. "Two weeks to flatten the curve" (March 16)

The lockdowners settled on a catchy slogan in mid-March to justify their unprecedented shuttering of economic and social life around the globe: two weeks to flatten the curve. The White House Covid task force aggressively promoted this line , as did the news media and much of the epidemiology profession. The logic behind the slogan came from the ubiquitous graph showing (1) a steep caseload that would overwhelm our hospital system, or (2) a mitigated alternative that would spread the caseload out over several weeks, making it manageable.

To get to graph #2, society would need to buckle up for two weeks of shelter-in-place orders until the capacity issue could be managed. Indeed, we were told that if we did not accept this solution the hospital system would enter into catastrophic failure in only 10 days, as former DHS pandemic adviser Tom Bossert claimed in a widely-circulated interview and Washington Post column on March 11.

Two weeks came and went, then the rationale on which they were sold to the public shifted. Hospitals were no longer on the verge of being overwhelmed – indeed most hospitals nationwide remained well under capacity, with only a tiny number of exceptions in the worst-hit neighborhoods of New York City.

A US Navy hospital ship sent to relieve New York departed a month later after serving only 182 patients , and a pop-up hospital in the city's Javits Convention Center sat mostly empty . But the lockdowns remained in place, as did the emergency orders justifying them. Two weeks became a month, which became two months, which became almost a year. We were no longer "flattening the curve" – a strategy premised on saving the hospital system from a threat than never manifested – but instead refocused on using lockdowns as a general suppression strategy against the disease itself. In short, the epidemiology profession sold us a bill of goods.

  1. Neil Ferguson predicts a "best case" US scenario of 1.1 million deaths (March 20)

The name Neil Ferguson, the lead modeler and chief spokesman for Imperial College London's pandemic response team, has become synonymous with lockdown alarmism for good reason. Ferguson has a long track record of making grossly exaggerated predictions of catastrophic death tolls for almost every single disease that comes along, and urging aggressive policy responses to the same including lockdowns.

Covid was no different, and Ferguson assumed center stage when he released a highly influential model of the virus's death forecasts for the US and UK. Ferguson appeared with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on March 16 to announce the shift toward lockdowns (with no small irony, he was coming down with Covid himself at the time and may have been the patient zero of a super-spreader event that ran through Downing Street and infected Johnson himself).

Across the Atlantic, Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx cited Ferguson's model as a direct justification for locking down the US. There was a problem though: Ferguson had a bad habit of dramatically hyping his own predictions to political leaders and the press. The Imperial College paper modeled a broad range of scenarios including death tolls that ranged from tens of thousands to over 2 million, but Ferguson's public statements only stressed the latter – even though the paper itself conceded that such an extreme "worst case" scenario was highly unrealistic. A telling example came on March 20th when the New York Times's Nicholas Kristof contacted the Imperial College modeler to ask about the most likely scenario for the United States. As Kristof related to his readers, "I asked Ferguson for his best case. "About 1.1 million deaths," he said."

  1. Researchers in Sweden use the Imperial College model to predict 95,000 deaths (April 10)

After Neil Ferguson's shocking death toll predictions for the US and UK captivated policymaker attention and drove both governments into lockdown, researchers in other countries began adapting the Imperial College model to their own circumstances. Usually, these models sought to reaffirm the decisions of each country to lock down. The government of Sweden, however, had decided to buck the trend, setting the stage for a natural experiment to test the Imperial model's performance.

In early April a team of researchers at Uppsala University adapted the Imperial model to Sweden's population and demographics and ran its projections. Their result? If Sweden stayed the course and did not lock down, it could expect a catastrophic 96,000 deaths by early summer. The authors of the study recommended going into immediate lockdown, but since Sweden lagged behind Europe in adopting such measures they also predicted that this "best case" option would reduce deaths to "only" 30,000.

By early June when the 96,000 prediction was supposed to come true, Sweden had recorded 4,600 deaths. Six months later, Sweden has about 8,000 deaths – a severe pandemic to be sure, but an order of magnitude smaller than what the modelers predicted . Facing embarrassment from these results, Ferguson and Imperial College attempted to distance themselves from the Swedish adaptation of their model in early May. Yet the Uppsala team's projections closely matched Imperial's own UK and US predictions when scaled to reflect their population sizes. In short, the Imperial model catastrophically failed one of the few clear natural experiment tests of its predictive ability.

  1. Scientists suggest that ocean spray spreads Covid (April 2)

In the second week of the lockdowns several newspapers in California promoted a bizarre theory: Covid could spread by ocean spray (although the paper later walked back the headline-grabbing claim, it is outlined here in the Los Angeles Times ). According to this theory – initially promoted by a group of biologists who study bacterial infection connected to storm runoff – the Covid virus washed down storm gutters and into the ocean, where the ocean breeze would kick it up into the air and infect people on the nearby beaches. As silly as this theory now sounds, it helped to inform California's initially draconian enforcement of lockdowns on its public beaches.

The same week that this modern-day miasmic drift theory appeared, police in Malibu even arrested a lone paddleboarder for going into the ocean during the lockdown – all while citing the possibility that the ocean breeze carried Covid with it.

  1. Neil Ferguson predicts catastrophic death tolls in US states that reopen (May 24)

Fresh off of their exaggerated predictions from March, the Imperial College team led by Neil Ferguson doubled down on alarmist modeling. As several US states started to reopen in late April and May, Ferguson and his colleagues published a new model predicting another catastrophic wave of deaths by the mid-summer. Their model focused on 5 states with both moderate and severe outbreaks during the first wave. If they reopened, according to the Imperial team's model, New York could face up to 3,000 deaths per day by July.

Florida could hit as high as 4,000, and California could hit 5,000 daily deaths. Keeping in mind that these projections were for each state alone, they exceed the daily death toll peaks for the entire country in both the fall and spring. Showing just how bad the Imperial model was, the actual death toll by mid-July in several of the examined states even fell below the lower confidence boundary of its projected count . While Covid remains a threat in all 5 states, the post-reopening explosion of deaths predicted by Imperial College and used to argue for keeping the lockdowns in place never happened.

  1. Anthony Fauci credits lockdowns for beating the virus in Europe (July 31)

In late July Anthony Fauci offered additional testimony to Congress. His message credited Europe's heavy lockdowns with defeating the virus, whereas he blamed the United States for reopening too early and for insufficient aggressiveness in the initial lockdowns. As Fauci stated at the time, "If you look at what happened in Europe, when they shut down or locked down or went to shelter in place -- however you want to describe it -- they really did it to the tune of about 95% plus of the country did that."

The message was clear: the United States should have followed Europe, but failed to do so and got a summer wave of Covid instead. Fauci's entire argument however was based on a string of falsehoods and errors.

Mobility data from the US clearly showed that most Americans were staying home during the spring outbreak, with a recorded decline that matched Germany, the Netherlands, and several other European countries. Contrary to Fauci's claim, the US was actually slower than most of Europe to reopen. Furthermore, his praise of Europe collapsed in the early fall when almost all of the lockdown countries in Europe experienced severe second waves – just like the locked down regions of the United States.

  1. New Zealand and Australia declare themselves Covid-free (August-present)

New Zealand and Australia have thus far weathered the pandemic with extremely low case counts, leading many epidemiologists and journalists to conflate these results with evidence of their successful and replicable mitigation policies. In reality, New Zealand and Australia opted for the medieval ' Prince Prospero' strategy of attempting to wall themselves from the world until the pandemic passes – an approach that is highly dependent on their unique geographies.

As island nations with comparatively lower international travel than North America and Europe, both countries shut down their borders before the as-of-yet undetected virus became widespread and have remained closed ever since. It's a costly strategy in terms of its economic impact and personal displacement, but it kept the virus out – mostly.

The problem with New Zealand and Australia's Prince Prospero strategy is that it's inherently fragile. All it takes to throw it into chaos is for the virus to slip past the border – including by accident or human error. Then heavy-handed lockdowns ensue, imposed with maximum disruption at the spur of the moment in a frantic attempt to contain the breach.

The most famous example happened on August 9 when New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern declared that New Zealand had reached 100 days of being Covid-free . Then just two days later a breach happened , sending Auckland into heavy lockdown. It's a pattern that has repeated itself every few weeks in both countries.

In early December, we saw a similar flurry of stories from Australia announcing that the country had beaten Covid . Two weeks later, another breach occurred in the suburbs around Sydney, prompting a regional lockdown . There have been embarrassing missteps as well. In November the entire state of South Australia went into heavy lockdown over a single misreported case of Covid that was mistakenly attributed to a pizza purchase that did not exist. While both countries continue to celebrate their low fatality rates, they've also incurred some of the harshest and most disruptive restrictions in the world – all the result of premature declarations of being "Covid-free" followed by an unexpected breach and another frantic lockdown.

  1. "Renewed lockdowns are just a strawman" (October)

In early October a group of scientists met at AIER where they drafted and signed the Great Barrington Declaration , a statement calling attention to the severe social and economic harms of lockdowns and urging the world to adopt alternative strategies for ensuring the protection of the most vulnerable. Although the statement quickly gathered tens of thousands of co-signers from health science and medical professionals, it also left the lockdown supporters incensed. They responded not by scientific debate over the merits of their policies, but with a vilification campaign .

They answered by flooding the petition with hoax signatures and juvenile name-calling, and by peddling wildly false conspiracy theories about AIER's funding (the primary instigator of both tactics, ironically, was a UK blogger known for promoting 9/11 Truther conspiracies ). But the lockdowners also adopted another narrative: they began to deny that lockdowns were even on the table.

Nobody was considering bringing back the lockdowns from the spring, they insisted. Arguing against the politically unpopular shelter-in-place orders in the fall only served the purpose of undermining public support for narrower and more temperate restrictions. The Great Barrington authors, we were told, were arguing with a "strawman" from the past.

Over the next several weeks in October a dozen or more prominent epidemiologists, public health experts, and journalists peddled the "lockdowns are a strawman" line . The "strawman" claim saw promotion in top outlets including the New York Times , and in an op-ed by two principle co-signers of the John Snow Memorandum, a competing petition that lockdown supporters drafted as a response to the Great Barrington Declaration.

The message was clear: the GBD was sounding a false alarm against policies from the past that the lockdowners "reluctantly" supported in the spring as an emergency measure but had no intention of reviving. By early November, the "strawman" of renewed lockdowns became a reality in dozens of countries across the globe – often cheered on by the very same people who used the "strawman" canard in October.

Several US states followed suit including California, which imposed severe restrictions on private gatherings up to and including meeting your own family for Thanksgiving and Christmas. And a few weeks after that, some of the very same epidemiologists who used the "strawman" line in October revised their own positions after the fact. They started claiming they had supported a second lockdown all along, and began blaming the GBD for impeding their efforts to impose them at an earlier date. In short, the entire "lockdowns are a strawman" narrative was false. And it now appears that more than a few of the scientists who used it were actively lying about their own intentions in October.

  1. Anthony Fauci touts New York as a model for Covid containment (June-December)

By all indicators, New York state has suffered one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the world. Its year-end mortality rate of almost 1,900 deaths per million residents exceeds every single country in the world. The state famously bungled its nursing home response when Governor Andrew Cuomo forced these facilities to readmit Covid-positive patients as a way to relieve strains on hospitals. The policy backfired as most hospitals never reached capacity, but the readmissions introduced the virus into vulnerable nursing home populations resulting in widespread fatalities (to this day New York intentionally undercounts nursing home fatalities by excluding residents who are moved to a hospital from its reported numbers, further obscuring the true toll of Cuomo's order).

New York has also fared poorly during the fall "second wave" despite reimposing harsh restrictions and regional lockdown measures. By mid-December, its death rate shot far above the mostly-open state of Florida, which has the closest comparable population size to New York. All things considered, New York's weathering of the pandemic is an exemplar of what not to do.

Cuomo's policies not only failed to contain the virus – they likely made it far more deadly to vulnerable populations. Enter Anthony Fauci, who has been asked multiple times in the press what a model Covid response policy would look like. He gave his first answer on July 20th : "We know that, when you do it properly, you bring down those cases. We have done it. We have done it in New York."

Fauci was operating under the assumption that New York, despite its bad run in the spring, had successfully brought the pandemic under control through its aggressive lockdowns and slow reopening. One might think that the fall rebound in New York, despite locking down again, would call this conclusion into question. Not so much for Dr. Fauci, who told the Wall Street Journal on December 8 : "New York got hit really badly in the beginning" but they did "a really good job of keeping things down, and still, their level is low compared to the rest of the country."

[Dec 27, 2020] Fauci admits to LYING about Covid-19 herd immunity threshold to manipulate public support for vaccine, moves goal post to 90%

Is Fauci a charlatan?
Dec 27, 2020 | www.rt.com
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the epidemiologist revered almost religiously as a hero by mainstream media outlets and Democrat politicians, has admitted that he lied to Americans to manipulate their acceptance of a new Covid-19 vaccine.

The intentional deception involved estimates for what percentage of the population will need to be immunized to achieve herd immunity against Covid-19 and enable a return to normalcy.

Earlier this year, Fauci said 60-70 percent – a typical range for such a virus – but he moved the goalposts to 70-75 percent in television interviews about a month ago. Last week, he told CNBC that the magic number would be around "75, 80, 85 percent."

When pressed on the moving target in a New York Times interview , Fauci said he purposely revised his estimates gradually. The newspaper, which posted the article on Thursday, said Fauci changed his answers partly based on "science" and partly on his hunch "that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks."

"When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent," Fauci said.

Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, 'I can nudge this up a bit,' so I went to 80, 85.

Fauci added that he doesn't know the real number but believes the range is 70-90 percent. He said it may take nearly 90 percent, but he won't give that number because Americans might be discouraged, knowing that voluntary acceptance won't be high enough to reach that goal.

... ... ...

But the doctor's changing story on herd immunity is only the latest in a series of Covid-19 flip-flops, including 180-degree shifts on such core issues as whether members of the general public should wear masks and whether children should be sent back to school.

Just as his tone on herd immunity changed, his view on prospects for a return to normalcy shifted dramatically. A few days before the November 3 presidential election, he echoed Biden's gloomy Covid-19 outlook and implied that the Democrat challenger would deal with the crisis more seriously than President Donald Trump. After the election, he turned far more optimistic.

... ... ...

"This is not the first time that Fauci has admitted to deceiving the public for utilitarian purposes in regard to coronavirus," journalist Ari Hoffman tweeted . Another observer agreed, pointing out Fauci's flip-flop on masks. "The fact that people still listen to these experts is the most worrying thing," he said.

Setting expectations for getting economic activity back to normal is virtually impossible without realistic projections for the vaccination rate that would provide herd immunity. Dr. Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific adviser for the Trump administration's vaccine rollout, said in late November that "true herd immunity" would take place without about 70 percent of Americans being inoculated, which might be achieved by sometime in May 2021.

Fauci's admitted Covid-19 deception is symptomatic of how government officials "infantilize the American people," one commenter said . "We're going to be in trouble when we don't have Trump to blame everything on and people have to find a way to cope."


Marek Weglinski 22 hours ago 24 Dec, 2020 09:09 PM

Dr. FRAUDCI is the face of chaotic, contradictory and completely bungled approach to this pandemic, in the country which infamously claims the top spot of the number of the dead and infected. Not any hero (what did he contribute beside the lies and misinformation?), and definitely nothing to celebrate. His leadership and that of most other decision makers', thoroughly failed the American people, during this challenging time. The real heroes are the UNKNOWN, -those who put their lives on line to save others (mostly medical personnel).
It's me 23 hours ago 24 Dec, 2020 08:32 PM
And the next day, Dr Fraudci did a video: Had a good nights sleep, but the arm was a bit sore (grabbing his RIGHT arm) but it's not that bad. Really, you can't remember which arm you got Jabbed after 1 day. Normally you can't move the arm that gets jabbed with a needle without a lot of pain.
ClairvoyantHW It's me 4 hours ago 25 Dec, 2020 03:39 PM
I don't unterstand why they can't use a real placebo in the studies when Fauci just recieved one..
Arian1 It's me 18 hours ago 25 Dec, 2020 01:47 AM
It was a sugary solution. He is a demente

[Dec 27, 2020] Kary Mullis Nobel Prize Inventor of Abused PCR(not a test) Slams Antony Fauci

Fauci did not mind to go on TV and lie.
Fauci is presented as trustworthy, intelligent and a hero, all because of his status as part of the Authority: The WHO, Bill Gates, Economic Forum & Fauci
Dec 27, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Healthy Jean
751 subscribers SUBSCRIBE If you want to find out more about the #casedemic https://healthyjean.com/corona/ . Sorry, but I do not have more context about this video. I will tell you that Kary hated Fauci because Fauci is one of the main people behind the AIDS scam. Read here straight from Kary's website https://www.karymullis.com/pdf/On_AID... On AIDS Regarding AIDS I have published a hypothesis wherein the Retroviridae in general, rather than a particular species, is the problem. This was published in Genetica 95:195- 197, 1995. It offers a mechanism for how the disease develops, and importantly makes predictions that can be experimentally confirmed or falsified easily in rodents. This hypothesis may or may not be true but it illustrates the nature of a useful scientific hypothesis. This is in contrast to the current AIDS establishment's "It's the virus, stupid!" No experiments were ever done or even suggested to test the HIV hypothesis. The fact that antiretroviral therapies may prolong the lives of some people infected with retroviruses says nothing more than the fact, that. in other cases they are not at all useful. Something is going on here that we don't understand. Scientists have to keep that in mind. If you want to see another great video on this topic of Kary then go https://youtu.be/zYYmpT2y7Io . It talks about how the PCR is not really a test. He clearly states the PCR is not being misused. What Fauci and the others are doing is amplifying the tests beyond what should be done. The issue is they use these results as is they are meaningful is the problem. He also states that the measurement is not exact. He is clearly talking about how the results are being used to say someone has AIDS when they clearly do not. Again, the interpretations are the issue. The PCR not meant to diagnose, period.


thatstheguy07
, 2 weeks ago

Excellent. Thanks for the video. I'd just like to throw this reminder out there re: the title of the video. PCR is not a test.

Carolyn Gutman Dey , 2 weeks ago

Here is a link to a larger excerpt of this interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IifgAvXU3ts However, this isn't the entire interview. I will try to find the entire interview.... everyone start searching. In any case, I think THIS part of it might not be in the link I just posted (I haven't checked yet). Because a few months ago I watched this video and I don't remember him going after Fauci this hard. But I will rewatch it to see. We need to find the original video interview as a whole, that would be best.

[Dec 27, 2020] New Study Suggests Asymptomatic COVID Patients Aren't -Driver Of Transmission

Are not so called asymptomatic cases mostly a side effect of excessive amplifications in PcR tests? So they are healthy people who were "false positives" in PcR test. If this is true they present no danger.
Dec 25, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Thanks in part to a massive investment in research by the British government, a lot of interesting data has come out of the UK, including a study which supposedly found evidence that immunity to COVID 'degrades' in the months after infection . Now, other studies have come to seemingly contradictory conclusions . It's just another reminder how fraught and complicated the process of study and research can be during an unprecedented pandemic.

It should also be a reminder, particularly as all the world's top COVID-vaccine manufacturers reassure the public that their vaccines will work against the more infectious mutated strains allegedly discovered in the UK and South Africa, among other places, that the leading scientific and public health authorities aren't always 100% certain when it comes to - as they like to call it - "the science".

And in yet another reminder of this principle, the American Medical Association's JAMA Network Open journal has published new research from a government-backed study that appears to offer new evidence that asymptomatic spread of COVID-19 may be significantly lower than previously thought.

Some members of the public might remember all the way back in February and January when public officials first speculated that mass mask-wearing might not be that helpful unless individuals were actually sick. They famously back-tracked on that, and - for that, and other reasons - decided that we should all wear masks, and that lockdowns were more or less the best solution to the problem, even as millions of Americans continued to flout the new "rules" daily.

But for those who don't, this paper makes one thing clear: For all the talk in the press about asymptomatic people being infectious, which included a heavy-handed rebuke of a WHO scientist who nonchalantly said a few months back that asymptomatic people don't spread the virus as effectively, there haven't been many large-sample-size longer-term studies that study how "asymptomatic" patients actually spread the virus vs. how "symptomatic" patients do, since most public health agencies don't even collect data on whether people who test positive are asymptomatic, pre-symptomatic, or symptomatic (a specification which, as most people probably know by now, can vary widely).

Since the pandemic has only been ongoing for less than a year now, researchers have instead tried conducting "meta studies" - that is, comparing data collected in dozens of studies examining some aspect of the virus's functionality. In the paper noted above which examined 54 separate studies with nearly 78K total participants, the authors claim that "The lack of substantial transmission from observed asymptomatic index cases is notable...These findings are consistent with other household studies reporting asymptomatic index cases as having limited role in household transmission."

This is of course not the first time we have heard this. Aside from the WHO scientist example cited above, two British scientists recently published an editorial in the BMJ imploring scientists to rethink how the virus spreads "asymptomatically".

They pointed to "the absence of strong evidence that asymptomatic people are a driver of transmission" as a reason to question such practices as "mass testing in schools, universities, and communities."

That's not to say that asymptomatic people can't spread the virus, it's just to say that maybe there is a significant difference in risk levels in terms of exposure . Of course, public health officials at this point seem to be afraid to acknowledge anything that questions the notion that everybody is potentially a threat. To be clear, the WHO's current guidance on the issue is that "while someone who never develops symptoms can also pass the virus to others, it is still not clear to what extent this occurs, and more research is needed in this area" - but at this point, they have changed their guidance and flip-flopped so many times, who even knows, understands or cares what they say?

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Anyway, it's just some more food for thought next time somebody tries to lecture you about "the science".


adr 1 hour ago (Edited) remove link

Asymptomatic people can not spread a viral infection.

This was considered fact until 2020.

valjoux7750 1 hour ago

Friend of mine passed away from non covid illness and the hospital offered to pay all his medical bills if allowed to record as covid. His wife accepted.

Robespierre2020 23 minutes ago

They will never, ever admit that asymptomatic actually means false positive. They must keep the case count up at all costs to keep stoking the fear.

Itchy and Scratchy 1 hour ago

The Big Lie is mutating quickly! Hide the women & children!

Newstarmistagain 1 hour ago

Anybody else get the feeling that this coronavirus nonsense is really nothing more than a huge Pavlovian experiment being conducted on the entire population? You do realize that Pavlov's dogs ended up catatonic, and in a state of perpetual fear, eh goiyim cattle?

PanGlossius 1 hour ago

Right on. This smells like the brute simplicity of Skinner or Pavlov programming. Crude, careless, short time horizon. Like the practitioners are just running out the clock.

namrider 1 hour ago remove link

Conflicting reports and information because it = PSYOP

MrBoompi 33 minutes ago

What is a "covid patient"? Someone who tested positive? The pcr test doesn't detect live viruses. Why would someone who is not sick, aka asymptomatic, be considered a patient?

This is the fraud we are enduring.

jomama 46 minutes ago

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w

Out of ~10,000,000 people observed, not a single case of asymptomatic transmission.

This lie has the been premise for healthy people to wear masks.

Reject the authoritarianism immediately.

[Dec 21, 2020] Do Mask Mandates Work - New Analysis Suggests They Don't

Dec 21, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Do mask mandates work? As we've noted repeatedly in recent months, evidence is piling up that they do not .

According to analysis by data expert Justin Hart, who has been following COVID-19 data for months , demonstrated in a Sunday Twitter thread that states with mask mandates had a greater number of COVID cases per 100,000 people than states without mandates .

See thread below:

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1340725090514653184&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fcovid-19%2Fdo-mask-mandates-work-new-analysis-suggests-they-dont&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1340725100849446914&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fcovid-19%2Fdo-mask-mandates-work-new-analysis-suggests-they-dont&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-2&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1340725104049676288&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fcovid-19%2Fdo-mask-mandates-work-new-analysis-suggests-they-dont&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-3&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1340728585351360518&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fcovid-19%2Fdo-mask-mandates-work-new-analysis-suggests-they-dont&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

And while there were some objections to Hart's analysis - such as whether there might be bias towards getting tested for mask-wearers, or regional differences in population density, many of the replies to Hart's thread support his findings:

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-4&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=true&id=1340944642150428672&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fcovid-19%2Fdo-mask-mandates-work-new-analysis-suggests-they-dont&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

about:blank

about:blank

me title=

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-5&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=true&id=1340740153535565827&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fcovid-19%2Fdo-mask-mandates-work-new-analysis-suggests-they-dont&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

And a hypothesis:

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-6&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1338688012914470912&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fcovid-19%2Fdo-mask-mandates-work-new-analysis-suggests-they-dont&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

Maybe the CDC, WHO, Dr. Fauci and the Surgeon General were right in February when they said masks don't work? On the other hand, they're so useful for other things...


[Dec 21, 2020] Covid19 and masks

Dec 21, 2020 | twitter.com

Kevin McKernan @Kevin_McKernan Dec 14

It's an intuitive hypothesis Since the mask doesn't kill virus, it just collects them reversing your natural defenses of expelling virus with large droplets that hit earth. The mask accelerates evaporation through capillary action making smaller droplets 2 allow deep inhalation.
Kevin McKernan @Kevin_McKernan Dec 14
In effect, the masks are a viral trampoline making the virus exponentially more infective and reaching deeper into more thrombotic tissue. Some evidence Kanas jumped on this trampoline in the summer.
Zacharias Fögen @ZachariasFoegen · Dec 14 You can translate the german intro with google if you want. The study is written in English. https:// reitschuster.de/post/studie-er hoehen-die-masken-die-sterblichkeit/
DeFauw @jdefauw Dec 14
Replying to
@Kevin_McKernan Dec 14
@Kevin_McKernan At best, we can say for aerosolized virus that mask does nothing. At worst, worse after mask saturation. For non-aerosolized virus, it would actually do some good. On the other hand, airborne transmission of this type is minimal. Handwashing, good hygiene take care of the rest.
Eric @emckinney9134 Dec 14
Replying to
@Kevin_McKernan Dec 14
@Kevin_McKernan Interesting paper. It's somewhat difficult to disambiguate increased CFR from the Foegen effect or another confounding variable (e.g., poor aseptic technique). The mathematical comparison does a good job normalizing the two groups. Plotting as a function of time may be of use.

[Dec 19, 2020] But, But, Masks!

Dec 17, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Much heralded COVID-19 model-student South Korea saw new infections with the virus rise again to more than 1,000 cases per day, dramatically higher than during the first wave in February and March.

Here's CNN : "In Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, South Korea, Japan and other Asian nations, mask wearing is uncontroversial, near universal, and has been proven effective ..."

Here's Forbes : " What South Korea teaches us is that ... mass production and distribution of face masks and the promotion of their use, are winning strategies in this battle. "

Here's NYTimes : "The country showed that it is possible to contain the coronavirus without shutting down the economy... Television broadcasts, subway station announcements and smartphone alerts provide endless reminders to wear face masks ..."

The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has hailed South Korea as demonstrating that containing the virus, while difficult, "can be done." He urged countries to "apply the lessons learned in Korea and elsewhere."

As Statista's Willem Roper notes , the country has been praised extensively for reducing cases of COVID-19 , but a continuously climbing case count shows how the threat of new outbreaks looms even after flattening the curve (twice before).

After a second outbreak in August and September was squashed, South Korea had already tightened restrictions again.

The highest number of daily new cases in the initial wave was recorded at 813 on Feb 29.

https://610bc4ea67a8d8ec5db4f06859c42979.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html

You will find more infographics at Statista

Still, these cases being recorded now are only a sliver of those detected daily in the U.S. and Europe. There, daily new case counts of COVID-19 are still in the tens of thousands... so keep wearing your masks!!!

🔥 🔥 🔥!!!!

This is insane! Every country that introduced mandatory masks had their case numbers explode after!! Mask don't work!

Retweet!!!! pic.twitter.com/3VssX0WK4V

-- The Epigenetic Whisperer 👉The Bodhisattva Bastard (@epigwhisp) December 16, 2020

ebworthen 14 hours ago (Edited)

Because masks don't do a beaver dam thing.

Never have, never will. Especially not "surgical" masks, or cloth rags.

Symbolic only. Symbolic for oppression of the individual and the freedom of choice.

skizex 14 hours ago

and makes beaver eatin difficult if not downright unpleasant.

afronaut 13 hours ago

Thats submissive and unhygienic

Billy the Poet 13 hours ago (Edited)

Has it gotten cold enough yet for masks to start freezing to the faces of folks out in the wind waiting for a bus?

xious 11 hours ago

In the summer, I almost drowned in one. Then I quit my job the next day. Haven't worn a mask from that day, and never will again.

hawkinsse6543 7 hours ago (Edited)

Point three percent according to a Danish Study
.3% effective
I heard zinc impregnated masks work so it will increase effectiveness to what? I'm Too lazy to do the math

Sunshine, D3, Tonic Water, C, wash hands (only thing proposed I agree with) moderate preventives not a cure. But the virus goes where it goes and lets promote stopping smoke with a chicken wire fence.

artless 2 hours ago

99.8% survival rate or as we say in there real world...

a cold virus. A flu.

all BS from day one.

exactly correct about sunshine, D3 ( also known as sunshine) and if really concerned a zinc supplement as prophylaxis along with all the Vit C you want. Same as every winter as all my 51 years. Currently on a 36-38 years streak of NEVER having a flu and I have worked in every possible situation in which I should have gotten sick. Never have. never will.

Arising 2.0 13 hours ago

Masks are the elites pointing and saying 'look there' with the their right hand while stealing wealth, your freedoms and your capacity to fight back with their left hand.

dude675 13 hours ago

Wag the dog

metaforge 10 hours ago

Choke the Chinkkkkk

KirkPatrickN 8 hours ago

We're all prisoners of China, forced into solitary confinement with matching outfits.

trailer park boys 13 hours ago

If masks worked, that box of masks you bought at the drug store or online would say so. They don't. In fact, just the opposite, disclaiming any protection against any virus, including covid.

JuliaS 13 hours ago (Edited)

Masks and lockdowns worked. They weakened immunity to the point where a common cold now puts a person in a coma.

Slaytheist 13 hours ago

Fvcking NPC yelling at people to put a scrap of cotton on their face to contain a virus, because the science is settled. Maybe eugenics isn't a 100% bad thing.

afronaut 13 hours ago

I loved the eugenics program.

skizex 12 hours ago

Their's is Psyience not Science.

here's some good info this damn maskuerade

Public Health articles by Colleen Huber, NMD

Censorship vs the science regarding masks, 10/29/2020

(Co-authored) Masks: False safety and real dangers,

Part 2 : Masks and microbial challenges, 10/14/2020

(Co-authored) Masks: False safety and real dangers,

Part 1 : Loose fibers and particulate, 9/23/2020

COVID-19 is a lack of nutrients, exploited by a virus 8/27/2020

Masks are neither effective nor safe, 7/6/2020 <meta study

Free states maintain survival advantage, 6/29/2020

Lockdowns failed to reduce deaths in US, 6/12/2020

metaforge 10 hours ago

Free lead for NPCs! That's a government program I could get behind.

freedommusic 10 hours ago

Masks can't stop a psyop.

They can only measure it's effectiveness.

Fireman 8 hours ago

Best comment today!

chemist46 7 hours ago

How can they possibly work?

They are NOT designed to stop particles as small as a virus.

Surgical masks were not designed as filters and were not intended to be used as filters. Surgical masks were designed to be used by surgeons standing face down over an operating table holding a patient with an open wound. The surgeon wearing the mask would be able to talk to others in the room without discharging spittle droplets into the patient's wound. Spittle droplets are large and can cause infection.

I witnessed a test of surgical masks. Small plaster particles were generated in a room. They were visible as a white dust in the air. A man was properly fitted with a surgical mask and spent a short time in the room. When he came out the mask was removed. A camera was focused on the man's face. The entire area that had been covered by the mask was coated by the white dust. The camera showed that his nostrils and his mouth had been penetrated by the white dust. The dust particles were measured and found to be around 40 micrometers in diameter. The particles that penetrated the mask were the same diameter.

Covid-19 virus molecules are about 0.1 micrometers in diameter. That is 400 times smaller than the plaster particles that penetrated the mask.

Surgical masks will not prevent the wearer from inhaling or exhaling viruses or bacteria. They provide absolutely no protection for either the wearer or anyone nearby. They create a very dangerous false sense of security for everyone. They also force the wearer to rebreath carbon dioxide. Which will over time reduce the wearers blood oxygen level. That can become very dangerous especially for older people.

This farce is being promoted by sleazy politicians who believe that if they can convince people that they are protecting them or creating a safe environment for them by pushing this mask farce those people will re-elect them.

All politicians pushing this dangerous mask farce should be voted out of office as soon as possible.

Grand Solar Minimum 4 hours ago

Minor correction.

All politicians pushing this dangerous mask farce should be jailed soon as possible.

That's better.

Nature_Boy_Wooooo 13 hours ago

They rushed mask science out faster than the vaccine.

Worse...they debunked actual science done on N95 masks 4 years ago that said masks don't work..... without a single scientific experiment.

They should never have lowered the bar for education.

@Amen 13 hours ago

It's not the masks. USA and most western countries forced their citizens to wear them, most of them do, without visible results. Could it be that drinking green tea and taking zinc really helps? (ZH wrote about it months ago). Everyone can get the virus, mask or no mask, but the difference in consequences is quite startling.

In Deaths per million population, the leader is Belgium, with 1,582 / million, USA is in 12th place, with 958 per million.

In South East Asia:

Japan 22 deaths per million,

Hong Kong 16

South Korea 13

Singapore 5

Vietnam 0.4

Taiwan 0.3

(Data from www.worldometers.info as of today).

Boosting one's immune system from cheap and easy-accessible sources would not make the elite and big corporations rich, nor make the would be dictators in governments and regulatory agencies so powerful, second to God.

So, we keep dying, destroying our economy, and voting for the mass murderers again and again.

Happy 2021!

FightClubPanties 13 hours ago

Whadda bout ChyNa?

@Amen 12 hours ago (Edited)

China has 3 deaths per million, you make the judgement about the accuracy of their reporting. Nevertheless, they drink mostly green tea and eat stuff rich in zinc. And they have undestricted partying for months now, even in Wuhan.

Link to the past ZH article from last august is

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2020-08-05/hydroxychloroquine-and-coronavirus

and, so far, it works for me here in Canada. Costco supplies green tea (from Japan) and Walmart zinc tablets, about 6 bucks for three months worth of prevention. And I don't plan to take the vaccine, even if its free here.

halcyon 10 hours ago

IMASK+ PROPHYLAXIS PROTOCOL

https://covid19criticalcare.com/i-mask-prophylaxis-treatment-protocol/

Table 6. I-MASK+ Prophylaxis & Early Outpatient Treatment Protocol for COVID-19
PROPHYLAXIS PROTOCOL MEDICATION
lvermectin RECOMMENDED DOSING
Vitamin D3 Vitamin C Quercetin Zinc Melatonin

Works!

Snaffew16 10 hours ago

It's quite obvious that people should be exposing themselves to this predominantly non lethal virus as much as possible. Herd immunity has likely already been achieved here in the US and globally, but there is so much money to be made on these untested, genome altering vaccines that they will not stop the propaganda. The incredible surge in power and control over the populations has also enabled them to up their game in regards to ripping every freedom imaginable from the populace and stepping the bullsh*it up to hyperdrive---

If you have already tested positive, then there is absolutely zero reason to get a vaccine. if you had just recovered from the flu, do you run out and get a flu vaccine? Nope...there is no reason to.

KirkPatrickN 7 hours ago

Even if masks worked for more than the first few minutes, that would mean we'd become dependent on them.

afronaut 13 hours ago

Fvk I've had enough of this ****.

Cobra Commander 12 hours ago

"This tweet is from a suspended account. "

Thanks for nothing, Twitter. I just wanted to see the graph comparing mask wear with positive cases.

Oh, is that too dangerous for me to see?

Cobra!

metaforge 10 hours ago

Wow when even Cobra Commander calls someone evil? They MUST be evil.

Cobra!

louie1 PREMIUM 12 hours ago

If you are at risk then take precautions. Everyone else- get on with life and tell the government to go **** themselves.

Corn Popp 12 hours ago (Edited)

The corporations wont do that. and people have to work. There are not enough jobs outside those businesses. and those businesses are forcing employees to wear face diapers or get fired. It has to be a top down movement against the progenitors and they must be held accountable, otherwise none of the states and business will follow thru to restore individual rights

metaforge 10 hours ago

Only good comment I've seen from a premium tagged Kappo yet.

Tigbits 13 hours ago

Amazing that after nine months they still want to keep beating the mask drum. Exhausting.

Corn Popp 13 hours ago (Edited)

I'm sure you are aware by now that all it ever was is a clear sign of your submission to them. As well as a training tool to get you to accept whatever they push on you...ie..mandatory vaxxing for sterilization, control and culling.....the next step. Well, and to have a good laugh and masturbate to misery and suffering. It's what gets them off

KirkPatrickN 8 hours ago

Read the ZH article on the nurse collapsing and sort by Worst comments.

These people pushing vaccines will literally giggle as you drop dead.

Alan Cruiser 11 hours ago

The conclusion is wrong, if cases are still climbing so much, then apparently the masks don't work because everybody is already wearing them. I am getting so tired of the nonsense.

Taffer 12 hours ago

Liberal God Fauci in April: "Masks don't work! Only healthcare workers need to wear them or even should be wearing them."

Liberal Keebler elf Fauci in May: "Masks work! Everyone should be wearing a mask!"

Seriously, you can't make lies on this level up. The man says this on national tv, calls himself an expert, and the useful idiots lap it up like CNN propaganda.

halcyon 11 hours ago

Fauci co-authored a paper in 2008 that showed that napkin wearing increased prevalence of bacterial pneumonia.

Maybe he just forgot about it...

Patmos 13 hours ago

Psychological warfare techniques from The Cold War to The War on Terror, compared to COVID restrictions:

https://twitter.com/mediamonarchy/status/1327119271047159812

But ignore that, because this is all about safety. [/sarcasm]

FightClubPanties 13 hours ago

go look at the compliance rates for Covid-Burqas. The US is among the very highest compliance.

Oh-Globits 14 hours ago

Wear a face diaper...it's patriotic!

afronaut 13 hours ago

It looks like underwear to me. I'd be too embarrassed to put one on in public. Its dirty and looks retarded

KirkPatrickN 8 hours ago (Edited)

I've never worn one. My (no) mask is to protect YOU (from tyranny).

Mrgior31513 14 hours ago

Masks are simply worse for a blatantly obvious reason: they provide false confidence and therefor breed irresponsible behavior from the perceived sense of safety.

FightClubPanties 14 hours ago

Reusing any mask defeats the claimed purpose. And everybody is wearing filthy pieces of cloth; stuffing in their purses, pants, fingering them on and off.

KirkPatrickN 8 hours ago

Some people hang them on their rear view mirror and I saw one with several shades of lipstick on the inside.

I'd like to see a bacterial analysis of these masks people are wearing, and see them under a black light.

Tom Angle 5 hours ago (Edited)

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article

"We did not find evidence that surgical-type face masks are effective in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza transmission, either when worn by infected persons (source control) or by persons in the general community to reduce their susceptibility ( Figure 2 ). However, as with hand hygiene, face masks might be able to reduce the transmission of other infections and therefore have value in an influenza pandemic when healthcare resources are stretched."

It was known from the beginning. Are you tired of the lies and tyrrany yet? Stand up like men and stop it.

Pater-Mater 7 hours ago

A 2008 study in Turkey showed a significant reduction in oxygen intake or rather carbon monoxide respiration. This directly lowers the immune system making infection much more likely. Do circumvent this oxygen is pumped into operating rooms..

Secondly, in medical practice the mask is changed every twenty minutes and not touched at all. This is now followed.

Lastly, the virus has mutated to a benign form, it is highly likely that everyone has it, thusly the likelihood of any further great event or health crisis is next to none. Aannd, RLF-100 trial will be over soon, it's already proven effective, it's cheap, there are no long term consequences, it will cure nearly all intensive care situations.. the propaganda is obvious.

Cincinnatuus 9 hours ago

The number of cases of the China Flu is inversely proportional with the number of hours of sunlight.

Supplement your Vitamin D (5,000 IU), and when you get it, you won't even know you had it!

KirkPatrickN 7 hours ago

Exactly. Cold symptoms ARE Vitamin D deficiency. Covid victims have proven to be deficient. Staying inside and wearing masks outside only hurt matters (you shameless, shivering RETARDS).

What's the best natural source of, or supplement for Vitamin D?

Obake158 11 hours ago

So I can see the plan from the Globohomos already. They are going to lower the PCR test thresholds from 45 to 20 and claim that the vaccine has substantially lessened the severity and prevalence of Democrat Meme Flu. The cat is out of the bag now regarding the fake testing regimen and people are waking up to the PCR testing amplification thresholds being set way too high thus a massive wave of false positives. My state tests at 45 cycles. Anything over around 20 renders the test useless with so much background noise as to almost ensure everyone testing will be positive for viral RNA. So here is the next leg of their plan, mass inoculate the fearful NPCs and then claim success while quietly manipulating the testing regimen.

metaforge 10 hours ago

My state's "cases" were already dropping fast from the "winter peak" even before the BS vaccine. So that won't fly here, even if they try it.

Dash8 6 hours ago

Masks are for virtue signalling libtards.

The end.

KirkPatrickN 4 hours ago (Edited)

Masks never would have become a thing had we not let all the women become obese parasites. For years the grocery store has been depressing as countless women of every race scramble to buy free things with their EBT cards while hating on wh ite men. These creatures willingly covered their faces because they are embarrassed to be seen.

AVmaster 13 hours ago

"The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has hailed South Korea as demonstrating that containing the virus, while difficult, "can be done.""

Umm... we are way past the phase of containment...

... covid 19 is everywhere in the world...

wtf are you really talking about you idiots...

Fizzy Head 14 hours ago

So what happens when the ICU nurses become the patients? Well now we have a problem...

https://www.activistpost.com/2020/12/nurse-collapses-on-television-minutes-after-receiving-covid-vaccine.html

KirkPatrickN 8 hours ago

It's called flu season.

JuliaS 10 hours ago (Edited)

You could've had a functioning economy and a disease. You chose only the disease. Now the healthy won't be able to help the sick, and will see how long the saved grandma will last after her grandkids commit suicide due to depression, or overdose on drugs.

Thanks for saving the world.

KirkPatrickN 7 hours ago

It's the equivalent of a pilot of a loaded jumbo jet announcing "This is the pilot speaking. Due to my fear of catching sniffles I've decided it's just too dangerous to land. Ever."

Lore 12 hours ago

"Case" doesn't mean beans, because the polymerase chain reaction was never intended for use as a "test." You might as well use a black box electronic device to tally votes in a national election. Oh, wait...

Show us the data for deaths sans co-morbidities and fudge, and then we'll talk. In the meantime, it's just another layer of BS.

asteroids 13 hours ago

One way or another, you WILL get the virus. Resistance is futile. Wake me up when "masks" are as effective as birth control.

metaforge 10 hours ago

Not me bitch. I'm superdosing C, D, Zinc, Echinnacea, etc. That fvcking virus ain't jumping this wall!

pods 7 hours ago

Careful on zinc. Too much is not good.

Magnum 13 hours ago

Twitter suspended The Epigenetic Whisperer now that he's pointed this out.

FightClubPanties 14 hours ago

I have no idea if their reporting isn't fraudulent, any more than the Japanese or chinchongs.

writeround 7 hours ago

The increase d number of of cases is irrelevant unless presented as a percentage of the number of tests. More tests/more cases?

Usuage of masks is usless if missused. Daily use of the same mask/turning mask inside out/close proximity in enclosed places/not washing or sanitsing hands are all transmission methods.

Pater-Mater 7 hours ago

So is reduced oxygen intake, increased carbon monoxide intake and a reduced immune system. Why wouldnt infections increase?

kellys_eye 8 hours ago

... because wearing a mask that doesn't work to prevent an illness that doesn't exist (or at worst has a 99.8% recovery rate i. e. better than the flu/influenza) is all our 'exceptional leadership' can come up with?

The problem isn't the virus - the problem is and always has been the MEDIA.

NIRP-BTFD 8 hours ago

No the problem are corrupt politicians that work for the 0.1% instead of the people. The media of course is owned by the 0.1% so they are an issue as well.

Fireman 9 hours ago

Oxygen Deprivation Therapy ....all that can save US now.

Remember oh tax chattel, as Onkel Adolf said "Hypoxia und Hypercapnia macht frei."

Sieg Heil.......same as it ever was.

Onward to your doom, rag mouths coz the satanists need y'all dead.

hypoxia

[hi-pok´se-ah]

diminished availability of oxygen to the body tissues; its causes are many and varied and includes a deficiency of oxygen in the atmosphere, as in altitude sickness ; pulmonary disorders that interfere with adequate ventilation of the lungs; anemia or circulatory deficiencies, leading to inadequate transport and delivery of oxygen to the tissues; and finally, edema or other abnormal conditions of the tissues themselves that impair the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between capillaries and tissues. adj., adj hypox´ic.  

https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/hypoxia

hypercapnia

(hī′pər-kăp′nē-ə)

n.

1. An abnormally high concentration of carbon dioxide in the blood, usually caused by acute respiratory failure from conditions such as asthma and obstructive pulmonary disease. It can lead to seizures and death if acute and untreated.

2. Carbon dioxide poisoning due to abnormally high concentrations of carbon dioxide in an organism's environment.

https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/hypercapnia

Take the poll and see how many globally have figured this Psy Op Satanic pedovore bankster cull for what it is.

https://www.worldvaccinepoll.com/

Nona Yobiznes 12 hours ago

It's very obvious masks don't do **** to stop infection. Anyone who still says they do is willfully blind.

you_do 5 hours ago

Hmmm... When looking at the Korea graph, I get the idea that there might be some seasonal influence?

whatisthat 6 hours ago

This post demonstrates how American taxpayers are fools for believing propaganda from the deviant corrupt WHO....

Meritocrat 7 hours ago

Protect your child from indoctrination and brainwashing.

NIRP-BTFD 8 hours ago

Maybe it has something to do with even mask manufacturers have a disclaimer on their surgical/cloth masks stating "does not protect against viruses".

Ledlak 8 hours ago

"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire

Fireman 8 hours ago (Edited)

Despite the herd of self-harming, virtue-signalling masked mutton that surrounds you there are indeed millions of aware and decent people around the planet that get it. You are not alone, we are 5%, as much of the population as the ruling psychopaths and sociopaths i.e. the disgusting, Satanic pedovores like Schwab, Gates, STASI "Erika" Merkill, Bozo the clown, banksters, presstitutes and almost all political mutts the sheeple call their "leaders" and the rest of the evil Rothschild enablers.

The docile herd can be turned like a weathervane and will be turned again...that is the beauty of the balance built into nature. Evolution has created a mass of ignorant, pliant human livestock with a purpose. 10% of the naked apes can more or less reason and act upon that reasoning for good or bad...the rest will be turned like sheep and always have been. Look at the history of pedovores running the Catholic Church and yet the peasants flock to these evil bastards on a Sunday to "commune" with God....god help us. Ask yourself the question; would you prefer to live in a world with 90 wolves and ten sheep, or a world with 90 sheep and 10 wolves? As for the evil Klaus "Schwab", the geriatric bastard progeny of NAZI Germany... his NAZI spawners also hallucinated about their wondervoll 1000 Year Reich dystopia and if I recall...they and their anglozionazi backers may have slaughtered millions, but in the end we are still pissing on their NAZI graves.

https://www.amazon.com/Best-Enemy-Money-Can-Buy/dp/1939438233

Take the poll and please spread far and wide.

https://www.worldvaccinepoll.com/

Songalini 9 hours ago

I get where you're going with this article.

Ultimately what I think you're saying is that masks are not the be all and end all to ending the covid pandemic.

And with that I wholeheartedly agree.

But where we differ is on the conclusions from this counter-intuitive fact.

Ultimately what masks do is they reduce the transmission of the virus. I say this from the following observation...

It makes sense logically that masks prevents a lot of transmissions of the covid virus because at the end of the day only sick people can infect others. It has been shown on the Japanese broadcaster NHK that the particles thrown out by a sick person coughing when masked up vs. non-masked is exponentially less. Infra-red cameras show that masks block a lot of particles and thus even if a person is sick, their likelihood of infecting others through spraying particles everywhere around them, is greatly reduced.

And it makes logical sense without overthinking it (a good example of Occam's razor) - if you have some fabric that blocks your coughs, isn't it logical to presume that pretty much all the spit and phlegm that usually accompanis a cough would be blocked by that same fabric? (I mean why else do tissues get wet when u sneeze or cough in them?)

So the effectiveness of masks is in that they prevent a lot of dangerous situations from turning into a transmission event. Its a preventative measure, people! That's the fundamental thing you need to understand!!!!!

Is it gonna prevent every ******* roll of dice from turning into a transmission event? Of course not.

There'll be instances where due to present circumstances a potential infection turns into an actual infection. That is not something we can avoid. Something will always get through the gates - how many times has a seemingly impregnable defence been breached throughout history? I can name the Maginot Line and the Multiple Walls of Constantinople.

The point we all have to understand is that there is no silver bullet to this piece of **** virus. We can't keep arguing about the fundamental fact that masks help prevent transmissions. It prevents but does not eliminate - elimination is impossible. This ****** will eventually, always get through the most carefully laid traps.

We just need to learn that effective prevention means that half the war has already been won.

on't tell me you actually think

deadcat2 8 hours ago

A truly stupid comment. What you should be asking is, When is a case, positive test or an infection an actual illness. Who is supervising the labs which do the tests? Who decides on what the size of the 'amplification should be? Karry Mullis, the world famous scientists and Nobel prize winner who actually invented and designed the PCR test said, amplifications above 30 are useless. Currently, all countries are amplifying above 45 and some even as far as 50. Lets put it this way: if there were no tests there would be no virus numbers. The only numbers that would matter would be hospital admissions. Did you know, that here in the UK a hospital admission is counted even if the patient is discharged the same day !!

The evidence shows that hospital admissions are the same this year (for the UK and the US at least) as they have been on average for the last ten years.

KirkPatrickN 8 hours ago (Edited)

Science is not based on your personal observation of what your female brain considers logical.

It's about a double blind, placebo controlled study to PROVE something.

There is no silver bullet for these piece of **** people pushing lockdowns, masks and vaccines over sniffles based on their innermost feelings.

KirkPatrickN 8 hours ago

Look at the side view of people in masks. There is a direct path to their mouth. Their breath is now pushed sideways (see physics) and probably goes even further (just like whistling is louder than breathing).

Galieo 7 hours ago

+5

Masks help a lot, distance is even better.

Pater-Mater 7 hours ago

You are looking at a single element justifying everything. If people can't be helped to not sneeze on someone it's a bigger issue... Then why aren't only sick people wearing them? What about oxygen deprivations? Increase risk and cases of bacterial infection?(from masks) carcinogens of surgical masks??

Masks are not a solution, there is no science to back this, only the opposite.

MCDirtMigger 6 hours ago

From the CDC website:

In our systematic review, we identified 10 RCTs that reported estimates of the effectiveness of face masks in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infections in the community from literature published during 1946–July 27, 2018. In pooled analysis, we found no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks (RR 0.78, 95% CI 0.51–1.20; I2 = 30%, p = 0.25)

If you live somewhere cold, put your mask on, go outside and exhale a big breath of air, come back and tell us what you see. Don't be an idiot.

pictur3plane 13 hours ago

The facts haven't changed: unless you are wearing a properly fitted N95 respirator your mask is doing little to protect you or other people. While it is better than no mask as there is the chance it will somewhat reduce to viral inoculum and possibly the severity of infection, it gives people a false sense of security. The media/celebrity mantra of "JUST WEAR THE MASK" gives the impression that is all you have to do to protect yourself. Also, most people are so incredibly stupid. Have you seen people try and drive a car correctly? And you think these people are well versed in how invisible disease is spread? I can't tell you how many times I see people take their mask off unless someone comes in the office. They don't get it. They are morons. It is kind of a miracle only 300,000 people a day are getting infected in this country.

adr 13 hours ago

N95 respirators are not designed for and can not filter virus. Anyone saying so is lying. The literature packed with every real N95 mask even says in the warning that they are designed to filter specific particles and will not protect from biological agents.

The manufacturers aren't going to open themselves to billions in liability lawsuits for making a claim that can not be backed up with evidence and an actual standard.

No mask outside a full on respirator with disposable filters will help you. If you are infected, they are worthless because they only filter incoming air, not exhaled. So you will be contaminating anything you breath on.

Cloth masks will not reduce the severity of an infection, they will make it worse. You will increase the load of any respiratory pathogen as you breath it into the cloth and breathe it back in.

Studies done on surgical masks found that they had no effect on preventing bacterial infections of surgical wounds. The only purpose of a surgical mask is to prevent expelled fluids from open body cavities from entering a surgeon's nose and mouth.

Sorry to break the bad news.

pictur3plane 12 hours ago

There is no such thing as free floating virus particles. They are attached to respiratory droplets which are large enough to be filtered by N95 masks.

The idea that you would somehow increase your viral load by wearing a mask and re-breathing particles back into your lungs is whatever the opposite of known science is.

KirkPatrickN 8 hours ago

While you are at it, why not drink your own urine to help stop the droplets from spreading. And wear a diaper instead of using the rest room. My Depends are to protect YOU.

KirkPatrickN 8 hours ago

N95 masks have a release valve. They don't help others.

pictur3plane 6 hours ago

It really is quite a spectacle to watch complete morons who don't know what they're talking about strut around like hillbilly peacocks in the ZH comment section.

KirkPatrickN 4 hours ago

Dear angry, pudgy woman: please explain how N95 masks (specially designed with a VALVE on the front) "protect others". What study proves they do?

Meanwhile, Surgical masks only work for 15 minutes in a STERILE environment. Hint: your hand and Walmart are not sterile. What study proves masks do any good whatsoever? We know filthy spit wads do lots of harm by cutting off children, oxygen and humanity.

KirkPatrickN 4 hours ago

I've had a box of 3M N95 masks since 2014 (back when they had an Asian guy on the box - how you say Kung Fru?). Never wore one because it says right on the side of the box "DOES NOT PREVENT COVID OR FLU".

pictur3plane 3 hours ago

A box of masks for 2014 says "DOES NOT PREVENT COVID", huh?

Go back to your NASCAR videos.

KirkPatrickN 4 hours ago

Describe how any study could possibly prove that "masks help others". Fat girls made that up after donning them willingly to cover their fugly faces. Then they wanted the pretty girls to do the same thing. Now: equality!

FightClubPanties 14 hours ago

A couple of thousand cases among 30 plus million. give me a break. And we don't even know what their cycle threshold is if using the PCR test.

Delusion Spotter 3 hours ago (Edited)

Not Wearing Masks = today's Freedom Fries!

Think the more important issue is Lockdowns, which destroy businesses, livelihoods, and the Economy.

Definately need legislation that would impose prison on any politician that proposes Lockdowns for any reason in the future (Is immediate public Burning at a Stake after due process / legal trial too extreme??)).

NumbNuts 10 hours ago

Masks don't beat phony test results.

trada101 11 hours ago (Edited)

Why do people have such short memories??? There is nothing surprising about the winter surge. How many dumbasses are out there? People have been warning about the winter surge since the summer.

Since you idiots don't seem to understand why, it's precisely BECAUSE

1. People spend more time with each other indoors during colder months leading to increases viral load.

2. People also spend more time indoors for get togethers with friends ad family and not wear masks.

metaforge 11 hours ago

#1 right

#2 half right

and not wear masks

You apparently missed the whole point of this article: masks don't work .

Cincinnatuus 9 hours ago

3. People don't get enough vitamin D in the winter. Supplementing with 5K UI of D will fend off any virus...

KirkPatrickN 8 hours ago

Cold symptoms ARE Vitamin D deficiency symptoms. There is no vaccine for a vitamin deficiency. We still have to eat a healthy diet.

Solio 11 hours ago

Relying on the bs that we have been fed for 75 years makes the garden fertile for total idiocy.

Amel 14 hours ago (Edited)

My experience is transmission is primarily occurring in high traffic indoor spaces.

I wore a 3M industrial grade respirator inside a bulk food store last week stocking up for the apocalypse and within hours my eyes were feeling infected, again. Being my second exposure to covid, I know how my symptoms manifest. It did not get into my lungs because I used a respirator, not a mask. I treated myself with a sinus rinse 10 drops betadine (Iodine) per 1 cup water as per my ENT's direction for ANY sinus infection that night. The next 24 hours were pretty rough but after that I was fine,

If you have to line up to get inside a building in a dense urban area, use a respirator and goggles inside. Masks are a joke, respirators work. Ebay has lots of respirators for sale, they are hard to find locally.

FightClubPanties 13 hours ago

And those respirators, i.e. N95 cannot be reused.

adr 13 hours ago

Sure buddy. You might want to pull Fauchi's rod out of your mouth.

If the virus was floating in the air, everyone on Earth would have been infected 100 times over by June.

Stranded Observer 13 hours ago

Great story. You are a lucky man to have cheated death like that. It must have been terrifying

KirkPatrickN 8 hours ago

You're "stocking up for the apocalypse" that people like YOU created by trembling in fear for 10 months and counting over sniffles?

"It did not get into my lungs because I used a respirator, not a mask. "

Are you sure it's not because you weren't wearing panties that day, because of your GRINDR date?

skizex 14 hours ago (Edited)

NMD Colleen Huber study of studies:

https://www.primarydoctor.org/masks-not-effect ive or safe

-OMG - DeBlasio clip on FOX (sound off because of those gdamned "you can catch covid ...here'" PSAs))

urging faith leaders to push the vax! 'Spread the word!" J.C.!

Overpowered By Funk 14 hours ago

Why don't we just do what the Chinese did? It seems to have worked. Whatever it was they did.

Crush the cube 14 hours ago

Pointed an accusatory finger at the weapon wielder and threatened to expose.

Mrgior31513 14 hours ago

Make tests read negative most likely.

JuliaS 13 hours ago

Chinese men in biosuits sprayed mystery syrup everywhere and then they were confident the virus was gone. Safe to assume that if the lab worked on the virus, they also knew what the antidote was.

waterwell 1 hour ago

Why is it that the entire continent of Africa appears to have been able to avoid the high rates of cases and deaths caused by the Covid-19 virus.

Totin 3 hours ago

Why is it that with all the Brown Shirt enforcement in Kalifornia that they are suffering the worst?

somedude 3 hours ago (Edited)

Maybe the Chinese put something in those made in China masks.

Americans buying masks from the Chinese is like **** buying masks from the Nazi.

RIGHTPOWER 3 hours ago

as long as housing prices keep crashing all is well

thimbus_xyz 4 hours ago (Edited)

So let me make sure I understand this correctly.....

South Korea, a country with over 5x the population density of the US , has 1,100 new cases per day (or .002% of population ).

The US has 280,000 new cases (or .085% of population ), that's 43x the rate of South Koriea

And the conclusion of this idiot is masks don't work.....hmm interesting. I see the republican strategy of dumbing down our education is getting the desired results.

Still, these cases being recorded now are only a sliver of those detected daily in the U.S. and Europe. There, daily new case counts of COVID-19 are still in the tens of thousands... so keep wearing your masks!!!

🔥 🔥 🔥!!!!

Uh no, in the US we count new cases in the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS.

USA USA USA BITCHES.

SweetDoug 3 hours ago

'

'

You just watch the spread/infection rate increase. Learn a bit aboutr infection spreads. Think oil on water and the increasing size of the diameter/area.

Give it a few months...

Everyone is gonna get this, sooner or later schmuck.

You stay in your basement.

OJO
V-V

thimbus_xyz 3 hours ago

That's a lot of words to say nothing.

What exactly did I get incorrect? That would be nothing. Facts is tough that way. LOL.

Goldbugger 4 hours ago

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/12/17/pandemic-wealth-inequality.aspx?ui=19ac65ba714eca3fb361a42233b18ddba12e5c42f1ee5279b189266b75264633&cid_source=dnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1HL&cid=20201217&mid=DM749867&rid=1036683911

" The disproportionately higher rates of COVID deaths among American Indians and Alaska Natives, 7 for example, are due to higher rates of obesity, diabetes, asthma and heart disease than among more privileged U.S. communities."

Research 8 suggests even mild obesity can influence COVID-19 severity, raising the risk of respiratory failure by 2.5 times and the risk of needing intensive care by nearly five times. Inflammation triggered by obesity is also thought to be responsible for the threefold greater risk of pulmonary embolism (blood clots in the lungs) seen in obese COVID-19 patients. 9,10

Certain groups -- particularly the elderly and those with darker skin -- are also far more prone to the illness due to the fact that they're also at highest risk for vitamin D deficiency .

Zerohair PREMIUM 4 hours ago

It's been said before, Dumbo's feather.

Grand Solar Minimum 4 hours ago

http://nomask.info

StephenHopkins 4 hours ago

It's a Chinese bioweapon. Military tribunals and GITMO for TRAITORS.

Alice-the-dog 6 hours ago

As if there was a test for COVID that was remotely reliable. Both exhibit an abundance of false positives. THE CASES THE CASES THE CASES, and deaths for that matter, are adjustable to fit the needs of any tyrant that has any control over the number of tests administered. Need more control of your subjects? More tests, more cases, more deaths. Want to make your vaxx look good, or the unelected POTUS look good? Reduce testing, fewer cases and deaths.

flat earth guy 6 hours ago

Viruses are not alive, they are not contagious. Its a detox of the body.

Masks are stupid to use for viruses.

Terrain theory was allways right germ theory is wrong

TRM 7 hours ago

Can't retweet

"This Tweet is from a suspended account. Learn more

Justus_Americans 8 hours ago

Taking A Stand Against the Stand 2020 Whoopi and King can kiss my Trump voting a** Not Viewing View
https://youtu.be/_Mxa3bCprWc

xious 10 hours ago

If we see Weird Things the Next Years, the Scary Technologies Shown here may Explain them – Henrik. (bitchute.com)

I don't even know of I believe this.

nanook007 11 hours ago

This is what happens when african monkeys are put in charge of anything.........failure !

KirkPatrickN 7 hours ago

Don't talk about monkeys that way!

Monkeys don't require $8800 per year on average in welfare to survive in the US.

halcyon 11 hours ago

R€TARDS! Stop looking at case counts, they mean nothing.

Number of positive tests in SK is still not on the level of wave1 and has started to shrink. So much for horrible wave3, even by their own statistics.

http://i.imgur.com/HRJbphc.jpg

metaforge 10 hours ago

Yup, the Thanksgiving Superspreader Doom was a nothing burger, just like the Trump rally superspreader doom. They are LIARS! And the ones at the top... traitors.

Slapper 11 hours ago remove link

In WW1 and WW2 the same people marched you off to a war...

Nona Yobiznes 12 hours ago (Edited)

Argentina has worn masks since April or even March. Their cases didn't stop rising. In fact they rose exponentially until a few weeks ago, which coincided with late spring for them. Seasonality overrides all other factors.

KirkPatrickN 8 hours ago

Obesity doubles Covid risks. Should we mandate diets? I know it's inconvenient, but suck it up, people. It's to save lives.

[Dec 06, 2020] Tested 'Positive' For COVID-19- Be Sure To Ask This Question

Highly recommended!
Dec 06, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

The lockdowns are based on surging "cases" which are based on positive PCR test results.

However, what exactly is a positive PCR test result? What does it mean? As Dr. Tommy Megremis summarized recently :

If you are generally aware, the PCR test is used to amplify small amount of genetic material so as to recognize patterns of DNA by "cycling." (Also, for RNA virus, the RNA is converted to DNA in order to be detected, it's just the way the test works) This is how we have been able to recognize the genomes in Egyptian mummies and Wooly Mammoths. It works because if you amplify and cycle enough times to "grow" legitimate DNA fragments, you get something with with a fair amount of specificity. W hat is becoming more and more apparent is that the PCR test was not designed as a diagnostic tool for infection, and really cannot function as one without having a huge amount of false positives, period.

When it comes to COVID, the presence of viral particles picked up by the PCR technique does not and has not been quantitatively linked to an active "symptomatic" infection. It simply cannot be so, because infection threshold as a result of viral load is different for each patient. It turns out, if you "cycle" over around 25 times, the false positivity of COVID infection starts getting very high.

I and others have explained in blogs how people can be exposed to virus, and mount a simple innate immune response and never know any differently. When you test these people with very low viral loads, who are not sick, you can find the viral RNA code that is used to "diagnose" if you cycle enough times. The last I read, Labcorp cycles at least 40 times to detect viral genome fragments. The PCR test was never intended for diagnosis of infection but as a qualitative test for presence of parts of a virus genome. I know there has been some confusion circulating the net about what the inventor Kary Mullis had said about that. But we walk daily with people who have any number of parts of killer virus or bacterial genomes which one could pick up with a PCR test if one had the specific test for it. Would we claim that that individual was an infected patient? No!

So given all that, PeakProsperity's Chris Martenson explains below , in great details, the answer to the most important question you should ask if you or a loved one gets a positive PCR test result .

"What's the Cycle Threshold (CT) value for that test?"

Sounds wonky but it's actually really important to understand. A low CT value means someone is loaded with virus. A high value, oppositely, means less of a viral load.

Beyond a certain level the load is insufficient to either infect someone else or be of any clinical or epidemiological relevance whatsoever.

The problem? Governments all over the country and world are basing their decisions on CT values that are very high. Too high.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/eWqNl4UUlH0

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890

* * *

Links:

WHO PCR 47 (!) Cycles

https://www.who.int/diagnostics_laboratory/eul_0489_185_00_path_covid19_ce_ivd_ifu_issue_2.0.pdf?ua=1

CT over 35 is non-infectious

https://www.infectiousdiseaseadvisor.com/home/topics/covid19/ct-value-may-inform-when-patients-with-covid-19-can-be-safely-discharged/

Cycle Thresholds Too Damn High

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html

Corman Drosten retraction request

https://cormandrostenreview.com/report/

Bad Testing Video Sept 1

NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

ZEROHEDGE DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX

Receive a daily recap featuring a curated list of must-read stories.

https://youtu.be/ZFNdsRHKUM4

UK PCR positive standards

https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/wp-content/uploads/sites/52/2020/03/guidance-and-sop-covid-19-virus-testing-in-nhs-laboratories-v1.pdf

Kansas CT cutoff of 42

https://www.coronavirus.kdheks.gov/DocumentCenter/View/1505/SARS-CoV-2-COVID-19-PCR-Ct-Cutoff-Values-PDF -- 10-5-20


span

6 hours ago remove link

Jon Rappoport (excellent blog) nails it in some of his recent posts.

.

"July 16, 2020, podcast, 'This Week in Virology': Tony Fauci makes a point of saying the PCR Covid test is useless and misleading when the test is run at '35 cycles or higher.' A positive result, indicating infection, cannot be accepted or believed.

"Here, in techno-speak, is an excerpt from Fauci's key quote: ' If you get [perform the test at] a cycle threshold of 35 or more the chances of it being replication-competent [aka accurate] are miniscule you almost never can culture virus [detect a true positive result] from a 37 threshold cycle even 36 '

"Too many cycles, and the test will turn up all sorts of irrelevant material that will be wrongly interpreted as relevant.

"That's called a false positive.

"What Fauci failed to say on the video is: the FDA, which authorizes the test for public use, recommends the test should be run up to 40 cycles. Not 35.

"Therefore, all labs in the US that follow the FDA guideline are knowingly or unknowingly participating in fraud. Fraud on a monstrous level, because millions of Americans are being told they are infected with the virus on the basis of a false positive result, and

"The total number of Covid cases in America -- which is based on the test -- is a gross falsity.

"The lockdowns and other restraining measures are based on these fraudulent case numbers.

play_arrow
GenuineAmerican 3 hours ago

Fauci has lied again the PCR maximum cycle for a accurate test results is 25 NOT 35. PCR is run, or should be run at 21-25 cycles everything else will give a false positive. Had a friend in Scottsdale MAYO. I had to go to this god-forsaken place to get him out. They were running the PCR at 42 cycles to keep him in the hospital because he had very, very good UNION insurance!! The health industries are all crooks, lying to people to get more money being paid to the orgainizations by the feds.

BaNNeD oN THe RuN 7 hours ago

IQ tests were always seriously flawed, just like the PCR test

https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39

It does not measure creative or lateral thinking ability at all.

I had scores that put me in the top 0.5% but I had no illusion that made me anything more than a good test taker.

NatsarimAmericanoLion 6 hours ago

Giorgio Palmas 21 hours ago

U.S TOTAL DEATHS
2015: 2,602,000
2016: 2,744,248
2017: 2,649,000
2018: 2,839,205
2019: 2,909,000
According to usalivestats(dot)com, there are 2,486,700 so far this year. There could be a lag in reports, but I doubt enough to fulfill their doomsday claims. The CDC still admits only 6% of these "COVID" are without 2 or more comorbidities, so that's about 25,000 or so. This is a mild flu season. Here are the recent flu numbers:
FLU DEATHS 2010's
2010: 36,656
2011: 12,447
2012: 42,570
2013: 37,930
2014: 51,376
2015: 22,705
2016: 38,230
2017: 61,099
2018: 34,157

choctaw charley 5 hours ago remove link

so what's the purpose behind the bogus plandemic. In order to institute a one world plantation several things have to happen. Foremost is the sense of "nationhood". a nation can be thought of as modeled on the family unit. We look similar, we share religious beliefs, economic and political views and we have a common history which we take pride in. We trust rely on and help another. If you have half a brain you don't need me to describe how all these are under attack. So how does the plandemic play into this? Yesterday you neighbor was your neighbor. Today he is behind a mask because the government tells you that he is a threat to you and your family and you to his! The plandemic was used to to hugely expand the mail-in ballot fraud further driving in the wedge suspicion. Then there is this: when you get your covid test there will be a permanent file created with your name on it. It will contain your genetic code and the test result. this will become the social register that is all over Europe. Get a traffic ticket; late in making a payment; engage in disapproved political activity as I am doing at this moment? All these will find their way into your file and will in the future determine the rate you pay on your home mortgage whether you can be employed in a government job, what you have to endure to board a commercial aircraft etc. There is also a great likelihood that contained in the vaccine will be a tracking component. Consider also population segment most vulnerable to covid: older retired people drawing on an already bankrupt social security ponzi scheme. Hitler referred to these as "Useless Eaters". He had a system in place to rid society of these. Later these faciliries were expanded to include the Jewish population.

flyonmywall 9 hours ago

I've done lots of PCR in my life. If you have to do over 35 cycles to detect or amplify something, you're probably barking up the wrong tree or there is something wrong with your assay.

Once you ramp up the cycles to past 35-40 cycles, you're just amplifying non-specific competing amplification products, of which there are always some.

You could have the best designed primers in the world, there is always some random **** that happens to get amplified at high cycle counts.

Zero-Hegemon 4 hours ago

False positives are beneficial for obtaining COVID money and creating hysteria.

KimAsa 9 hours ago (Edited)

these psychopaths have redesignated the normal course of annual deaths from heart disease, and other common ailments that old people die from, to Covid 19, to create the illusion of a deadly pandemic. they claim to have isolated this virus out of one side of their mouth, out the the other side they claim it has mutated (how many times?) so can't produce proof that this virus even exists. and out of their ******* they claim to have developed a vaccine?

this is and always has been about the vaccinating the public for free moral agency prevention.

Ride_the_kali_yuga 9 hours ago

Covid "tests" are an efficient way to feed the false pandemic narrative with nonsensical numbers of "contaminations". Masks are a mark of submission.

africoman 9 hours ago

Re-posting someone's comment from this article Here

by John Wear, (retired) lawyer, accountant, and author.

Excellent points, now let's threw a monkey wrench in it to the Operation Warp Speed play_arrow

Schooey 6 hours ago

Its all BS

KimAsa 9 hours ago (Edited)

these psychopaths have redesignated the normal course of annual deaths from heart disease, and other common ailments that old people die from, to Covid 19, to create the illusion of a deadly pandemic. they claim to have isolated this virus out of one side of their mouth, out the the other side they claim it has mutated (how many times?) so can't produce proof that this virus even exists. and out of their ******* they claim to have developed a vaccine?

this is and always has been about the vaccinating the public for free moral agency prevention.

Ms No 8 hours ago

They actually murdered people with the lockdown too though. Knowingly and premeditated...certainly some of those were also declared covid.

smacker 8 hours ago

" this is and always has been about the vaccinating the public "

Correct.

That has become clear. What we are only now slowing learning is what the sinister motive is.

kellys_eye 9 hours ago

Is the test for Covid or Covid-19. Can it tell the difference? The 'normal' flu and influenza are both corona viruses and this is the 'high season' for such cases in the Northern hemisphere.

Strangely (or not) the incidence of actual flu and influenza are suspiciously MUCH lower than they should be.

Ergo - tests that prove 'positive' for Covid are likely either false OR reporting on the flu/influenza.

The LIES keep mounting and mounting.

Harry Tools 5 hours ago

there is no pandemic

RedNeckMother 3 hours ago

I will add another: FDA: 40 recommendation for testing

And let's not forget the comments by Fauci that if they're testing at 35 they're going to get a lot of false positives.

There's an attorney in Ohio who has filed a FOI to obtain all the ct levels used by the labs testing in Ohio. It will be very interesting once that is revealed - I'm sure our governor already knows the answer. If I recall, the NYT itself did an article on this very topic awhile back and estimated that 90% of the positive results in CT and NY were bogus. And going from 40 to 35 I believe reduces positives by 63%.

We're being played.

MoreFreedom 5 hours ago remove link

Dr. Martenson's videos are very good. He's clear.

As for "the science" and scientists, we all make mistakes. If we didn't make mistakes, we wouldn't have scientists pointing out other scientist's mistakes. But it's not a question of whose science is correct, it's that science is no excuse for taking away peoples' liberty.

SRV 7 hours ago

The inventor of the test (Dr Kary Mullis) was very outspoken that it was NOT developed for human virus confirmation...he died of cancer just weeks before the first Covid cases (hmmmm).
The test procedure was developed as a screening tool in lab research, and he won a Nobel Prize for it!

It's in your face proof of the scam we're all being subjected to that almost no one ever questioned (brilliant move really)... ONE cycle above 35 (each cycle doubles the amplification) will explode the the false positives.

And... if you have no symptoms you DO NOT have the virus (remember how much play the "asymptomatic" BS story got early on... another psyop). Notice how none of the athletes never get sick and are back in two weeks... yet it's never questioned by a soul paid to look the other way!

smacker 9 hours ago

" What is becoming more and more apparent is that the PCR test was not designed
as a diagnostic tool for infection, and really cannot function as one without having
a huge amount of false positives, period. "

This is not knew and didn't need to become "more and more apparent".

The inventor of the PCR test Kary Mullis is on video record stating it. Sadly his expert
knowledge has been wilfully ignored by the political elites and countless talking heads
and "experts" because it doesn't suit them and didn't fit their agenda.

It's time to prepare the gallows and stock up with rope.

smacker 7 hours ago remove link

The PCR test is used precisely because it can be manipulated to produce as many "cases" as wanted.

Just turn the dial up on "amplification cycles" and hey presto, you get as many positives as you want.

The cases are not genuine cases but simply PCR positive tests, but are reported as "cases" and then
"infections" by MSM who are "In On It".

The idea is "FEAR Management" which allows draconian CovID rules like lockdowns and tiers and
social distancing to be introduced which accustoms people to being managed and controlled.

It then ramps up demand for vaccines which is the ultimate objective. Initially (or soon after), the
vaccines will contain nano-technology - dust-chips - which will be used for surveillance and control.
Some say they will also contain ingredients to render people infertile (ie population control).

We are seeing in plain sight the biggest coup ever against mankind.

It must be stopped.

smacker 7 hours ago remove link

The PCR test is used precisely because it can be manipulated to produce as many "cases" as wanted.

Just turn the dial up on "amplification cycles" and hey presto, you get as many positives as you want.

The cases are not genuine cases but simply PCR positive tests, but are reported as "cases" and then
"infections" by MSM who are "In On It".

The idea is "FEAR Management" which allows draconian CovID rules like lockdowns and tiers and
social distancing to be introduced which accustoms people to being managed and controlled.

It then ramps up demand for vaccines which is the ultimate objective. Initially (or soon after), the
vaccines will contain nano-technology - dust-chips - which will be used for surveillance and control.
Some say they will also contain ingredients to render people infertile (ie population control).

We are seeing in plain sight the biggest coup ever against mankind.

It must be stopped.


4 hours ago

[Dec 02, 2020] Saagar and Ryan- CUOMO Nominated For Time Person Of The Year

Cuomo already wrote a book about how he conquered coronavirus ;-)
Fauci and Quomo. Nice. Andrew Cuomo cut Medicaid in New York during a pandemic
Dec 02, 2020 | www.youtube.com


Our Lady
, 2 days ago

Fake news and fake awards.


John Tucker
, 2 days ago

Cuomo cut funding to Hospitals during first wave

Jan Fogle , 2 days ago

considering cuomo was responsible for spreading the virus exponentially in the early days, he probably has had more influence on all of our lives than the others


Pookie Wookie
, 2 days ago

Obama got a Nobel Peace Prize and dropped more bombs than any other President in history and took us from 3 to 7 wars.

Zeljko Dakic , 53 minutes ago

Story about Fauci, at least at the time was that it was so hospitals wouldn't be liable for deaths among medical staff. But I think it was completely bad what both Cuomo and Fauci


Kathleen McCormick
, 1 day ago

Fauci is complicit and not to be trusted. He's worse than Cuomo.

FryeKitFox , 2 days ago

Time is inconsequential. Neoliberal rag.

Techloid Tech , 2 days ago (edited)

Still can't believe people defend Fauci. Then again people defend Obama and Bush...


John Sutherland
, 18 hours ago

Dr. Fauci was the trusted expert who intentionally lied to the American people and made things far worse. Cuomo is directly responsible for why New York's response to the virus was so bad and cost many lives. Bullshit award.


airmark02
, 2 days ago

Fake Media Fake Heros Fake Awards

[Nov 30, 2020] Krystal Ball- Healthcare CRIMINALS Are Gouging Covid Patients - YouTube

Highly recommended!
Nov 30, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Krystal takes it to the Medical Industrial Complex in the age of Covid.



Irene Rose art
, 5 days ago

Well, this is exactly why they HAD to stop Bernie Sanders.

Peter Sepall , 5 days ago (edited)

The american public exists as a resource to be exploited by a small group of narcissistic sociopaths.

Daniel R , 5 days ago

Oof! Krystal on point yet again. Don't lose your touch!


Eric Butler
, 5 days ago

Finally, someone is talking about this! I don't want Covid, not because I'm afraid of dying, but because I don't want to survive to see that bill!

[Nov 23, 2020] There is evidence that asymptomatic transmission DOES NOT occur:

Nov 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Vasco da Gama , Nov 22 2020 22:51 utc | 58

There is evidence that asymptomatic transmission DOES NOT occur :

Post-lockdown SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid screening in nearly ten million residents of Wuhan, China

Stringent COVID-19 control measures were imposed in Wuhan between January 23 and April 8, 2020. Estimates of the prevalence of infection following the release of restrictions could inform post-lockdown pandemic management. Here, we describe a city-wide SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid screening programme between May 14 and June 1, 2020 in Wuhan. All city residents aged six years or older were eligible and 9,899,828 (92.9%) participated. No new symptomatic cases and 300 asymptomatic cases (detection rate 0.303/10,000, 95% CI 0.270–0.339/10,000) were identified. There were no positive tests amongst 1,174 close contacts of asymptomatic cases. 107 of 34,424 previously recovered COVID-19 patients tested positive again (re-positive rate 0.31%, 95% CI 0.423–0.574%). The prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Wuhan was therefore very low five to eight weeks after the end of lockdown.
my emphasis

This study comes supporting early (June 2020) official statements by WHO where:

We have a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact tracing. They're following asymptomatic cases, they're following contacts and they're not finding secondary transmission onward. It's very rare and much of that is not published in the literature. From the papers that are published there's one that came out from Singapore looking at a long-term care facility. There are some household transmission studies where you follow individuals over time and you look at the proportion of those that transmit onwards.We are constantly looking at this data and we're trying to get more information from countries to truly answer this question. It still appears to be rare that an asymptomatic individual actually transmits onward.
( my emphasis ) COVID-19 daily press briefing 08 June 2020 (~33m24) - transcript

There existing or not "asymptomatic transmission" is a key piece of information because there lies the fundamental justification for isolation measures imposed on asymptomatic individuals with positive rtPCR test results. Further, without asymptomatic transmission, general confinements can not be scientifically justified for the purposes of slowing down/flattening the curve as has been claimed .

This recenters the pandemic response where it should be all along: properly diagnosed cases.

It is very curious that no later than 24 hours, WHO, was backtracking on the original statements , letting us know that models [as opposed to actual epidemiological studies] suggest otherwise but since they were models they were not mentioned. I'll chalk that up as excess zeal at best.

-------------------------------------------------------

The supplementary material the study published in Nature was also revealing in terms of the rtPCR testing protocol, which employed, following Chinese National Guidelines, Ct values of ~35/34 (ORF and N genes respectively) on average. This arcs back to the question that has been haunting us, why are these tests being threshold at such high Ct values. In the Chinese case there appears to be an explanation. As the very title of the study mentions, these are tests made for screening purposes not diagnostic .

The following is very enlightening, contrast the following case definitions:

The European Case definition for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), as of 29 May 2020

(...)

Diagnostic imaging criteria

Radiological evidence showing lesions compatible with COVID-19

Laboratory criteria

Detection of SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid in a clinical specimen [2] [rtPCR test]

(...)

Case classification


  1. Possible case: Any person meeting the clinical criteria
  2. Probable case:
    Any person meeting the clinical criteria with an epidemiological link
    OR
    Any person meeting the diagnostic criteria
  3. Confirmed case: Any person meeting the laboratory criteria [see above]


my emphasis
-------------------------------------------------------

The Chinese Diagnosis and definition of confirmed cases with COVID-19

Mild case The clinical symptoms are mild and no pneumonia manifestations can be found in imaging .

Moderate case
Patients have symptoms such as fever and respiratory tract symptoms etc., and pneumonia manifestations can be seen in imaging .

Severe case
Patients who meet any of the following criteria: dyspnea or respiratory rate ≥30 breaths/min; oxygen saturation ≤93% at a rest state; arterial partial pressure of oxygen (PaO2)/oxygen concentration (FiO2) ≤300 mmHg. Patients with >50% lesions progression within 24 to 48 hours in lung imaging should be treated as severe cases.

Critical case
Patients who meet any of the following criteria: occurrence of respiratory failure requiring mechanical ventilation; presence of shock; other organ failure that requires monitoring and treatment in the Intensive Care Unit.[at this severity they apparently dispense with imaging]

Clinically-diagnosed cases
The clinically-diagnosed cases were only allowed for the cases in the Hubei Province for the period of February 9 to 19 based on the 5th edition of the Scheme released by the National Health Commission of China released on February 8 and abolished on February 19. A presumptive case was defined as meeting the following criteria: (1) recent travel history to Wuhan City or Hubei Province; or close contact with a confirmed or probable case; or cluster transmission; (2) fever and/or respiratory symptoms; (3) laboratory evidence of normal or decreased number of leukocytes and/or lymphopenia. Those presumptive cases with further radiographic evidence showing pneumonia but without a positive RT-PCR test result were defined as clinically-diagnosed cases .


my emphasis
-------------------------------------------------------

The take away: The Chinese rely on radiological imaging to confirm COVID-19 cases NOT on rtPCR tests which they limit for screening purposes, as opposed to the European which use radiological imaging to define a probable case and rtPCR testing to confirm. The Chinese rely on a tried and tested method for confirming diagnostic and the European rely fallible method generaly used for screening to confirm diagnostic .

This is absolutely absurd!

[Nov 18, 2020] This whole coronavirus thingy is becoming ridiculous. I don't think it's a complete fake but what we relly have is a new coronavirus which is slightly more dangerous than the flu, which kills practically only very old people with comorbidities

Nov 18, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Micron , Nov 17 2020 11:47 utc | 102

This whole coronavirus thingy is becoming ridiculous. I don't think it's a complete fake ; yes, there is coronavirus named COVID-19, yes it is highly contagious, yes it's a health hazard.

But to sum it up, we have here a new coronavirus which is slightly more dangerous than the flu, which kills practically only very old people with comorbidities, with 99,98% chances (ok, 99,95% if you like) of surviving it. given these odds, I'll pass on the vaccine, thank you.

From the beginning, the whole treatment of this thing stank to high heaven. I'm sorry, but the only meaningful explanation I can give is this one : big pharma and its various shills (politicians or doctors) recognized the opportunity such a virus would mean ; they then set out to systematically downplay or kill any possibility of cheap and effective treatments, and cleverly directed the firehose of dollars which was poured onto the laboratories developing a vaccine.

Some facts :
- in France, we had two large-scale studies, Discovery and Hycovid, which were started (very reluctantly) and were pratically forced to include HCQ+AZ in their panel.
- In the weekend following publication of the fraudulent Lancet newspaper, our health minister ordered a full stop.
- Since then, months have gone by; NOT ONE JOURNALIST has either 1) investigated who were the accomplices of the Lancet fraud 2) questioned why all national and international authorities reacted in lockstep 3) and most importantly WHY THE DECISIONS TO STOP THE STUDIES WERE NOT REVERSED following the Lancet's retractation.
-In October, we learn that the EU Commission gave a cool 1 billion to buy remdesivir. ONE WEEK before the WHO study concluding on the ineffectiviness of remdesivir came out.

I'm sorry, but this is becoming a little too much. One coincidence OK, but here we are talking about a string of improbable events, with NO ONE analyzing with a cool head what happened or reversing decisions that were taken based on obvious frauds.

Three weeks ago, our president solemnly declared that our OR would be saturated in mid-November with 9000 people under respiratory assistance, no matter what we do. Well here were are, and the tally is 4.800. Not a good situation, but still only half ; and with nobody pointing out that every winter, our OR are saturated anyway due to the flu and the influenza.

I think we should all grow up and do a more level-headed analysis of the pros and cons. The most ridiculous thing perhaps is to see all those politicos sanctimoniously declare the sanctity of life ; in a world where you can abort babies at your convenience, practices eugenics, and where euthanasy is aggressively pushed into the mainstream, this is perhaps the most hypocritical bullshit I have ever heard.


DG , Nov 17 2020 12:15 utc | 104

Fauci was promoting AZT as a safe cure for AIDS in the 90's. AZT was killing people. I lost many dear friends from AZT.

Fauci is a fraud.

Avid Lurker , Nov 17 2020 13:53 utc | 109

@ dave at 115:

False Positive Covid Tests Will Extend Unjustified Lockdowns, Fauci Admits 'Miniscule' Accuracy

gm , Nov 17 2020 14:44 utc | 116

@Posted by: Avid Lurker | Nov 17 2020 13:53 utc | 117

Meh...Fauci is a political creature who has talked on both sides of his mouth on many $ubject$, and goes with the (money)flow as long as he can get away with it without reducing his credibility too much.

I wonder if Fauci is *still* singing the praises of Gilead's remdesivir, that $3K per treatment apparent snake oil, according to critics:

Dr. Eric Topol, vice president for research at Scripps Research sez:

https://twitter.com/erictopol/status/1319395937018470400?lang=en

and this,

and this:

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/remdesivir-and-interferon-fall-flat-who-s-megastudy-covid-19-treatments

Nevertheless the $3K per shot remdesivir just got *full* FDA approval, no doubt thanks in large part to High Priest Fauci's blessings and hosannas.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/22/fda-approves-remdesivir-coronavirus-431336

Hausmeister , Nov 17 2020 15:06 utc | 119

Most likely a game changer:
Portugiese court rule against PCR-test
Sorry, guys, this is a link to one of the best real-left Corona blogs, but in German language. In Portugal a court decided that a PCR-test cannot be accepted as a proof of a viral infection. Now think about its consequences!

[Nov 17, 2020] The Great Revenge - How Tony Fauci F-cked Donald Trump

Notable quotes:
"... Washington Post ..."
Nov 17, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

The Great Revenge - How Tony Fauci F*cked Donald Trump Liberty Blogger , Nov 16 2020 20:12 utc | 2

In January 2017 the CIA claimed that Russia had kompromat on Trump. Trump shot back at the CIA. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer then warned the incoming president:

"You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday to get back at you," Schumer, a New York Democrat, told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. "So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this."

As the years after the warning passed by it proved to have been valid. The CIA 'whistle blowers' put a great effort into sabotaging Trump's presidency. But they were largely unsuccessful.

The CIA failed to sabotaged Trump's reelection. It was health community, including parts of Trump's administration, which did that.

Trump had especially angered Dr. Fauci, the well known infectious-disease expert and member of the government's coronavirus taskforce. Fauci's advise had been ignored and efforts were made to hold him back from making public pronouncements.

On November 1, two days before the election, Fauci gave a widely distributed interview to the Washington Post :

President Trump's repeated assertions the United States is "rounding the turn" on the novel coronavirus have increasingly alarmed the government's top health experts, who say the country is heading into a long and potentially deadly winter with an unprepared government unwilling to make tough choices.

"We're in for a whole lot of hurt. It's not a good situation," Anthony S. Fauci, the country's leading infectious-disease expert, said in a wide-ranging interview late Friday. "All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly."

Fauci's interview was not the first intervention he made. In October two leading vaccine companies were ready to announce the success of their vaccine trials. But with at least the knowledge of Fauci and the Federal Drug Administration both companies deviated from their clinical protocols to intentionally move their success announcement to a date after the election.

During the summer Trump had been hopeful that a vaccine against the Covid-19 disease could be announced before the election. It would have been proof that his strategy to (not) fight the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic had at least one success. The announcement of a vaccine was part of President Trump's planned 'October surprises' to win the election.

Trump's summer hope that a vaccine success could be announced during October was not unreasonable. Two important vaccines candidate, one from Pfizer with BioNTech and one from Moderna, had been successful tested in their first phases and were ready launch their large phase 3 trials.

In a phase 3 vaccine trial several ten thousand people are put into two groups. The people in one group receive the vaccine, the people in the other one a placebo. One then has to wait and see how many people will get the disease. At certain points a statistical team will look at those cases and check how many occurred in each group. The differences of the number of people in each group who catch the disease is a scale for the vaccines efficacy. For a known group size one can estimate in advance after how many disease cases determinations should be made to show statistical significance.

Pfizer had published its clinical protocol for the phase 3 trial which foresaw four points of interim analyses (IA) during which it would become clear how well the vaccine was working:

During Phase 2/3, 4 IAs are planned and will be performed by an unblinded statistical team after accrual of 32, 62, 92, and 120 cases. At each IA:
  • [Vaccine efficacy] for the first primary objective will be evaluated. Overwhelming efficacy will be declared if the first primary study objective is met. The criteria for success at an interim analysis are based on the posterior probability (ie,P[VE >30%|data]) at the current number of cases. Overwhelming efficacy will be declared if the posterior probability is higher than the success threshold. The success threshold for each interim analysis will be calibrated to protect overall type I error at 2.5%. Additional details about the success threshold or boundary calculation at each interim analysis will be provided in the SAP.

The time plan, on which Trump was certainly briefed, foresaw that the first interim analysis would likely occur in late September or early October.

However Pfizer did not publish any results when the first two interim analysis points were met. On November 9, after the election, Pfizer announced very positive results at the third interim analysis point:

Pfizer and partner BioNTech said Monday that their vaccine against Covid-19 was strongly effective, exceeding expectations with results that are likely to be met with cautious excitement -- and relief -- in the face of the global pandemic.

The vaccine is the first to be tested in the United States to generate late-stage data. The companies said an early analysis of the results showed that individuals who received two injections of the vaccine three weeks apart experienced more than 90% fewer cases of symptomatic Covid-19 than those who received a placebo.
...
The story of how the data have been analyzed seems to include no small amount of drama.
...
The first analysis was to occur after 32 volunteers -- both those who received the vaccine and those on placebo -- had contracted Covid-19. If fewer than six volunteers in the group who received the vaccine had developed Covid-19, the companies would make an announcement that the vaccine appeared to be effective. The study would continue until at least 164 cases of Covid-19 -- individuals with at least one symptom and a positive test result -- had been reported.

However, the announcement at the two first interim analysis points was never made.

[William Gruber, Pfizer's senior vice president of vaccine clinical research and development,] said that Pfizer and BioNTech had decided in late October that they wanted to drop the 32-case interim analysis . At that time, the companies decided to stop having their lab confirm cases of Covid-19 in the study , instead leaving samples in storage. The FDA was aware of this decision. Discussions between the agency and the companies concluded, and testing began this past Wednesday. When the samples were tested, there were 94 cases of Covid in the trial.

This means that the statistical strength of the result is likely far stronger than was initially expected. It also means that if Pfizer had held to the original plan, the data would likely have been available in October, as its CEO, Albert Bourla, had initially predicted.

In October Pfizer already knew from its first interim analysis that its vaccine was successful. But it intentionally held back on the announcement of its success. The FDA knew of this!

Today Moderna announced the success of its Covid-19 vaccine. This is a vaccine in which Dr. Fauci's organization is directly involved in. It seems that Moderna had, like Pfizer, held back its very positive results until after the election:

The drugmaker Moderna announced on Monday that its coronavirus vaccine was 94.5 percent effective, based on an early look at the results from its large, continuing study.

Researchers said the results were better than they had dared to imagine.
...
Moderna, based in Cambridge, Mass., developed its vaccine in collaboration with researchers from the Vaccine Research Center, part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the institute, said in an interview: ...
...
Moderna had planned a first interim analysis of its trial data when the number of Covid-19 cases among participants reached 53. But the recent surge in cases drove the number to 95 , and it is likely to speed completion of the study.

Moderna, like Pfizer, skipped the announcement of the results at the first interim analysis point in its clinical protocol.

The FDA and Dr. Fauci were involved in Pfizer's as well as the Moderna's decision to deviate from their clinical protocols. Any change in these protocols must get the FDA's approval. If the companies had not changed their plans the announcement of the good efficacy of both vaccines' would have come before the election.

Trump's well planed vaccine 'October surprise' was sabotaged by two pharmaceutical companies with at least the approval of Dr. Fauci and the FDA.

This might well have cost him his reelection.

It was the health community that really had 'six ways from Sunday' to get back at Trump.

Posted by b on November 16, 2020 at 19:54 UTC | Permalink

How many ways did the vultures steal the US election?

The Big Guy will ensure Americans continue to pay twice as much for pharmaceuticals. His 10% is doubled too, after all.


norecovery , Nov 16 2020 20:16 utc | 3

The Corporate State envelopes the administrators of the MSM, Medical and Academic Institutions, and State and Local Governments, in order to create and enforce a largely fictitious health emergency -- the latest in a series of Disaster Capitalist scenarios designed to rob us blind.

lysias , Nov 16 2020 20:20 utc | 4

Hadn't Trump talked about limiting the prices that pharma companies can charge?

[Nov 16, 2020] COVID-19 -Restriction-- U.S. Set to Lose 9.2 Million Jobs in Tourism and Travel Sector - Global ResearchGlobal Research - Centre for Research on Globalization

Notable quotes:
"... A staggering 9.2 million jobs could be lost in the U.S. Travel & Tourism sector in 2020 if barriers to global travel remain in place, the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) revealed. ..."
Nov 16, 2020 | www.globalresearch.ca

By World Travel & Tourism Council Global Research, November 13, 2020 World Travel & Tourism Council 11 November 2020 Region: USA

8

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A staggering 9.2 million jobs could be lost in the U.S. Travel & Tourism sector in 2020 if barriers to global travel remain in place, the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) revealed.

The new figure comes from WTTC's latest economic modelling, which looks at the punishing impact of COVID-19 and travel restrictions on the Travel & Tourism sector.

According to the latest data, 7.2 million jobs in the U.S. have been impacted. If there is no immediate alleviation of restrictions on international travel, as many as 9.2 million jobs – more than half of all jobs supported by the sector in the U.S. in 2019 – would be lost.

WTTC has identified the four top priorities which should be addressed, including the adoption of a comprehensive and cost-effective testing regime at departure to avoid transmission, the re-opening of key 'air corridors' such as between New York and London, and international coordination.

The challenge of restoring safe travels in the new normal is one of the biggest issues facing the U.S. as it grapples with a depressed economy devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has hit the Travel & Tourism sector particularly hard.

The WTTC Economic Impact Report for 2019 revealed that Travel & Tourism contributed $1.84 trillion to the U.S. economy and was responsible for more than one in 10 (10.7%) American jobs.

[Nov 13, 2020] Surgeons have been using surgical masks since their introduction in 1897.

Nov 13, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

ADKC , Nov 13 2020 0:48 utc | 92

"Surgeons have been using surgical masks since their introduction in 1897. It has for some years been customary for surgeons and nurses to wear surgical masks in the operating theatre and to change masks part of the way through any procedure lasting more than a few hours.

"The dangers associated with mask wearing were assessed by five doctors and published in the journal Neurocirugia in 2008.

"Although it is customary for operating theatres to be fitted with air conditioning systems, the writers of the article, entitled, Preliminary Report on Surgical Mask induced Deoxygenation During Major Surgery, pointed out that it is known that heat and moisture are trapped beneath surgical masks and concluded that 'it seems reasonable that some of the exhaled carbon dioxide may also be trapped beneath them, inducing a decrease in blood oxygenation'.

"A total of 53 surgeons, of both sexes, all employed at university hospitals and aged between 24 and 54 years of age were tested. All were non-smokers and none had any chronic lung disease. The test involved pulse oximetry before and after the course of an operation. The study showed that the longer a mask was worn the greater the fall in blood oxygen levels. This may lead to the individual passing out and it may also affect natural immunity – thereby increasing the risk of infection.

"The masks used were disposable, sterile, one-way surgical paper masks. To eliminate the effect of dehydration over a several hour surgical operation, the surgeons were allowed after every hour to drink water through a straw.

"The authors of the paper concluded that, 'When the values for oxygen saturation of haemoglobin were compared, there were statistically significant differences only between preoperational and post operational values. As the duration of the operation increases, oxygen saturation of haemoglobin decreases significantly."

From "Proof That Face Masks Do More Harm Than Good" by Dr Vernon Coleman (which was published on "Smashwords" but was suddenly removed the book in an gratuitous act of censorship even though the book was entirely factual)

Proof That Face Masks Do More Harm Than Good (video)

[Nov 02, 2020] Why we are told lies or misrepresentation about the disease, and Western governments (especially USA) have failed while other governments (Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, Japan, New Zealand, etc.) have been much more effective.

Nov 02, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Nov 1 2020 16:42 utc | 9

jef @Nov1 16:15 #4

You fail to address the question of W H Y we are told lies or misrepresentation about the disease, and Western governments (especially USA) have failed while other governments (Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, Japan, New Zealand, etc.) have been much more effective.

I have proposed that:


FYI My explanation is very different that the proposition set forth by the astro-turfed Libertarian mob: that governments want to control us by making us wear masks (referred to derogatorily as "muzzles" or "diapers") and destroying our ability to earn a living.

!!


jef , Nov 1 2020 17:53 utc | 14

Jackrabbit@9 - Your first two reasons are most likely a factor but I would not include Trump in the calculation as he is not capable of that level of planning. Your third reason end of life care is how the system wrings out every last penny of the elderly, gov pays very little of that.Your las two reasons are not wrong.

IMO the why is this;

Terrain Theory - nutrition, environment, healthy lifestyle, strong immune system, add it all together and it is maybe a couple billion dollars for the economy.

Germ Theory - healthcare industry, medical devices, hospitals, pharma, insurance, equals hundreds of billions and in fact Terrain Theory directly threatens those hundreds of billions so it is roundly dismissed at every turn.

donkeytale , Nov 1 2020 17:59 utc | 15
jackrabbit

True enough Trump bailed out Wall Street and more importantly, it's wealthiest globalist customers. The strength of the dollar is tied to the religious monetary faith of dollar holders.

Obama ditto.

Biden will do the same.

The biggest difference between Trump and Biden is Biden will also re-establish "normalized" relations with China by ending the trade war. Oh sure, there will still be political frictions and trade issues, blah blah blah ad nauseum, but the silliness of Trump's playing off the cuff loosely and for pure politics is destructive to him as well as his supporters.

Biden's ending of the trade war will unleash the stock markets around the globe and provide increased riches for the wealthiest and middle class investors, while the poorest of the poor will pick up the tab, as they always will under the globalist structure.

Trump's trade war was...by far...his biggest mistake, an unforced error of untold proportions. In comparison, the COVID crisis will be considerably less important as time goes on and the world learns to cope.

Trade wars accomplished nothing positive (as anyone with even a passing understanding of economics always knew it couldn't) and forced Trump to also bail out corporate agriculture with billions in tax payer subsidies. High end manufacturing jobs can't be re-shored until the USD permanently weakens and is no longer the reserve currency. And even then this will take a sustained period of time of retrenchment if in fact the USD loses that status which won't happen even in our grandchildren's lifetimes, imo. The general view at the bar that the US is so decrepit and teetering on collapse is the fanciful wishful thinking of economic illiterates who absorb too much poilitical propaganda.

China has little desire to be the world reserve currency. They are in fact ever more linking closely to world debt and equity markets where the USD is entrenched and anyway the world's wealthiest will never place their faith in the renminbi to the extent necessary for this to occur. The Chinese economy is well situated under the status quo, minus the trade war. They are in development growth mode and can better accomplish their long term goals hitched to global markets and their emerging bourgeois class gains from the weakness of the renminbi because of the often quoted (and generally misunderstood) PPP leveraging the value of the onshore yuan to keep domestic wages low.

The US will face political collapse well before economic collapse. Remember you read it hear first.

On another note, this will be the last post I make at MoA. My work is done. The bosses have reassigned me.

Good luck to you all in future.

Nathan Mulcahy , Nov 1 2020 18:14 utc | 16
Covid-19 is a dangerous disease and I take precautions to protect myself. However, the public depiction of the disease in the media and the actions being taken by most governments cannot but raise some very serious questions.

For example, you see everywhere how many "new covid cases" are being detected. The problem is manifold.

1) in reality the number they are citing is the number of positives in PCR test - IT IS NOT THE NUMBER OF CASES. A "case" in epidemiological sense is when medical intervention is needed or when a patient dies. If "case = infection" then one wouldn't need two epidemiological parameters IFR (infection fatality rate) and CFR (infection fatality rate). Furthermore, roughly 30% of the world population harbor the tuberculosis bacterium. Yet, I have never heard that the global TB case is several billions. Only a very small fraction of those harboring the bacterium will get the disease called TB, when it will become a case. So, why is COVID-19 is being treated differently in the media as well as by authorities?

2) The PCR test DOES NOT diagnose a disease called Covid-19. It simply identifies fragments of RNA of the virus called SARS-COv2 in a person indicating that HE MAY have had the virus in his body. This is very different than saying that he has a disease called Covid-19.

3) PCR tests are neither validated, nor standardized - therefore, there are too many false positives.

4) PCR test IS NOT APPROVED AS A DIAGNOSTIC TEST. If you combine the first four bullet points then how can you not think that there is something wrong in the whole picture?

5) Most vaccines have taken 10 years to be developed (I believe that there is a single case where it was developed in 5 years). And after 30 decades we still do not have a vaccine for AIDS virus. So, when governments are on record having said from the beginning that we'll get back to normal only after a vaccine will be available - then you cannot but question their motive.

[Nov 02, 2020] Fauci bets on Biden

Nov 02, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Bemildred , Nov 1 2020 20:25 utc | 29

Fauci bets on Biden:

Fauci praises Biden on Covid-19 & criticizes Trump in interview with Washington Post published THREE DAYS before election

[Nov 01, 2020] Fauci praises Biden on Covid-19 criticizes Trump in interview with Washington Post published THREE DAYS before election

Fauci is a pretty sleep and sleazy swamp creature. And he probably has influential friends in military. Otherwise he would be long gone.
Nov 01, 2020 | www.rt.com
Get short URL Fauci praises Biden on Covid-19 & criticizes Trump in interview with Washington Post published THREE DAYS before election Anthony Fauci is shown testifying in a US Senate hearing in September. © Reuters 18 Follow RT on RT Anthony Fauci used his last Friday night before the election to give an interview to the Washington Post in which he praised Joe Biden's attitude toward the Covid-19 pandemic and criticized President Donald Trump's.

Intentionally or otherwise, Fauci put his thumb on the electoral scale by painting a doomsday picture of the nation's Covid-19 outlook and suggesting the Democrat candidate is more focused on the pandemic than is the Republican incumbent. Asked about differences between the two on the virus issue, Fauci praised Biden for "taking it seriously from a public-health perspective," and said Trump looks at it from the standpoint of "the economy and reopening the country," according to the Post, which published its article Saturday evening.

ALSO ON RT.COM Trump failed to fight and expose the establishment's Covid narrative – and now it may cost him re-election

Fauci, who is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, echoed Biden's predictions of a "dark winter," saying, "We're in for a whole lot of hurt. All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly."

The doctor didn't specifically attribute his gloomy assessment to Trump's policies, but Biden has made the virus outbreak the centerpiece of his campaign, repeatedly blaming the president for the nation's Covid-19 death toll, which stands at more than 230,000.

ALSO ON RT.COM 'Bad arm!' Trump blasts 'disaster' Fauci in campaign call, slams doctor's baseball pitching

Fauci complained to the Post that Trump is increasingly leaning on medical adviser Scott Atlas for advice on the pandemic. "I have real problems with that guy," Fauci said. "He's a smart guy who's talking about things that I believe he doesn't have any real insight or knowledge or experience in. He keeps talking about things that, when you dissect it out and parse it out, it doesn't make any sense."

Fauci said in April that Trump had immediately backed all the Covid-19 mitigation recommendations made to him by US public health officials, including Fauci himself. In September, he said the president had taken the outbreak very seriously from the beginning.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1309145256458416133&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F505209-fauci-praises-biden-coronavirus%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

White House spokesman Judd Deere blasted Fauci for "choosing three days before an election to play politics," after previously praising Trump's actions.

"As a member of the (White House coronavirus) task force, Dr. Fauci has a duty to express concerns or push for a change in strategy, but he's not done that, instead choosing to criticize the president in the media and make his political leanings known by praising the president's opponent – exactly what the American people have come to expect from the swamp," Deere told the Post.

Fauci said in February that the risk of coronavirus in the US was "relatively low," and told CBS's 60 Minutes program in March that "people should not be walking around with masks." By October, he was voicing support for a national mask mandate.

//www.youtube.com/embed/NUHsEmlIoE4

Atlas contended in an interview with RT's Going Underground show that Covid-19 lockdowns have been an "epic failure" and are "killing people" without curbing the spread of the virus.

"The public-health leadership have failed egregiously, and they're killing people with their fear-inducing shutdown policies," Trump's coronavirus adviser said.

Investigative journalist Jordan Schachtel took to Twitter to criticize Fauci for attacking Atlas while offering "zero evidence, data, etc," calling the comments "a little character-assassination attempt by the tiny totalitarian."

Tweet See new Tweets Tweet Jordan Schachtel @JordanSchachtel · 19h Fauci has complete breakdown, resorts to crying to the media. Notice his little rant (loaded with extreme amounts of professional jealousy) has zero evidence, data, etc. A little character assassination attempt by the tiny totalitarian. Quote Tweet Maggie Haberman @maggieNYT · 21h "I have real problems with that guy," Fauci said of Atlas. "He's a smart guy who's talking about things that I believe he doesn't have any real insight or knowledge or experience in...when you dissect it out and parse it out, it doesn't make any sense." https:// washingtonpost.com/politics/fauci -covid-winter-forecast/2020/10/31/e3970eb0-1b8b-11eb-bb35-2dcfdab0a345_story.html 18

[Oct 30, 2020] Sisters stab Chicago security guard 27 TIMES over masks hand sanitizer dispute at athletic store, plead self-defense

Oct 28, 2020 | www.rt.com
Two young sisters stabbed a security guard at a Chicago athletic store 27 times and hit him with a trash can after he demanded they put on masks and use hand sanitizer before entering. Their lawyer argued it was self-defense.

Jayla and Jessica Hill (18 and 21, respectively) have been charged with one count of attempted first-degree murder each and were ordered to be held without bail on Tuesday following their arrest. The incident, which was caught on surveillance camera at the Snipes athletic store in the Chicago suburb of Lawndale, happened on Sunday as the store was about to close.

Older sister Jessica is accused of stabbing the store's security guard 27 times with a " comb knife " while her younger sister Jayla held him by the hair to stop him from moving. Both the store manager and the guard himself reportedly pleaded for the young women to stop attacking the guard, to no avail.

ALSO ON RT.COM WATCH: Woman attacks drug store employee with 'kung fu' after reportedly being asked to wear a mask

When he finally broke free, the sisters allegedly kicked him in the head and body, while Jessica declared he was a " b***h " who'd been " f***ed up " by her and her sister. Despite his wounds, the guard himself apparently stopped the pair from running away before the police made it to the scene.

The unnamed man was treated at nearby Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was listed in critical condition even though he did not require surgery for the wounds on his neck, back and arms. The sisters, too, were treated for " minor lacerations " at St. Anthony Hospital.

The women were stopped by the security guard as they attempted to enter Snipes around 6pm on Sunday and became confrontational when he asked them to put on masks and use hand sanitizer. Jayla took out her phone to start filming and can reportedly be heard on the footage inviting someone (presumably her sister) to " kick his ass " as the 6 foot 5 (1.96 meters), 270-pound (122.5 kg) guard attempted to grab the phone from her.

The sisters were then asked to leave, and one can apparently be seen on surveillance footage hitting the guard in the face with a trash can before Jessica took out her weapon and started stabbing him. Other outlets have reported one of the girls punched the guard.

The Hills' lawyer has argued they acted in self-defense, reasoning that Jayla filmed at least part of the incident and no one planning a murder would go out of their way to create video evidence of the crime. The girls are also bipolar, the attorney told the court. Both recently graduated from Chicago Public Schools, and local media described them as " college-bound ."

ALSO ON RT.COM Chicago crime on the rise as 51 shot, including 8yo girl, over Labor Day weekend

The judge declined to release the girls on bail, noting that while they may not have any criminal history, the " sheer number " of stab wounds indicated something " too random and quickly escalating " for their release to take place in " conditions that would protect the community ."

" It's the complete randomness of this ," Judge Mary Marubio said in her decision on Tuesday. " It's terrifying. "

While local media has reported neither sister had a criminal record, Heavy.com noted that the Chicago Police Department has a record for Jessica Hill's arrest in October 2017 for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. She was bailed out on a $1500 bond.

Already a high-crime city, Chicago has seen homicide rates spike 50 percent over the past year, and 139 percent in July alone, a microcosm of nationwide trends. During last month's Labor Day holiday weekend alone, some 51 people were shot, 10 fatally, down slightly from the previous weekend that saw 55 people shot. Amid the carnage, one man was killed by police as he attempted to stab an officer. 5ohswi 5 hours ago "The Hills' lawyer has argued they acted in self-defense, reasoning that Jayla filmed at least part of the incident and no one planning a murder would go out of their way to create video evidence of the crime." ... Just like nobody would abandon a laptop at a computer shop when it is loaded with incriminating e-mails and photos of himself engaged in sex acts with underage girls. Or maybe they are just not that smart. Maybe they are not really college bound. Juan_More 6 hours ago I think that the side effect of the zombie apocalypse must be mass stupidity. Most people will only be in the shops for a few minutes, wearing a mask helps keep the shops open and people employed. If you don't like the hand sanitizer then just don't go into that shop. Three shops where I live demanded that I use the hand sanitizer, two provided an alternative (hand washing). I haven't been back to two of them and the third maybe because a buddy owns the shop. There is no need for violence but then that is the American way. If convicted they won't have to worry about what type of sneakers they want. They will be provided without laces.

[Oct 30, 2020] Sisters stab Chicago security guard 27 TIMES over masks hand sanitizer dispute at athletic store, plead self-defense -- RT USA News

Oct 30, 2020 | www.rt.com

Sisters stab Chicago security guard 27 TIMES over masks & hand sanitizer dispute at athletic store, plead self-defense 28 Oct, 2020 21:20 / Updated 6 hours ago Get short URL Sisters stab Chicago security guard 27 TIMES over masks & hand sanitizer dispute at athletic store, plead self-defense FILE PHOTO © Reuters / Mark Makela 59 Follow RT on RT Two young sisters stabbed a security guard at a Chicago athletic store 27 times and hit him with a trash can after he demanded they put on masks and use hand sanitizer before entering. Their lawyer argued it was self-defense.

Jayla and Jessica Hill (18 and 21, respectively) have been charged with one count of attempted first-degree murder each and were ordered to be held without bail on Tuesday following their arrest. The incident, which was caught on surveillance camera at the Snipes athletic store in the Chicago suburb of Lawndale, happened on Sunday as the store was about to close.

Older sister Jessica is accused of stabbing the store's security guard 27 times with a " comb knife " while her younger sister Jayla held him by the hair to stop him from moving. Both the store manager and the guard himself reportedly pleaded for the young women to stop attacking the guard, to no avail.

ALSO ON RT.COM WATCH: Woman attacks drug store employee with 'kung fu' after reportedly being asked to wear a mask

When he finally broke free, the sisters allegedly kicked him in the head and body, while Jessica declared he was a " b***h " who'd been " f***ed up " by her and her sister. Despite his wounds, the guard himself apparently stopped the pair from running away before the police made it to the scene.

The unnamed man was treated at nearby Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was listed in critical condition even though he did not require surgery for the wounds on his neck, back and arms. The sisters, too, were treated for " minor lacerations " at St. Anthony Hospital.

The women were stopped by the security guard as they attempted to enter Snipes around 6pm on Sunday and became confrontational when he asked them to put on masks and use hand sanitizer. Jayla took out her phone to start filming and can reportedly be heard on the footage inviting someone (presumably her sister) to " kick his ass " as the 6 foot 5 (1.96 meters), 270-pound (122.5 kg) guard attempted to grab the phone from her.

The sisters were then asked to leave, and one can apparently be seen on surveillance footage hitting the guard in the face with a trash can before Jessica took out her weapon and started stabbing him. Other outlets have reported one of the girls punched the guard.

The Hills' lawyer has argued they acted in self-defense, reasoning that Jayla filmed at least part of the incident and no one planning a murder would go out of their way to create video evidence of the crime. The girls are also bipolar, the attorney told the court. Both recently graduated from Chicago Public Schools, and local media described them as " college-bound ."

ALSO ON RT.COM Chicago crime on the rise as 51 shot, including 8yo girl, over Labor Day weekend

The judge declined to release the girls on bail, noting that while they may not have any criminal history, the " sheer number " of stab wounds indicated something " too random and quickly escalating " for their release to take place in " conditions that would protect the community ."

" It's the complete randomness of this ," Judge Mary Marubio said in her decision on Tuesday. " It's terrifying. "

While local media has reported neither sister had a criminal record, Heavy.com noted that the Chicago Police Department has a record for Jessica Hill's arrest in October 2017 for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. She was bailed out on a $1500 bond.

Already a high-crime city, Chicago has seen homicide rates spike 50 percent over the past year, and 139 percent in July alone, a microcosm of nationwide trends. During last month's Labor Day holiday weekend alone, some 51 people were shot, 10 fatally, down slightly from the previous weekend that saw 55 people shot. Amid the carnage, one man was killed by police as he attempted to stab an officer. 5ohswi 5 hours ago "The Hills' lawyer has argued they acted in self-defense, reasoning that Jayla filmed at least part of the incident and no one planning a murder would go out of their way to create video evidence of the crime." ... Just like nobody would abandon a laptop at a computer shop when it is loaded with incriminating e-mails and photos of himself engaged in sex acts with underage girls. Or maybe they are just not that smart. Maybe they are not really college bound. Juan_More 6 hours ago I think that the side effect of the zombie apocalypse must be mass stupidity. Most people will only be in the shops for a few minutes, wearing a mask helps keep the shops open and people employed. If you don't like the hand sanitizer then just don't go into that shop. Three shops where I live demanded that I use the hand sanitizer, two provided an alternative (hand washing). I haven't been back to two of them and the third maybe because a buddy owns the shop. There is no need for violence but then that is the American way. If convicted they won't have to worry about what type of sneakers they want. They will be provided without laces.

[Oct 30, 2020] Tsunami Of Empty College Dorms Risks Student Housing Market Implosion

Did not most collages behaved like bandits raising tuition fees from 1980 till 2020. That's 40 years.
Oct 30, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Fall enrollment has plunged , some colleges are shuttering operations, revenues across the entire higher education industry are collapsing, and the shift from physical to virtual education due to the virus pandemic could prick the next bubble: the student housing debt market.

Our warning about the coming implosion of the higher education industry (see here from 2014) , as a whole, has become louder and louder over the last six-plus years as the student debt bubble has recently swelled to more than $1.6 trillion. Years ago, no one at the time, could've forecasted a virus pandemic would doom colleges and universities.

Credit rating agency Moody's recently downgraded the entire higher education sector to negative from stable, and the American Council on Education estimates colleges and universities will experience a $23 billion decline in revenues over the next academic year.

Bloomberg outlines the increase of virtual education in a virus pandemic has resulted in an abundance of empty dorms at colleges and universities, creating a $14 billion headache for the student housing debt market.

"West Virginia State University, already hit with a 10% enrollment drop, plans to give money to a school foundation so it can meet its bond covenants for residence hall debt. A community college in Ohio is using part of a $1.5 million donation for a financially-strapped student housing project. And officials at New Jersey City University, which serves largely first-generation and lower-income students and has recorded years of deficits, are prepared to shore up a dorm there," Bloomberg said.

The squeeze on university finances comes as the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center warned about a 16% drop in first-year undergraduate students enrolled for the fall semester. This means new revenue streams are quickly drying up for overleveraged colleges and universities.

"The limiting factor is some of these schools themselves are facing uncertainty with many of their revenue streams," S&P Global Ratings analyst Amber Schafer said in an interview. "It's a matter of not only willingness, but if they're able to support the project."

"Typically, privatized student housing debt is paid off by the revenue generated by the dorms -- meaning there's little recourse for bondholders if things go south," Bloomberg said. With occupancy rates already declining as coronavirus cases are surging, well, this could be bad news for colleges and universities heading into 2021.

"Borrowers have begun revealing how empty residence halls are as the pandemic spurs many campuses to keep classes online. According to the school foundation that sold the debt, West Virginia State University's dorm is 71% full, putting it about 20 percentage points from where it needs to be to satisfy debt covenants. Other privatized student housing projects, like two on Howard University's campus, are virtually empty due to online-only instruction there," Bloomberg said.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890

Bloomberg warns: "Privatized dorms are struggling the most given that they weren't structured to withstand 20% to 30% drops in occupancy -- or no students at all."

"West Virginia State University may have to step in to help student housing bonds at risk of violating a debt service coverage ratio, Moody's warned this month. The historically-black college faces "considerable" challenges in backstopping the bonds, Moody's said.

The nearly 290-bed residence hall with rents of $3,881 per semester was just 71% occupied this fall, while it needed to be about 92% occupied, said Patricia Schumann, president of the university foundation that sold the debt. Schumann said the university is projected to provide a $75,000 payment in January. In the meantime, she said the school was working to bolster its financial position and boost recruitment and donations.

"We're not standing still," she said.

Ohio's Terra State Community College, which has more than 2,100 students, was downgraded deeper into junk over the risk posed by a dorm owned by a nonprofit, given that the school "appears to provide an unconditional guarantee" to meet the debt obligations, Moody's said. The project was financed through a bank note.

The dorm's occupancy fell to 62%, and the college is using a previously-received donation to cover a shortfall in project revenue amounting between $500,000 to $600,000, the ratings company said in a report this month.

At New Jersey City University, a student housing project financed though a separate entity will likely miss a required debt service coverage ratio. The public school having to step in to help the bonds would be a challenge, but a surmountable one, said Jodi Bailey, the university's associate vice president for student affairs. The student housing bonds aren't a debt of the university, so the school would be choosing to provide financial support, according to bond documents .

The school is working to cut expenses related to the dorm. "Is it a harder year? Most definitely," she said.

The student housing bonds, issued by West Campus Housing LLC in 2015, were slashed deeper into junk in September by S&P, which said in a report that residence halls' occupancy there had fallen to 56% so the school could accommodate social-distancing guidelines," said Bloomberg.

To summarize, plunging enrollments, resulting in falling occupancy rates for dorms, is a debt bomb waiting to go off for many overleveraged colleges and universities that are panicking at the moment to divert enough funds to service debts, as the usual revenue streams, that being rent checks from students, are nowhere to be found as virtual learning keeps young adults in their parents' basements and out of dorms.

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If occupancy rates continue to slide through 2021, then we must revisit what we said months before the virus pandemic began in the US:

"...20% of colleges and universities will shut down or merge in the next ten years , and probably more."

Absent of a federal bailout, things could get ugly for colleges and universities in 2021.

[Oct 26, 2020] The health response to COVID-19 in the US

Oct 26, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Down South , Oct 25 2020 14:27 utc | 4

Not being American I decided to do some research as to whom is responsible for the health response to COVID-19 in the US. The MSM and Democrats put the blame for the high death toll squarely on

The Tenth Amendment states that
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Meaning that:
As University of Texas law professor Bobby Chesney has recently reminded us, the states are independent entities within our system of federalism, not mere subordinate jurisdictions of the national government. In areas reserved to the states, he says, the federal government "cannot coerce the states into taking actions to suit federal policy preference."
https://www.google.co.za/amp/s/www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/03/25/trump-or-governors-whos-the-boss/amp/

What powers does the president have:
As we have seen, the president can restrict international travel, harden the borders, and invoke national emergency powers such as the Defense Production Act. Without federal leadership, the states will have hard time coordinating their policies on the many aspects of the current pandemic that cross state lines.

So the way understand it while the federal government can block overseas travel and co-ordinate policy between states and increase production of essential medical equipment it is up to the states to determine the response to COVID-19. If the states want to implement a lockdown they can and if they want to make mask wearing mandatory they can. This applies too to social distancing and other measures to prevent COVID-19. These measures are entirely the prerogatives of the state and not the federal government.

Now at least 40% of the deaths have been elderly living in nursing/cares homes. This interesting article takes a look at why that is:

Nursing homes were already struggling with infection control before the pandemic hit. A Government Accountability Office report published in May found that more than 80 percent of nursing homes were cited for infection-prevention deficiencies from 2013 to 2017. About half of those homes had "persistent problems and were cited across multiple years." The report describes, among other incidents, a New York nursing home where a respiratory infection had sickened 38 residents. The home did not isolate or maintain a list of those who were sick, and continued to let residents eat meals together.
https://www.google.co.za/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/613855/

The nursing homes it seems to me are the responsibility of the state they are in. Meaning that any COVID-19 prevention measures need to be taken by the state in which the homes are based and not the federal government.

It was the governor of New York who forced nursing homes to accept COVID-19 positive patients when they did not have the means to deal with this crisis as seen in the article above. It is not surprising that COVID-19 spread like wildfire in these already poorly maintained nursing homes. At least 6000 people died in nursing homes in New York and that figure only includes those who died in the actual nursing homes. The governor of New York was not the only one who did this. Michigan did the same and I think a few other states.

Take into account that when Trump did try and ban overseas travel from China he was pilloried for it. Biden called him a xenophobic. Pelosi in late February was telling people to join her for festivities in China Tiwn. De Blasio did the same. It is clear the Democratic leadership did not take COVID-19 seriously at the beginning of the pandemic and neither did many governors.


Down South , Oct 25 2020 14:28 utc | 5

Argh!

... blame squarely on Trump... NOT the Tenth Amendment.....

Down South , Oct 25 2020 14:37 utc | 6
The Pennsylvania state Supreme Court ruled Friday that ballots in the state cannot be rejected because of signature comparisons, backing up guidance issued by the state's chief elections officer heading into Pennsylvania's first presidential election with no-excuse mail voting.
https://www.google.co.za/amp/s/www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/10/23/pennsylvania-court-ballot-signatures-431794

This is extraordinary. The potential for fraud is limitless.

Down South , Oct 25 2020 14:40 utc | 7
https://youtu.be/5649FAF3_ws

Sky News Australia special report on the Hunter Biden laptop.

dh-mtl , Oct 25 2020 14:48 utc | 8
Another 'senior moment'?

https://sputniknews.com/us-elections-2020/202010251080874864-biden-says-democrats-created-voter-fraud-organisation-in-apparent-gaffe-that-went-viral/

JoeG , Oct 25 2020 14:52 utc | 9
When will Joe bring out his new crack grandbaby from Hunter's Arkansas stripper?
That will surely earn a few broken home votes!

Meanwhile 80 folks showing up to listen to Barack Hussein bray in anger.
6000 massed for the POTUS speech down the road.

ONLY FOUR MORE YEARS TO GO SNOWFLAKES!
Wail.
Gnash.
:)

Don Bacon , Oct 25 2020 14:54 utc | 10
@ Down South #4
Not being American I decided to do some research . .
And you did your research perfectly, putting many Americans to shame IMO.
It is a fact that the USA is a republic of states, and a "state" back in those days was a country. So the citizens who are blaming Trump for everything that goes wrong disregard the simple facts that you present in your comment.
The president is an executive, executing the laws that Congress passes in those areas listed in Article I, Section 8 -- "The Congress shall have Power To . ." and public health is not on the list. The president should not be considered as an autocrat making decisions on everythng. This is supposed to be a democracy.
Public health, like public education for example, is a function of the states, and they failed us to a great extent. . . .good job!

[Oct 25, 2020] A Large Danish Study on Mask Wearing Is Being Delayed by Publishers of Major Medical Journals Therefore Preventing the Results from Being Made Public

That's too broad of a headline. The real question is under which conditions masks help and under which they do not or can be harmful. For example in public transport I think they are definitely useful as they prevent spreading of virus from an infected person to others. The same is probably true for shops and other closed spaces.
But outside they are harmful and can be increase your chances of getting an infection.
Oct 25, 2020 | www.thegatewaypundit.com

One of the biggest questions in the world right now is whether the use of masks is beneficial in preventing contracting the China coronavirus. A study attempted to do just that but publishers will not take it on and are preventing it from being published. A large mask study out of Denmark is complete but being delayed in publishing. Although the size of the study and the study's design are well within the parameters of a solid study, publishers will not take it on:

The purpose of the study was once and for all to try to clarify the extent to which the use of masks in public space provides protection against the corona infection.

Advertisement - story continues below

One of the authors of the study is upset the study has not been published for peer review. The world needs to know the results of the study and should be provided a chance to challenge it and determine its viability:

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Alex Berenson shared that the study should be released – we need to know if wearing masks is harmful:

We can guess right now why the study is not being published – because masks don't work in preventing the spread of the China coronavirus and likely are harmful to your health.

Submit a Correction

[Oct 20, 2020] Trump said he wants Fauci to "make better decisions" and claimed the original strategy to defeat the pandemic suggested by Fauci was "no masks let China in."

Oct 19, 2020 | www.rt.com
After Dr. Anthony Fauci gave an interview in which he claimed the White House was controlling his media appearances, the president lashed out at him, even taking to comparing how each of them throws a baseball.

"Dr.Tony Fauci says we don't allow him to do television, and yet I saw him last night on @60Minutes," Trump tweeted on Monday, referencing the interview where Fauci made his claims about being limited in who he can talk to.

"He seems to get more airtime than anybody since the late, great, Bob Hope," the president added, referencing the late comedian known for his near-constant rotation on television while he was alive.

ALSO ON RT.COM New York Governor Cuomo goes 'full anti-vaxxer' on Covid-19 vaccine, says people should be 'very skeptical'

Trump said he wants Fauci to "make better decisions" and claimed the original strategy to defeat the pandemic suggested by Fauci was "no masks & let China in."

... ... ...

In the campaign call, Trump reportedly called Fauci a "disaster" and said people are tired of coronavirus and hearing from "Fauci and all these idiots."

While Fauci has been frequently criticized by conservatives for his support of lockdowns to battle Covid-19, his popularity with Democrats has been growing. Presidential candidate Joe Biden has said he would give Fauci the opportunity to continue working with the White House on the pandemic if he won the election.

Thus, Democrats have not taken Trump's latest criticisms of the doctor all that well with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and others targeting the president on social media.

"After deceptively using Dr. Fauci's words in a TV ad last week, now Trump is attacking him as a 'disaster.' For what? For telling the truth. We all know who the disaster is here, Mr. President. You," Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California) tweeted .

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-4&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1318255827766169604&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F503958-trump-fauci-first-pitch%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-5&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1318241714348478466&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F503958-trump-fauci-first-pitch%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

Biden also released a statement condemning Trump's Fauci comments and claiming he is waving the "white flag" on the pandemic.

garyo550 1 hour ago Some time ago-this year-Fauci was outed as having endorsed, 15 years ago, Hydroxychlorquine as a drug that would kill AIDS, Ebola, SARS and a legion of other bugs. What has changed? Filthy lucre is one reason touted.

[Oct 19, 2020] Trump Slams -Idiot- Dr. Fauci- -Every Time He Goes On TV It's A Bomb...But There's A Bigger Bomb If You Fire Him- -

Oct 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

During a conference call with campaign staff that White House reporters were bizarrely allowed to listen in on, President Trump complained that "there's a bomb" every time Dr. Anthony Fauci goes on television, which is most days.

This is far from the first time President Trump has complained about the good doctor. But it might be the first time he's offered some direct commentary on exactly why he won't fire Dr. Fauci, even as Trump seems to have moved on with a new COVID-19 advisor, Dr. Scott Atlas, who has faced persecution by Big Tech for his views on how to approach COVID-19.

Though he conceded that the good doctor is "a nice guy" who has "been around for 500 years", Trump said the problem with Dr. Fauci is that every time he goes on TV "there's a bomb", yet if you fire him, "there's an even bigger bomb".

"People are saying whatever...just leave us alone. People are tired of COVID... People are tired of hearing Fauci and these idiots, all these idiots who got it wrong...every time he goes on television there's always a bomb, but there's a bigger bomb if you fire him. This guy's a disaster."

With less than 3 weeks to go before election day, Trump also asserted that the American people are moving on from COVID-19 as cases rebound, while hospitalizations are also starting to creep higher. However, so far at least, deaths have been mostly subdued.

Confirming that he was speaking mostly off the cuff, Trump added after that if there was a reporter on the call (he didn't seem to realize that multiple WH reporters were apparently listening) they could report it "just how I said it."

"If there's a reporter on you can have it just the way I said it, I couldn't care less," Trump said.

According to the NYT , Trump's campaign manager had organized the call to discuss strategy, before Trump pivoted to Dr. Fauci, an issue that was clearly on his mind following the doctor'scriticisms of Trump's campaign ads last week.

The NYT also brought up an interview with Dr. Fauci on '60 Minutes' last night where the doctor refuted Trump's claims that the end of the outbreak is just around the corner.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890

Trump also reportedly called an NYT article claiming Trump was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with some of his aides - which followed Trump hinting that he might not bring back AG Bill Barr if elected for a second term due to his inability to charge any of the FBI officials involved with Operation Crossfire Hurricane despite the mountain of evidence suggesting some skulduggery was afoot as the FBI tried to put together an "insurance policy" to protect the nation from Trump.

"I love Mark Meadows," Trump reportedly said (the NYT report focused on frictions between the president and his chief of staff).

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Finally, Trump also told staff that the Wall Street Journal - which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns and controls the New York Post, the paper the published the string of damning reports about Hunter Biden's influence-peddling abroad - is working on "an important story".


artvandalai , 5 hours ago

....If there's a reporter on you can have it just the way I said it, I couldn't care less," Trump said.

And that, my friends, is why Trump won the first time and will win again.

Boing_Snap , 1 hour ago

Great link many thanks.

https://fort-russ.com/2020/05/dr-rancourt-masks-and-respirators-do-not-work-a-review-of-science-relevant-to-curbing-covid-19-transmission/

Freeman of the City , 3 hours ago

Yep, you don't like Trump or America, good.

Move to China.

Izzy Dunne , 3 hours ago

spqrusa:

You deluded sycophant. Fauci is head of NIAID.

He was APPOINTED to lead Trump's Corona virus task force.

spqrusa , 3 hours ago

Trump did not appoint Fauci - Fauci is a permanent fixture in government protected from firing by your know... "laws"

What a crock - the President HAS the Authority under the Constitution to FIRE ANYONE under his command.

Les D , 3 hours ago

Yup, sure did, and too many others.

Wray, Barr, Bolton, Kelly, McMaster, Sessions, Tillerson, Cohn, Mattis, Kelly, Mooch, Kiersten and her successor McAleenan; CIA Brennan lap dancer Haspel; promoted Rosenstein to 1st Asst who then took over; Minarosa or whatever her name was.

Add who I'm forgetting. The worst performance of any president, brings in one snake after another. Gorsuch will be the next one that becomes obvious. His first majority opinion sounded the alarm. PT, Gorsuch said publicly Justice Kennedy, a 100% traitor turncoat, who he clerked for and swore him in, was his Judicial Idol. Donald, duh?

Inept, inattentive, betrayed, too trusting--choose your analysis but his people decisions, his favorite word: "A disaster".

BaNNeD oN THe RuN , 3 hours ago

@spqrusa

Correct, ultimately Dr. Fauci reports to the Director of the Department of Health & Human Services and Trump could insist that he be fired.

"... and that sumbytch got fired."

Pig Circus , 4 hours ago

Love him or hate him The Trumpster tells it like it is. Most transparent President in history.

[Sep 29, 2020] My wife is in a bad way, is still on a ventilator and an IV drip, but her condition is slowly improving. Her temperature is now normal.

Sep 29, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

MOSCOWEXILE September 23, 2020 at 12:34 am

My wife is in a bad way, is still on a ventilator and an IV drip, but her condition is slowly improving. Her temperature is now normal.

Yesterday, a man from the Moscow health authority paid us a visit. He was dressed all in white in hazmat gear from head to toe, wearing goggles and a proper medical hazard mask, not a waste-of-time piece of paper "surgical mask.

He was here a long time. A very decent type of bloke he was. He spent ages filling out medical forms for me, Vova, Lena and Sasha. He checked out our state medical insurance policies and my passport and right of residence permit here as a foreign citizen. Having done all of this paperwork, which business took over an hour -- we left him alone at my elder daughter's writing desk in her room: I felt sorry for the poor bugger, for I thought he must be sweating like a pig inside all that safety gear -- he then, having first taken all our temperatures and pulse rates, stuck a swab on the end of a long stick up each of our nostrils, and did a swab of our throats.

We then each had to sign 5 times our copious documents that he had completed for us.

We have to go to our local state polyclinic, which happens to be right next door to our housing block, in a couple of days for the results.

Vova asked him if it was true that you can have covid yet show no symptoms: he said it was and that's why we were being checked out because their mum was in hospital with covid.

I feel like crap: head aching all the time and my lungs have started wheezing. My temperature is normal, however.

My lungs are partly buggered up in any case, as I have already long ago long described on here, the result of chronic bronchitis, which is endemic in that place where I was raised, and my previous occupation.

I went down with pneumonia here around 2001, I think, and the doctors here found a shadow on one of the lobes of my lungs, which the bastards in the UK never thought worth mentioning to me the last time I had a compulsory mineworker's lung X-ray in 1983.

MARK CHAPMAN September 23, 2020 at 9:07 am

My wife's friend Oksana has it as well; all the people I actually know who have it are in Russia. Oksana (who lives in Dalnegorsk) said that she felt weak all the time, and lost her sense of smell, which they tell me is a fairly common symptom. I think she is doing okay and we are confident she will recover fully as most non-compromised people do. I'm rooting for you and your family; take care of yourself.

JENNIFER HOR September 23, 2020 at 12:37 pm

Goodness, you don't sound too good and yet here you are posting impressive news every day. I am in awe.

I have heard the same, that initial COVID-19 symptoms include loss of senses of smell and taste, along with dry cough, fatigue and fever. Nausea and diarrhoea may be present. Paraesthesia (pins and needles sensations in skin) and chilblains sensations in fingers and toes have been reported as well.

Wishing your wife a comfortable and speedy recovery. Take care of yourselves and I wish you all well.

MOSCOWEXILE September 23, 2020 at 7:54 pm

I fear I have contracted coronavirus. I have just spent a night in semi-delirium. I am cold. My limb extremities are very cold. I cannot keep warm in bed. I am shaking and feel very weak. I have had to put on a sweater whilst in bed and a lambswool shawl. My head is aching all the time and I nearly fall over when I try to get up and walk around. However, I do not think I have a high temperature.

MARK CHAPMAN September 23, 2020 at 8:28 pm

I expect you have, considering a family member with whom you have been in close contact has it. You should probably notify the hospital if you have not already done so, as you may have to be admitted. You are, by your own description, in a high-risk group, although even people who are getting on a bit are at relatively low risk if they are otherwise in good health. You walk everywhere and do not smoke or drink. Your immune system should be relatively solid and maneuvering to do battle.

Your symptoms sound very much like a conventional fever, which surely you have had before. It's no fun, but you have shaken it off in the past. That's not intended to downplay the necessity to notify medical authorities.

I was almost certain I had already had it as well, but it would have been back in late November/early December, long before there were any cases here. Still, for a transportation worker who comes in contact daily with travelers from far-flung corners, it's possible. It was the worst chest cold I have ever had; coughing hurt so badly that I would breathe in tiny sips of air so as not to trigger a coughing response, which seemed to happen every time I drew a deep breath. No fever, though, or headache.

Since there was no coronavirus panic then, I did not take any special precautions; the Mate on the same ship also had it, and probably I either gave it to him or got it from him. No other crew members were affected that I know of. No family members caught it. The Mate was away from work for a day or two – in my case, the only day I was too sick to go to work happened to be a day off, so I did not miss any work; the next day I felt well enough to answer the call of duty, although still a bit ropy. After that, I recovered quickly and completely.

It may not have been coronavirus, but it may have been. However, different regions experience different mutations of the virus, and mine might be nothing like yours. Of course I cannot give you advice as I am not a medical professional, but it seems to me you are doing all you can do, and the correct measures you can take on your own against what sounds like a fever minus the sweating, which you usually do not see until it is getting near breaking anyway. Courage, and keep up your nourishment.

CORTES September 23, 2020 at 9:39 pm

Take care, and speedy recovery!

And that's an order.

JAMES LAKE September 24, 2020 at 3:42 am

The most common symptoms of fever include:

headache
warm forehead
chills
aching muscles
general feeling of weakness
sore eyes
loss of appetite
dehydration
swollen lymph nodes

Sounds like you have a fever – your body fights infection and ends up becoming too cold. Try taking a hot shower / bath and Parecetomol to help your temperature normalise

JEN September 24, 2020 at 4:43 am

Sounds like flu. You need to see a doctor as flu can be just as serious as COVID-19 for older people.

ET AL September 24, 2020 at 7:11 am

It's also about the time you are supposed to get your winter flu jabs too. Normally I wear a scarf and hat indoors to try and keep my temperature constants.

Like you lot, I think I've also had COVID-19 as I felt bad for a couple of weeks back in March which is way, way longer than the usual two to three days.

Best wishes for a quick recovery to ME and Da Missus.

ET AL September 24, 2020 at 7:45 am

Eh, I cannot write properly today. This might be because the dog cat ikes fighting me. I meant to write that When I have the flu or whatever I wrap up indoors. And have a very hot curry.

MOSCOWEXILE September 24, 2020 at 12:10 pm

I spent almost a full day today being tested at a clinic with a CT scanner.

They diagnosed pneumonia. I refuse to be hospitalized: I wanna die with my boots on.

I feel like shit.

CORTES September 24, 2020 at 12:13 pm

Take care, ME. And take the advice of the professionals.

MARK CHAPMAN September 24, 2020 at 3:49 pm

Unless they tell you to hop on one foot everywhere you go. Because that will mean they have been gotten to by the shoemakers.

CORTES September 24, 2020 at 3:57 pm

Blessed are the shoemakers
For they make all soles even

MARK CHAPMAN September 24, 2020 at 4:01 pm

Sign above the door of a fish & chips shop: "These are the tines that fry men's soles".

Like

ET AL September 24, 2020 at 12:30 pm

BOLLOCKS! You definitely have Old Monia. That's my professional opinion.

Get thee to a nunnery/popery/pot-pourri/no-curry hospital forthwith and stop assing around ME. Do it for Odin.

JEN September 24, 2020 at 4:38 pm

His god is Woden and Woden must be missing his usual offerings of whiskey and tobacco .

ET AL September 25, 2020 at 12:58 am

Not wooden, like my jokes?

MARK CHAPMAN September 24, 2020 at 2:46 pm

Pneumonia is no fun, but it's not COVID. It will take more than pneumonia to kill an old bastard like you. Drink a cup of cinnamon tea, and do 50 jumping jacks as penance.

JEN September 24, 2020 at 4:48 pm

Lemon, ginger and honey tea is good too if cinnamon tea is not to your taste. You need to have lots of hot tea drinks and wafting the steam to your nose (but don't burn your hand or your face) will help clear your nasal passages and make breathing easier.

Keep well and I hope the rest of the family is staying well too.

MOSCOWEXILE September 25, 2020 at 1:20 am

I woke up in the night feeling bad but by 6 a.m. my temperature was normal. I've been taking the medication. Seems to be working. In the end, I conceded to my wife, after her continuously nagging that I go to hospital. I told her I would cure myself at home, but she doesn't want a 71-year-old geriatric with pneumonia in the flat with her children.

I was about to get ready to set off, when the local clinic phone with the results of the coronavirus test that Vova, Lena, Sasha and I had undergone a few days ago.

Apart from Vova, we all have coronavirus. The clinic said we must not leave the flat and that a doctor would visit us later today. As regards being hospitalized because of pneumonia, the doctor who is going to visit us will decide.

BLATNOI September 25, 2020 at 3:38 am

Coronavirus does cause pneumonia as there are such things as viral pneumonia, or it can weaken the lungs for bacteria to cause bacterial pneumonia. Please get some rest as there is not much that can be done to cure a viral infection except rest (although in Russian and many American hospitals they now give a steroid which lowers the immune system overresponse and seems to work really well).

I highly doubt you are in a 'real' risk group, since you are too young, and also don't drink and are not overweight, but please take it easy nonetheless. Coronavirus symptoms can come and go and it can drastically increase the heart rate all of a sudden (because it can get into the blood stream), so it's best to just lie in bed as much as possible to lower the risk of cardiac problems and wait until your immune system makes antibodies.

MOSCOWEXILE September 25, 2020 at 3:55 am

Собянин призвал пожилых москвичей оставаться дома из-за коронавируса
12:28 25.09.2020

Sobyanin has urged elderly Muscovites to stay at home because of coronavirus
12:28 25.09.2020

MOSCOW, September 25 – RIA Novosti. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has called on elderly Muscovites and people with chronic diseases to change over to remote work or take a vacation owing to to the coronavirus situation. The new rules will take effect on 28 September.

"Muscovites over 65 and younger citizens suffering from chronic diseases should not leave the house or leave their garden plot without a special need for doing so. Please temporarily refuse making contact with relatives and friends who live separately. Walking and physical exercise in the fresh air is restricted", says the personal blog of the mayor.

Yeah, well I'm not a Muscovite -- so bugger off!

They've told me and my 3 children to stay put in our flat.

The doctor has still not come though. When he does, I 'm sure he'll say there's no need to go to hospital. My temperature is now normal .

In my CT analysis that I have now finally read from top to bottom, it says that observations of my scan "may correspond to the manifestations of viral pneumonia".

That's rich: may correspond !

ET AL September 25, 2020 at 5:12 am

It might be a lady doctor. Then you would have no choice! 😉

MOSCOWEXILE September 26, 2020 at 1:32 am

It was, and she wasn't the least interested in me and told me so. I proffered her my CT analysis and she said that she needed nothing off me, that she was a paediatrician and was only interested in my children's health. So I said to her: "I'm a big kid really!"

She may not have understood me because because I said that to her in English.

And she thought I was their ancient grandpa as well, which always pisses me off.

She wasn't aware that Vova was getting ready to bugger off to the dacha for the weekend with the delightful Anastasia, albeit he is supposedly confined to barracks as well. As soon as she had left, he was away to the country with his girlfriend.

MOSCOWEXILE September 26, 2020 at 2:03 am

By the way, Vova is the only one in my family who has not been registered as corona-positive. That must be because when he was in the Crimea for the first 11 days in August, 3 days before he was due to return here, he fell ill and his temperature rocketed. he had breathing difficulties and they took him to a coronavirus clinic in Sevastopol, from where they sent him to a lung hospital in Balaclava. They gave him a CT scan there and said he he had pneumonia and he needn't go into isolation and could fly back to Moscow. So he must have immunity now.

JEN September 26, 2020 at 4:06 am

" [She] wasn't the least interested in me and told me so. I proffered her my CT analysis and she said that she needed nothing off me "

The way this part of the comment reads, it looks like a hilarious propositioning scenario.

[Sep 26, 2020] Cure worse than the disease- Study says UK lockdown linked to thousands of excess deaths

Highly recommended!
Sep 26, 2020 | www.rt.com

Thousands of Britons who suffer heart attacks and strokes are dying at home instead of seeking medical treatment, a new study has found, as new government figures show 75,000 are projected to die as a result of lockdown measures.

Stay-at-home orders prompted countless people suffering from serious medical conditions to avoid hospitals, according to the study's findings, which were published in the Heart medical journal and first reported by the Daily Mail. The paper noted that deaths from heart disease in private homes surged by 35 percent from March to July, resulting in 2,279 more fatalities on average over the past six years. However, heart and stroke deaths in hospitals dropped by around 1,400 during the same period, suggesting that some who chose to stay home would have died anyway even if they had been hospitalized. The researchers calculated that in total, there were 2,085 excess deaths in England and Wales that could be linked to heart attack and stroke sufferers who refused to seek out medical treatment. This means that between March 2 and June 30, every day 17 people died needlessly from heart attacks.

... ... ...

[Sep 25, 2020] Rand Paul on his heated exchange with Fauci over herd immunity - YouTube

Sep 25, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY, weighs in on the Breonna Taylor decision, his argument with Dr. Fauci and the new Senate Hunter Biden report. #FoxNews

[Sep 18, 2020] Effects of riots vs effect of Presidential rallies on COVID-19 spread in the USA large cities

Protests potentially nullified all potential positive effects from lookdown in large cities like NYC, if such exist. So all economic damage was in vain and lockdown was just a capricious and arbitrary move by ambitious and power hungry Dem politicians. And that fact alone make the major on NYC and the governor on NY state look like completely politicized idiots.
If the crowd is dense, as often is the case in riots at places of confrontation with the police cordon, it does not matter much if people are indoor or outdoor, what matters if the length of the contact. Add to this that looting happens indoors.
Sep 18, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

...On Wednesday, Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh called out CNN's hypocrisy on this matter, noting that "if people can protest in the streets by the tens of thousands, if people can riot, if people can gamble in casinos, then certainly they can gather peaceably under the First Amendment to hear from the president of the United States."

https://www.mrctv.org/embed/553665

https://www.mrctv.org/videos/shameless-cnn-says-blm-protests-are-safe-covid-not-trump-rallies

Butthurt from this exchange, CNN Newsroom drafted in "medical analyst" Leana Wen , who happens to be a former Planned Parenthood president, to explain why science means COVID doesn't affect BLM protests as much as Trump rallies.

"It does not care why it is that people are gathering but it does care about the conditions under which they're gathering," Wen argued, adding "outdoors much safer than indoors and wearing masks obviously much safer than not wearing masks."

"I would also in this case would distinguish between the behavior of the participants while at protests versus rallies," she continued, arguing that BLM protesters are more "aware" of the risks than Trump supporters.

"At protests many people are aware of the risks and doing everything they can to reduce that risk versus at many of the rallies we are seeing people going in defiance," Wen claimed.

[Sep 17, 2020] Dr. Quack- CDC's Redfield Claims Masks -- Guaranteed To Protect Against COVID

Sep 17, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Dr. Quack? CDC's Redfield Claims Masks "Guaranteed To Protect Against COVID" by Tyler Durden Thu, 09/17/2020 - 14:09 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Authored by Jordan Schachtel via The Mass Illusion,

In February, Redfield said healthy people should *not* wear masks.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1306270050261831683&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fmedical%2Fdr-quack-cdcs-redfield-claims-masks-guaranteed-protect-against-covid&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

Testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee Wednesday morning, CDC Director Robert Redfield entered further into quack doctor territory, claiming that wearing a mask protects the wearer against the novel coronavirus, even more so than a high-efficacy vaccine.

"These facemasks are the important, powerful public health tool we have," Redfield said, while touching both sides of his mask and unconsciously contaminating it with his hands. "I might even go so far as to say that this facemask is more guaranteed to protect me against COVID than when I take a COVID vaccine," he added.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1306274937456529415&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fmedical%2Fdr-quack-cdcs-redfield-claims-masks-guaranteed-protect-against-covid&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

This appears to be another "scientific" evolution on masks from the "public health expert" class. At first, we were advised not to wear masks. Then, the "my mask protects you. Your mask protects me" mantra became the widely disseminated narrative. Now, masks apparently have the incredible power of protecting the mask wearer from the virus.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-2&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1306265374367850497&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fmedical%2Fdr-quack-cdcs-redfield-claims-masks-guaranteed-protect-against-covid&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

me title=

In February, Redfield said the exact opposite about masks.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-3&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1306290933596553217&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fmedical%2Fdr-quack-cdcs-redfield-claims-masks-guaranteed-protect-against-covid&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

In the February hearing, Redfield told Americans not to buy medical-grade masks , saying there's "no role for these masks in the community."

There remains zero evidence that cloth masks or the earloop masks displayed by Redfield helps to slow the spread of COVID-19 or protect the wearer from infection. No country in the world has proven a link in slowing or stopping the spread due to mask wearing mandates, which are in effect in countless nations.

Given the lack of demonstrated evidence supporting it, mask-wearing has become a cult-like religious movement in the United States , one that relies on complete subservience to total mysticism. Members of the mask movement frequently target Americans who engage in non-compliance, likening these individuals to evil, plague-carrying menaces. Redfield's testimony will only add fuel to the mask mania that is sowing discord in America.

In his testimony, Redfield added that a COVID vaccine probably won't be available to the general public until at least the second or third quarter of 2021.

"If you're asking me when is it going to be generally available to the American public, so we can begin to take advantage of vaccine to get back to our regular life, I think we're probably looking at third, late second quarter, third quarter 2021," he testified, adding that first responders may have access to the vaccine before the end of the year.

Like many institutional bureaucracies in the federal government, the CDC has become plagued with corruption and "woke" politics. A whistleblower recently revealed that the CDC was forcing its staff to undergo "critical race theory" training.

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Under Redfield's leadership, the CDC dropped the ball on preparing Americans for the U.S. coronavirus outbreak, as shown through internal emails displaying the bureaucracy as an organizational mess.

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[Sep 15, 2020] Fauci- -I Have To Disagree- With Trump On COVID -Rounding The Corner

There are very few Fauci enthusiasts among ZeroHedge crowd
Sep 15, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Michael Nadler via AmericanThinker.com,

American Thinker has run several articles like this one about Dr. Anthony Fauci's political bias (which is his right). But the Miami Herald published an article that was aimed at undermining President Trump , which actually contains compelling evidence that Fauci's bias or ignorance is affecting what he is telling the American people about Covid-19. In the article, Dr. Fauci: 'I have to disagree' with Trump on coronavirus , the author writes:

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious diseases expert, disagreed on Friday with President Donald Trump's assertion that the country is "rounding the corner" on the coronavirus pandemic.

"I really do believe we're rounding the corner," Trump said during a White House briefing on Thursday. He added that newweekly cases have gone down by 44% since July.

"I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with that because if you look at the thing that you just mentioned, the statistics, Andrea, they're disturbing," Fauci told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell on Friday.

"We're plateauing at around 40,000 cases a day and the deaths are around 1,000.

From his interview with Andrea Mitchell Friday, the Herald quotes Fauci as stating, "We're plateauing at around 40,000 cases a day and the deaths are around 1,000."

In fact, he is very wrong : the average daily new cases for the past two weeks have been 31,411, dramatically less than Fauci's 40,000 number; and the average daily deaths for the past two-weeks have been 697, a full 30% less than Fauci's 1,000.

More significant, do these graphs of weekly average new cases (blue graph) and deaths (red graph) from Bloomberg look like we're "plateauing?"

Source: Bloomberg

Fauci has a right and obligation to express his views about the current situation and the future risks, but he should not mislead the public about the facts.

As a reminder, here are his comments from last week:

me title=

"We've been through this before," he said. "Don't ever, ever underestimate the potential of the pandemic. And don't try and look at the rosy side of things."

"I keep looking at that curve, and I get more depressed and more depressed about the fact that we never really get down to the baseline that I'd like," he said.


EmmittFitzhume , 59 minutes ago

Deep State Fauci has to go. Perhaps to prison

GoldenDebt , 58 minutes ago

Dr FRAUDci is non stop lying and flip-flopping

SMSpiff , 42 minutes ago

It's safe to come out of your basement now, Joe.

Pope Innocent III , 37 minutes ago

The nature of the Fauci scam is the total intentional destruction of induction and deduction.

Jerky Miester , 32 minutes ago

You've been ****ting up this board for 3 years 7 months, you little phaqqot. Time to get out of the basement and earn an honest living....unless you make your bread and beer money being a pro troll. KYS now.

NotAGenius , 39 minutes ago

This is the legal argument to indict Fauci on mass murder charges, justified but justice no longer exists in the USA, written by a legal writer. These comments and Fauci's crimes would convict Fauci of mass murder and sentence him to prison for life:

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/08/bad_medicine_on_hcq_faucis_waterloo.html .

Covidiot Lvr , 7 minutes ago

Zeroes want Fauci's head on a stick...but decry liberals who interfere with the free speech rights of conservatives on college campuses.

Free speech or no free speech - which is it, Zeroes?

knopperz , 55 minutes ago

The flu vaccination is now 78 years around.
The flu is still there.

Next Stop --> 78 Years wearing a diaper in your face.
Get used to it suckers.

All those people pushing the Corona Narrative should be hanged by the Balls.

CheapBastard , 53 minutes ago

We are obviously rounding the corner with fewer cases and fewer deaths. Most businesses trying to reopen. Fauci is political hack and was from the start. he's also totally incompetent or a liar giving Americans completely wrong advice from the start. The MSM loves him because he's anti-Trump.

2hangmen , 54 minutes ago

Fauci has been wrong since day 1 on Covid. He's done multiple 180s on policies, and the fact this is NOT a deadly virus in comparison to all other virus outbreaks. He's still playing politics and he's still making millions from Big Pharma and the Deep State. Fauci, please say good bye, and ride off into the sunset with your ill gotten gains.

NotAGenius , 44 minutes ago

Trump can't fire Fauci. He is a career government employee. Trump gave him a platform in the beginning. Trump has been right about Fauci now and mostly about this cold virus too, advocating the best medicine possible for it - hcq - while Fauci prevented Americans from getting this cheap commercial safe and effective medical treatment. Fauci has committed mass murder by withholding a life-saving medicine from Americans. The FDA is criminal too, same reason. FDA has also been paying hospitals $39,000 for every patient they kill with the fatal ventilators, killing more than saving according to records. But the government wants more deaths for bigger numbers. The American medical system is actually a genocidal organization now, trying to kill as many Americans as possible in many different ways, many associated with this medical fraud. Fauci should be imprisoned for life were any justice to exist in America. At best, Trump can minimize and ignore him and arrange for him to have no venue to spout b.s. and lies publicly. That's what we basically need: Fauci minimized if not disappeared.

blueapples Staff , 33 minutes ago

Why would he ever fire the fall guy? If he fired him, you'd still have the push for lockdowns, the policies based on flawed statistical models, and all the other nonsense. Except then without a guy like Fauci to place blame on, the administrations role in this becomes much more apparent.

It makes more sense to have a guy like Fauci on board to deflect to, especially given his career as a government employee, so that it looks like there's some nefarious underlying force that is working against the administration when the reality is that that nefarious underlying force is working in tandem with it.

JaWS , 49 minutes ago

Damn the cases. I know about 10 people that have tested positive for covid19. Most cases are not much more than a cold. Some not even that bad. Look at the deaths. That's where the narrative should go. They are significantly down from the peak.

Samual Vimes , 23 minutes ago

SAY WHAT! -- FDA is outsourcing Covid-19 testing to 10 Chinese companies

serotonindumptruck , 38 minutes ago

"Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious diseases expert ..."

I have to disagree with this.

SummerSausage , 36 minutes ago

If they left off the word "expert" it would be an accurate statement.

Bollixed , 6 minutes ago

Fauci is an expert. An 'ex' is a has-been and a 'spert' is a drip under pressure. He fits the bill perfectly.

curtisw , 9 minutes ago

"Because I have a vaccine to peddle."

-- A. Fauci

scottyji , 19 minutes ago

FAUCI BELONGS IN PRISON.

Fauci's narcissisticly obsessed with his "expert image" and his lucrative role as pimp for Big Pharma = total Napoleon Complex, two-faced, stinkin' bureaucrat of the Deep State.

Ergo I.C. , 28 minutes ago

Because Fauci and his buddy Bill Gates are trying peddle vaccines worth billions of dollars.

adr , 39 minutes ago

Since Fauchi is supposedly an expert, maybe he can tell us why people suffering from hay fever are being told they have Covid.

Solarstone , 30 minutes ago

Because you can have both. Try again

CallingDrFraudschi , 25 minutes ago

Proof please.

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article

In our systematic review, we identified 10 RCTs that reported estimates of the effectiveness of face masks in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infections in the community from literature published during 1946–July 27, 2018. In pooled analysis, we found no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks (RR 0.78, 95% CI 0.51–1.20; I 2 = 30%, p = 0.25)

https://swprs.org/who-mask-study-seriously-flawed/

A. General flaws

  1. Of the 29 studies analyzed by the Lancet meta-study, seven studies are unpublished and non-peer-reviewed observational studies that should not be used to guide clinical practice according to the medRxiv disclaimer (references 3, 4, 31, 36, 37, 40 and 70; see table above).
  2. Of the 29 studies considered by the meta-study, only four are about the SARS-CoV-2 virus ; the other 25 studies are about the SARS-1 virus or the MERS virus, both of which have very different transmission characteristics: they were transmitted almost exclusively by severely ill hospitalized patients and not by community transmission.
  3. Of the four studies relating to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, two were misinterpreted by the Lancet meta-study authors ( refs. 44 and 70 ), one is inconclusive ( ref. 37 ), and one is about N95 (FFP2) respirators and not about medical masks or cloth masks (see detailed analysis below).
  4. The Lancet meta-study is used to guide global facemask policy for the general population. However, of the 29 studies considered by the meta-study, only three are classified as relating to a non-health-care (i.e. community) setting . Of these three studies, one is misclassified ( ref. 50 , relating to a hospital environment), one showed no benefit of facemasks ( ref. 69 ), and one is a poorly designed retrospective study about SARS-1 in Beijing based on telephone interviews ( ref. 74 ). None of these studies refer to SARS-CoV-2.
  5. The authors of the Lancet meta-study acknowledge that the certainty of the evidence regarding facemasks is "low" as all of the studies are observational and none is a randomized controlled trial (RCT). The WHO itself admitted that its updated facemask policy guidelines were based not on new evidence but on "political lobbying" .

In view of these shortcomings, University of Toronto epidemiology professor Peter Jueni called the WHO study "methodologically flawed" and "essentially useless".

==================================================

  1. In the US state of Kansas , the 90 counties without mask mandates had lower coronavirus infection rates than the 15 counties with mask mandates. To hide this fact, the Kansas health department tried to manipulate the official statistics and data presentation.
Consuelo , 36 minutes ago

Fauci has been torpedoed here --- even without his lying numbers (of cases & deaths). With the actual non-LYING numbers, he should be stripped of his medical license and prosecuted for gross negligence, even gross-er Incompetence, and for potential Criminal $Gain off his rather cozy relationship with Big Pharma and Bill Gates...

This whole thing was a $SCAM of the highest order.

aelfheld , 34 minutes ago

Fauci's a bureaucrat.

Bureaucrats have unqualified immunity.

Everybodys All American , 43 minutes ago

During the Spanish Flu of 1918 no one as I can tell was advocating for everyone to be vaccinated either for or against their will. That tells you everything about this Dr. Fauci imo. He should be removed from the planet.

drstrangelove73 , 6 minutes ago

I've posted about Tony several times this year.I spent an academic quarter as a medical student on his service at the NIH,then saw him again many times in the 80's when I returned as a fellow.He is a lifelong democrat,and card carrying member of the deep state who has played politics with the management of viral infections for 40 years.Let that sink in.He has been the director of the same NIH institute for 40 years.No one else in the history of the institute has been a director for half that long.You think he doesn't know how to play the game? _arrow

asteroids , 14 minutes ago

How does Fauci explane Sweden? The number of new cases is very low. Their death rate is almost zero. Sweden now has herd immunity without a vaccine.

Hyzer , 9 minutes ago

He pretends it doesn't exist, just like the MSM.

TannyDanner , 3 minutes ago

He's trusting the plebs won't do their own research. I'm looking at the data almost daily and am beyond thankful that Sweden had the balls to go about it the way they did and not bow down to the bullies.

legalize , 18 minutes ago
Useful_Idiot714 , 35 minutes ago

700 mostly old people with other diseases are dying from this each day in a country of 325,000,000. Sounds like we need mail in voting so that the frightened commies can vote early and often to save us by electing a senile racist rapist pedophile.

SummerSausage , 46 minutes ago

Panic is Fauci's objective.

Democrats love big government which means more power for Fauci, more taxes and less freedom for you.

Robert Paulson , 30 minutes ago

Panic is too unpredictable, and disruptive.

The "hope" is for respectful, solemn acceptance that Big Brother/Sister can save "us" from ill health, poverty and international "enemies."

I mean **** was broken across most institutions throughout Western Civilization before the flu was weaponized into a means of control. But the whole theater has become absurd.

Loser Face , 16 minutes ago

Everyone should watch this video, which explains the US mortality curve: https://youtu.be/8UvFhIFzaac

The casedemic is pure and blatant FUD targeted towards Trump and Americans.

JamcaicanMeAfraid , 27 minutes ago

I predict on November 4th and if Dementia Joe is elected Fauci and his super ego will stand before any microphone put in fromt of him and say "Joe Biden has put a stop to covid, he has conquered the virus."

aelfheld , 44 minutes ago

Fauci sees the statistics as disturbing because they indicate an endpoint to his prominence.

JaWS , 51 minutes ago

There are 4 men in my county that were tested positive within about 3 days of each other and they had to quarantine for 14 days. About a week into it they started meeting everyday down at the local fishing hole to fish while no one else was around. One of these men is 80 years old. The other 3 are in their 70s. Does this sound like something to shut the entire country down?

GoldenDebt , 1 hour ago

Dont be a moron

Dr Fraudci is all politics and he's LYING. Dr FRAUDci also never condemned the protests as being potential SUPER-SPREADER events

He's a criminal

moneybots , 13 minutes ago

"I really do believe we're rounding the corner," Trump said during a White House briefing on Thursday. He added that newweekly cases have gone down by 44% since July.

"I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with that because if you look at the thing that you just mentioned, the statistics, Andrea, they're disturbing," Fauci told Andrea Mitchell on Friday.

The statistics say Trump is right, according to the chart. Why is Fauci lying to the American people?

Thalamus , 45 minutes ago

Fauci's worst case prediction of 1.7 million deaths from Covid-19 kind of came up short at only 10K; but at least he didn't yell fire in a crowded theater .

Zerogenous_Zone , 48 minutes ago

which statistics?

to quote the great Mark Twain (now classified by the leftists as a rassiss)...

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics ."

the one statistic that is relevant, is the decrease in mortality...

and I for one, would like to know how they created a Covid-19 specific test...wait...what was that?

THEY HAVEN'T?! it is an antigen test...that is, if you have any residual from your LAST flu shot (they inject you with lysed virus to build up your antibody count...antigens!) you could test positive...

and probably a majority of the tests are at issue since the test is highly inaccurate...

but who cares? the virus is out of the box and here to stay...so you have either already been exposed, or you will soon be exposed...and NO vaccine will be sufficient (since viral strains mutate almost immediately)...especially the comment cold (news flash!! the 'common cold' is a CORONAVIRUS!!)

[Sep 15, 2020] How justified are draconian measures taken against the spread of Coronarovirus, including the 'War On Restaurants'

Sep 15, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

play_arrow


honest injun , 3 hours ago

At what point does the man on the street realize that he has been had? It took me about 2 weeks, 6 months ago to realize what Fauci and his cronies were saying was nonsense. Smart people that I know, took months to reach the same conclusion but many people are still buying the disinfo.

Choomwagon Roof Hits , 3 hours ago

Once I started getting into the influenza-like-illness data and realized this was spreading exponentially worldwide since at least November - there were probably millions or tens of millions of people infected and recovered in the US by the time the first cases were identified.

fackbankz , 3 hours ago

The scam just gets bigger and more absurd every week.

Wait until cold and flu season when people freak out over every little case of the sniffles. Many will have forgotten completely that one year ago it was normal for people to catch cold, and nobody worried about it.

[Sep 15, 2020] In 'War On Restaurants', Media Champion Lockdown Narrative -

Sep 15, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The American Institute for Economic Research,

Just when the fear starts to subside, and growing public skepticism seems to push governors into opening, something predictable happens . The entire apparatus of mass media hops on some new, super-scary headline designed to instill more Coronaphobia and extend the lockdowns yet again.

It's a cycle that never stops. It comes back again and again.

A great example occurred this weekend. A poll appeared on Friday from the Kaiser Family Foundation. It showed that confidence in Anthony Fauci is evaporating along with support for lockdowns and mandatory Covid vaccines.

The news barely made the headlines, and very quickly this was overshadowed by a scary new claim: restaurants will give you Covid!

It's tailor-made for the mainstream press. The study is from the CDC, which means: credible. And the thesis is easily digestible: those who test positive for Covid are twice as likely as those who tested negative to have eaten at a restaurant.

"Eating and drinking on-site at locations that offer such options might be important risk factors associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection," the study says.

Very scary!

Thus the implied conclusion: don't allow indoor dining! Otherwise Covid will spread like wildfire!

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=606

After six months of this Corona Kabuki dance, driven by alarmist media and imposed by wacko, power-abusing governors and mayors, I've become rather cynical about the whole enterprise, so I mostly ignore the latest nonsense.

In this case, however, I decided to take a closer look simply because so many millions of owners, workers, and customers have been treated so brutally in the "War on Restaurants."

It turns out, of course, that this is not what the study said. What's more interesting is to consider exactly what's going on here. The study was based on interviews with 314 people who had been tested of their own volition. It included 154 patients with positive test results and 160 control participants with negative test results.

The interviews took place two weeks following the tests, and they concerned life activities two weeks prior to getting the test.

Before we go on here, remember that what alarmed people about Covid was the prospect of dying. The study says nothing about this subject, nor about hospitalization. It's a fair assumption that the positive cases being interviewed here got it (presumably, if the tests are accurate, which they are not ) and got over it.

This alone is interesting simply because it reveals how much the whole subject has been changed: the pandemic has become a casedemic.

Now, to the question of life activities. In the study, based on answers to a survey, the following were not correlated in any significant degree with positive cases of Covid:

Now one might suppose, if you think the study has any merit, that this would be the headline.

The massive power of the state has been deployed all over the United States and the world to force the closure of churches, gyms, offices, salons, and malls. This all happened and is still happening. Also mask mandates became the new normal. The public has been invited by health authorities to jeer at, denounce, and turn in anyone who doesn't have a cloth strapped to his or her face.

All of this happened in complete contradiction to every commercial right, property right, or normal human freedoms. We threw it all away in the name of virus control. Our lives have been completely upended and our assumptions about our rights and liberties have been overturned.

And yet here is a study that is unable to document any correlation between these life activities and catching the disease.

That's an amazing conclusion that could have generated headlines like:

And so on. But none of this was to be. Not one single story in the mainstream press said anything like this, even though this was all implied by the CDC study.

The one place that the study revealed a positive correlation between positive cases and life activities was going to restaurants.

So that's what got the alarmist headlines. Yes, these are all real.

And so on for thousands of times in every mainstream venue. They are all competing for clicks in the great agenda of extending lockdowns and feeding public fear as much as possible. So the worst-possible spin on this slightly sketchy study gets all the headlines.

Thus is it burned into many people's minds that restaurants are really disease-spreading venues. Go out to eat and you might die!

And here is what makes this even stranger. The interviewers never asked the people in the survey whether they were eating indoors or outdoors, as incredible as that seems. The authors admit this:

"Of note, the question assessing dining at a restaurant did not distinguish between indoor and outdoor options."

Why not? Did they just forget to ask? What's going on here?

Which is to say that even if the results are meaningful – and there's so much about this study that is murky and error prone – they are practically useless for knowing what to do about it. If there is no distinction between indoor and outdoor, all speculation about ventilation or crowds or the presence of food and so on, is utterly pointless.

Without knowing that, we are at a loss to figure out any answer to the question of why and what to do. Instead, the message comes down to: don't go out to eat.

Here is how bad the science has become. In the discussion, the authors write the following:

"Direction, ventilation, and intensity of airflow might affect virus transmission, even if social distancing measures and mask use are implemented according to current guidance. Masks cannot be effectively worn while eating and drinking, whereas shopping and numerous other indoor activities do not preclude mask use."

Here is what is weird: the study itself supports none of that paragraph.


The survey never asked about ventilation because the people who made the survey somehow forgot to make a query concerning indoor vs. outdoor dining . As for masks, the study did in fact ask respondents about mask wearing and the results showed no correlation between the sickness and whether and to what extent people were wearing masks!

In other words, that paragraph in the discussion is contradicted in two places by the authors' own study.

In addition, the authors themselves point to an intriguing issue: the people in the survey might have biased their answers based on their personal knowledge of the test results.

Think about it this way. The people who had a positive Covid test are more likely to ask themselves the great question: how did I get this? Going to restaurants is such a rare activity these days that it stands out in one's mind. When the survey asked people if they had gone out to eat, it is possible that the memory of the Covid positive person might be more likely to blame the restaurant, whereas the Covid negative person might be more likely to have forgotten the locale of every meal in the last 30 days.

In other words, the real result of the study might be: Covid patients are more likely to scapegoat restaurants than gyms, churches, and salons.

Alas, none of these interesting considerations appear in the media-rendered version of this study: panic and keep the lockdowns in place!

Lockdowns have become a conclusion in a desperate search for evidence. Imagine if you undertook a study of C-positive vs. C-negative cases and asked the people if they mostly wear lace-up or slip-on shoes. If you come up with some positive correlation, the CDC will publish you and a media panic will ensue.

This is precisely where we've been for six solid months now. The media has become the handmaiden of lockdown tyranny, blasting out simplistic versions of sketchy studies to keep the panic going as long as possible. And the public, which is far too trusting of the media and its capacity for rational and accurate reporting, eats it up.

For now. Once the dust settles on all of this, it seems highly likely that media science reporting will lose credibility for a generation. It certainly deserves that fate.

Meanwhile, an entire industry is being creamed .


play_arrow Walter Melon , 3 hours ago

Same CDC that said this the other day:

"Cloth masks that are used to slow the spread of COVID-19 offer little protection against wildfire smoke. They do not catch small particles found in wildfire smoke that can harm your health."

Just checking if that's the same CDC.

LA_Goldbug , 3 hours ago

Wow !!!!!

Nice find :-)

honest injun , 3 hours ago

At what point does the man on the street realize that he has been had? It took me about 2 weeks, 6 months ago to realize what Fauci and his cronies were saying was nonsense. Smart people that I know, took months to reach the same conclusion but many people are still buying the disinfo.

[Sep 10, 2020] Munk Debates- Scientific Community Has Over-Reacted To COVID-19 Threat ( The Data Proves It) -

Sep 10, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Via MunkDebates.com,

Are we overreacting to COVID-19?

Be it Resolved, the scientific community has overreacted to the threat of COVID-19 and the data prove it...

Six months into a global pandemic and 63,000 scientific papers later, scientists and medical researchers continue to be perplexed by COVID-19. There are many unknowns with the virus, and one of the most controversial is how deadly it really is. Since the beginning of the pandemic, leading health institutions such as the World Health Organization and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases have warned that COVID-19 is much more dangerous than the seasonal flu and that, without expansive public health measures, millions of people around the world could die from the virus.

But there are some in the scientific community who disagree. And they say they have the data to prove it. Antibody testing of large population groups indicates that we could be grossly underestimating the number of people who have been infected by the virus – which means we are dramatically overestimating the death rate. Given these findings, they question whether sweeping public health controls are the way to approach a possible second wave of COVID-19 this autumn.

GUESTS

To understand the true prevalence of COVID-19 infections in the United States, Jay Bhattacharya has recently undertaken several seroprevalence studies (the study of antibodies in a population). You can read about his study of Santa Clara County in California here and his study of 5,600 Major League Baseball employees here .

Sten Vermund has published numerous scholarly studies on infectious diseases, which you can view here .

During the debate both Jay and Sten speak about COVID-19's "infection fatality rate" (IFR). IFR is one of the most important characteristics of an infectious disease in determining its severity. It is basically the ultimate measure of a disease's ability to cause death. You can learn more about IFR and how it is estimated here . In the debate, both Jay and Sten agree that the current estimates of the COVID-19 infection fatality rates are overestimated and therefore misleading. To learn more, read Jay's Wall Street Journal op ed.

During the debate, Sten points out that between March and May of 2020 there was a 19 per cent excess death rate in the United States. Excess death rates refer to the difference between the observed numbers of deaths in specific time period and expected number of deaths in the same time period. According to Sten, the excess rates are probably 28 per cent higher than the official deaths tally of COVID-19 because so many cases are not reported. This Nature.com article supports this view.

about:blank

me title=

Jay argues that part of the science community's overreaction to COVID-19 has been censorship of unpopular scientific views . Jay refers to an op ed in the New York Times by Michael Eisen that expresses concern about how scientific study pre-prints are being released before they are peer reviewed, and calling for the establishment of a scientific "rapid review" service for pre-prints.

One of the scientists Jay identifies as having an unorthodox view on COVID-19 is Gabriela Gomez, She speaks about her research on herd immunity occurring when as little as ten percent of the population has been infected with the virus here and you can read her research article here .

Sten and Jay disagree with each other about the feasibility of isolating the most vulnerable members of society, particularly the elderly, while letting the rest of the population continue to live normally . Sten refers to a New York Times article by David Katz which supports the strategy of "vertical interdiction", where those over 60 are "preferentially protected."

Jay refers to the recent release of findings from a Public Health England study that found negligible spread among one million students who returned to school in June.

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During the debate Jay identifies Sweden's approach to COVID-19 as a model for the world, while Sten argues it represents a failed strategy. You can decide for yourself by listening to the Munk Debate, Be it resolved, Sweden is the model for how to fight this pandemic and the next.

Listen to the full debate below:

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/962-the-munk-debates-podcast-p-52131924/episode/be-it-resolved-the-scientific-community-71215453/?embed=true


[Sep 06, 2020] Inactive fragments on virus RNA trigger false positives in most common COVID test due to way too many cycles of amplification which amplifies noise along with the signal and efffectly turns noise (inactive fragments on RNA) into signal, new study finds

Highly recommended!
From comments: "Article is poorly written by someone who does not know medical science. There are no viral "cells" so the headline is a put off right away. The comment about "sensitivity" is misplaced as PCR tests are too sensitive: ergo false positives. I believe "specificity" is the word the author was searching for. If a test lumps true positives with false positives, then it lacks specificity."
Sep 05, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

In the past, our reports raising questions about the accuracy of COVID-19 tests have been met with accusations of 'fearmongering' and spreading 'misinformation'.

But not today.

That's because new research from the University of Oxford's Center for Evidence-Based Medicine and the University of the West of England has found that the swab-based technique used for most COVID-19 testing is at risk of returning "false positives" since copies of the virus's RNA detected by the tests might simply be dead, inactive material from a weeks-old infection. Although patients infected with COVID-19 are typically only infectious for a week or less, tests can be triggered by virus genetic material left over from a weeks-old infection.

The team's research involved analyzing 25 studies on the widely used polymerase chain reaction test. PCR tests use material collected with a swab - the most common type of test around the world, and especially in the US - then utilize a "genetic photocopying" technique that allows scientists to magnify the small sample of genetic material collected, which they can then analyze for signs of viral RNA.

What the researchers here have effectively found is that these PCR tests just aren't sensitive enough to distinguish if the viral material is active and infectious, or dead and inert.

For those who desire a more comprehensive understanding of how these tests work, the chart below can be helpful.

Professor Carl Heneghan, one of the authors of the study, said there was a risk that a surge in testing across the UK was increasing the risk of this sample contamination occurring and it may explain why the number of Covid-19 cases is rising but the number of deaths is static.

"Evidence is mounting that a good proportion of 'new' mild cases and people re-testing positives after quarantine or discharge from hospital are not infectious, but are simply clearing harmless virus particles which their immune system has efficiently dealt with," he told the Spectator.

Professor Heneghan added that international scrutiny might be required to avoid "the dangers of isolating non-infectious people or whole communities." ZKnight 14 minutes ago

Fake science. How about purify the virus first and establish a gold standard for testing first. No, of course not because the CDC has a patent for Covid-19 and nobody is allowed to try find it to see if it exists. play_arrow LogicFusion 27 minutes ago

Everybody is a Covid-19 / Coronavirus expert now!

Read about the failed coin dealer and convicted felon's performance. It's hilarious!

Martin Armstrong becomes Covid-19 Coronavirus Expert overnight play_arrow ducksinarow 59 minutes ago

Covid -19 has been so politicized that I don't believe a word of any publication for or against testing, existence of the Virus, or anything that provokes testing or issues opinions about locking down communities. Just like the riots, Covid news is just plain boring. play_arrow ominous 3 hours ago

Link to spectator.co.uk goes to home page, not this story.

Where is the original story posted? play_arrow play_arrow ominous 3 hours ago (Edited)

Perhaps this

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/infectious-positive-pcr-test-result-covid-19/ y_arrow 1 Rabbi Blitzstein 38 minutes ago

"Give me control of a nation's money, and I care not who makes the laws" - Mayer Amschel Rothschild. play_arrow play_arrow tangent 4 hours ago remove link

People who recommend a vaccine for an entirely cured virus should lose their license to practice medicine. 99.9% cure rate applying to people who take it before being hospitalized is one of the biggest success stories in the history of medicine for HCQ. Not only that, but there are multiple other likely cures that simply have not been studied well. You'd think people would appreciate the fact that the common cold has been cured, but instead they just whine that big pharma isn't getting those bucko bucks.

I honestly expected a ticker tape parade like in the movies when that first cure study came out. But instead they took a massive **** on the study and on the doctor... ****ty world we live in. ay_arrow Pair Of Dimes Shift 2 hours ago

An exec (55+) at my company is gung ho about the vaccine.

Unfortunately, I just had to give him a "wait and see" response although I know vaccines for coronaviruses are impossible. play_arrow 2 play_arrow ThanksIwillHaveAnother 4 hours ago (Edited)

Viruses are not full cells. They are DNA/RNA wrapped with a protein the clings to a cell then the cell imports the DNA/RNA to start making its proteins. So what is inactive? If that person sneezes on another person depending on immune system status that other person could get a bad infection. y_arrow 4 CrabbyR 3 hours ago

viruses utilizes CELL structures and host DNA to replicate dna or rna according to the viruses genetic code, the protein jacket is the final product to

disguise the virus from detection and to bind on another cell after the compromised cell RUPTURES, there's more to it but if it cannot copy itself effectively it can become nonviable and unable to infect another cell. It replicates DNA inside a host cell, It is not a complete organism and cannot replicate unless it can inject its DNA into a host cell. Antibodies cling to viruses and destroy this ability to bind to a target cell. A non viable virus has a damaged coat or DNA RNA that has to many Dimers (damage or code breaks) Bacteria is more in line with what you think a virus is y_arrow onewayticket2 4 hours ago (Edited) remove link

they lost me when they changed the definition of "death" to include "presumed, untested" cases (while bI@#$% ing at me that we needed to "follow the science")....and even got busted for the laughable motorcycle accident being classified as a covid death and the Labs that were sending in 100% positive results. (until they were caught) play_arrow OutaTime43 4 hours ago remove link

The test detects RNA. Not necessarily viable virus. Also, it will detect RNA presence in an individual who may already have antibodies and may be immune. We are bombarded daily by viruses of which we already have immunity. play_arrow sun tzu 10 hours ago

Shocking news that the South Koreans already discovered and published back in May. Western big pharma driven medicine is garbage 😂😂😂

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/05/wha-passes-pandemic-probe-resolution-korea-clarifies-reinfection-reports

play_arrow Roger Casement 10 hours ago

WTF!!!!

World Bank exporting COVID-19 Testing Kits in 2018??????

https: // wits.worldbank.org/trade/comtrade/en/country/ALL/year/2018/tradeflow/Exports/partner/WLD/nomen/h5/product/300215 play_arrow 7 play_arrow sun tzu 10 hours ago

Interesting play_arrow play_arrow Jack Mehoff 1 more time 9 hours ago

Business as usual play_arrow play_arrow Argon1 7 hours ago

Preparation for agenda 2021 in 2017. play_arrow 1 play_arrow CrabbyR 4 hours ago

WOW.......ties a few strands from other sources together into a real ugly picture play_arrow play_arrow Welsh Bard 10 hours ago

The professor who won the Nobel prize for work in this field, said that the way this test is being operated with over forty cycles, means that any results are entirely meaningless.

In Britain, having spent over £15 billion setting up PCR testing systems and a shaky test and trace apparatus on top of that, it appears that 90% of positive results now appear to be false. This is compounded by the fact that when a hot spot develops, more testing is done to show a rapid increase in more false positive results, meaning further new lockdowns and even more testing to prove yet more false positive results ad infinitum.

Now whether this is by design or ineptitude, people must decide for themselves but the outcome is utter chaos.

For those countries who have not followed the Swedish model especially countries like Australia and New Zealand who have set up complete isolation, now face a future perpetually cut off from the rest of the world.

Okay, new techniques will and are coming along to treat the disease like HCQ when used correctly maybe as a prophylactic and a vaccine that will need to be constantly upgraded like the Flu vaccine, means that the whole world has painted itself into a corner unless drastic revision is now made to the whole sorry mess.

In the meantime, we will now be stuck with digital currency and the introduction of ID Health Cards that will limit people in how they travel where they work and access to a whole heap of things like government services.

Welcome to the new world order! play_arrow 1 KuriousKat 11 hours ago (Edited) remove link

Don't tell the Shameless Aussie gov that after arresting hundreds for simply voicing doubt on need to lockdown entire city...Next time it will be thousands and not a damn thing they can do to stop it..These people are trickling us the truth how worthless the tests are when pretty much everyone knows. play_arrow espirit 12 hours ago remove link

Lessee.

WHO

Imperial College

John Hopkins

CDC

Line all those peeps up against the wall, and the first one to rat gets to live.

I'll provide my own ammo... ay_arrow Sick Monkey 6 hours ago

Not everyone working in these agencies are dishonest but like you and I we have to work and eat.

Most of them are trapped in this mess with bills to pay threatened by NDA.


play_arrow 1 Urban Roman 12 hours ago

Not particularly new news. Been talked about since April at least -- it's an RNA virus, it has its own polymerase, and it leaves lots of RNA fragments in its wake.

The Corona family of viruses make 5 or 6 strands with partial copies of their RNA molecule. negative copies are made first, and then copied again into positive copies. Finally the one big RNA is made with the entire genome on it.

So about a dozen RNA molecules are made for each finished virus particle that is produced. And finally, a variety of different primers are used for the PCR tests, some are matched to the small partial RNA copies and others are matched to various features on the large whole-virus RNA. They can give different results for the same sample.

So, someone who registers on a PCR test has probably been exposed to the virus, but the test gives no clue as to whether it is an active infection, or the person is contagious, or they are just coming down with it, or they got over it six months ago. play_arrow 4 play_arrow 1

10 play_arrow gordo 12 hours ago remove link

Sweden, no masks, no lock downs, ALL SCHOOLS OPEN, herd immunity, no second wave.

Still think your masks and lock downs are working muppets?


1 play_arrow The 3rd Dimentia 13 hours ago

https://youtu.be/sjYvitCeMPc SARS-CoV2 and the Rise of Medical Technocracy. Lee Merritt, M.D. play_arrow 3 play_arrow hugin-o-munin 13 hours ago

I'm glad to see that many are starting to counter the official narrative.

We've been asleep for too long and allowed these agendas to fester to the point we're at now where a college dropout software salesman and a former 3rd world communist terrorist (neither of whom have any medical degree) are dictating to the world how everyone needs to get a DNA altering vaccine and a medical ID. It's completely nuts and bonkers yet more or less the entire planet's governments follow in 'lockstep' with ever more draconian laws and regulations incarcerating people in their own homes, making them wear masks causing oxygen deprivation and shutting down the entire world economy.


lay_arrow Warthog777 , 13 hours ago

Article is poorly written by someone who does not know medical science. There are no viral "cells" so the headline is a put off right away. The comment about "sensitivity" is misplaced as PCR tests are too sensitive: ergo false positives. I believe "specificity" is the word the author was searching for. If a test lumps true positives with false positives, then it lacks specificity.

Cabreado , 13 hours ago

"accusations of 'fearmongering' and spreading 'misinformation'.
But not today."

Well, much of the world has known for months now about the testing lies...

and I'd be remiss to not remind the Tylers that they indeed played a role in the fear mongering along the way; quite intently so.

Crush the cube , 13 hours ago

https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Flavio_Bell_Covid_24?id=SxrxDwAAQBAJ

Busted, published 2018, what a scam.

Digital-Anarchy , 14 hours ago

Anyone who would use the term "virus cells", has no clue what they're talking about and should be completely disregarded. Viruses are not cells. PCR tests are searching for something your body produces in response to a virus as well. They are not produced specifically for a singular virus either. The entire concept of PCR testing is garbage. This **** was a scam from the get-go.

hugin-o-munin , 13 hours ago

Yes it is evident now that this entire pandemic is false and political. The goal seems to be to vaccinate entire populations and the question people need to ask is - why? what for? Aside from the obvious economic motives there are some more sinister plans that most people will have a hard time accepting but these need to be looked at. Several years ago there were a group of doctors and researchers that died of suspicious suicides who were collaborating and studying vaccines and the link to autism.

The effort was led by Dr.Jeffrey Bradstreet who was researching the natural substance GcMAF and how this could boost the immune system. What he discovered was that many vaccines had a compound/substance called Nagalase in them that is unnatural and has a detrimental effect on the immune system and function of GcMAF (which is produced by our own bodies) and has no business at all being in vaccines. Just before he was able to blow the whistle on this he also died of a suspicious 'suicide' and today most of the clinics and research groups working on GcMAF have been destroyed and ruined. Draw your own conclusions.

snblitz , 14 hours ago

Dr. Kary Mullis invented the PCR test. He said it was ineffective for this purpose.

Though he was addressing its use in a prior virus hoax unleashed upon the world.

I bet you didn't know this scam has been used before.

That is why I was able to call out the scam right from the start. The second I saw them using the PCR again, I knew it was from the same playbook.

snblitz , 14 hours ago

So many lies.

Viruses are not alive. They have no metabolic functions. They cannot move.

Don't believe me? Get a degree is virology or microbiology or just a read a book on the subject. Or capture a wuhan-virus yourself and watch it under a microscope. It won't move. It won't consume anything. It will just sit there inert.

The problem is that you are being lied to at a scale you cannot imagine.

I know, off to the fema re-education camp for me for spreading false information about the wuhan-virus.

Though I am not the one spreading fear and hysteria.

aldousd , 13 hours ago

There article is confused, but the work of the doctor is not. Viruses use your cells to reproduce. When your immune system targets the virus it actually kills your own cell which has become host to the virus. The virus particles and markers, and the DNA of the virus can be detected in these dead cells, but dead cells cannot serve as a factory for more viruses. So it's effectively a dead virus infected cell. Not a dead virus cell.

So while the transcription of the idea here was done by an idiot, it's not an idiotic idea. The tests cannot tell if the virus came in a living cell that is actively producing more viruses or a dead host cell that has been assassinated by your immune system. That's what they're talking about here.

mstyle , 11 hours ago

what about the chromosome 8 stuff that has been mentioned lately?

(since you appear to be rather intelligent)

hugin-o-munin , 11 hours ago

Thanks. Well the chromosome 8 discovery in the PCR test specifications/details is strange and worrying because it makes you wonder why it's part of this at all. Some believe it's to get more false positive results while others believe it is what the mRNA vaccines are intended to target and if that's right then it's really sinister. What exactly is the plan? To make all of us get Downs Syndrome? I don't know but judging by all their other lies and schemes it wouldn't surprise me.

IRC162 , 14 hours ago

Fuggin progressives and their pandemic political prop. But really this reaction is the same as their reaction to 'racial injustice'. They focus on feelings before the facts are known in order to achieve their end, and then do their best to bury/ignore the facts when they are gathered later.

94% COVID deaths with multiple comorbidities.

10 unarmed blacks killed by police in 2019 (6 were in self-defense).

adr , 15 hours ago

Why didn't you mention that nearly all labs are running 35-40 cycles which guarantees a positive test, simply from noise.

The inventor of the test said if you don't find anything after 15 cycles, it probably isn't there. After 20 cycles the noise starts to be greater than any real information. By 30, the test is mostly noise. More than 35, the test is completely worthless.

Of course I've been saying this for five months, but most people didn't listen. After the NYT article came out, people I know started saying, "How did you know?"

I said, "Because I have critical thinking skills. Why didn't you believe me? Name a time I've steered you wrong."

Antiduck , 14 hours ago

333 labs in florida had 100% positivity. (stupid word.)

ZenStick , 12 hours ago

Exactly correct.
Nobody will touch this line of reasoning in public or on media.
Bastages.

Identify as Ferengi , 15 hours ago

See above, Born2Bwired.

The PCR test is not useful for what they are using it for apparently. This has been known since the beginning. Here is quote regarding AIDS:

"Kary Mullis, who won the Nobel Prize in Science for inventing the PCR, is thoroughly convinced that HIV is not the cause of "AIDS". With regard to the viral load tests, which attempt to use PCR for counting viruses, Mullis has stated: "Quantitative PCR is an oxymoron." PCR is intended to identify substances qualitatively, but by its very nature is unsuited for estimating numbers. Although there is a common misimpression that the viral load tests actually count the number of viruses in the blood, these tests cannot detect free, infectious viruses at all; they can only detect proteins that are believed, in some cases wrongly, to be unique to HIV. The tests can detect genetic sequences of viruses, but not viruses themselves.

What PCR does is to select a genetic sequence and then amplify it enormously. It can accomplish the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack; it can amplify that needle into a haystack. Like an electronically amplified antenna, PCR greatly amplifies the signal, but it also greatly amplifies the noise. Since the amplification is exponential, the slightest error in measurement, the slightest contamination, can result in errors of many orders of magnitude."

http://www.virusmyth.org/aids/hiv/jlprotease.htm

naro , 15 hours ago

NYTimes article last week suggested that only 10% of Covid positive PCR tests are clinically significant and infectious.

[Sep 06, 2020] Lemmings and COVID-19: in a year people will start to realize that they were taken for ride by medical technocracy, which wants to increase thier power; but it will be too late

Fauci became the symbol of excesses of neoliberal medical technocracy.
Sep 06, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

LetThemEatRand , 15 hours ago

In six or twelve months a majority of people will start to get that they were had. It will be too late.

afronaut , 15 hours ago

Doubt it. Unless the media or government says it

palmereldritch , 14 hours ago

There will be mask wearing long before then for totally different reasons.

mstyle , 11 hours ago

There's a rather large percentage of the US population that's going to die with a mask on their face, a BLM sign in their yard, and a Lemon on their screen.

Sad :-(

_wayfarer , 9 hours ago

They were had with 9/11, never got it.

Salisarsims , 5 hours ago

Most of the United States where had by 9/11, and still are.

BlueGreen , 15 hours ago

End lockdowns around the world now! Lockdowns kill. Never again. Sweden's death rate is lower than US, and many other countries.

https://fee.org/articles/sweden-now-has-a-lower-covid-19-death-rate-than-the-us-here-s-why-it-matters/

drendebe10 , 15 hours ago

Gaedamfukn democrap virus. Botox face carcinogenic hair dyed fossilized demented nasty wicked witch of the west ... and her army of flying monkey stooge guvners and mayors keeping their states shut down to oust Orange Julius and they could give two diarrhea schitz about you and your family All these terds care about is power

NoDebt , 15 hours ago

It's not just that the (government) response to this virus has ****** a lot of people royally, it's the absolute certainty that they will do it again in exactly the same manner, pretty much every damned year moving forward forever.

MaF , 15 hours ago

In many blue states they can do it until 2022 when they are voted out...unless the people rise up.

drendebe10 , 15 hours ago

Sheeple rise up? Phat phukn chance

PaulDF , 15 hours ago

Hey, some people think that as long as Trump is gone ~ it doesn't matter what it takes. Nothing is too extreme.

palmereldritch , 14 hours ago

The MS-DOS virus subscription model.

Sound familiar? lay_arrow

Implied Violins , 15 hours ago

The Nobel Prize winner, Kary Mullis, who developed the PCR test called out Fraudci for his ******** during the AIDS crisis on Nightline back in 1994:

https://www.sott.net/article/434439-Was-the-COVID-19-test-meant-to-detect-a-virus

Even then that ******* was practicing fraud in order to garner more tax dollars. His "test" ruined hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives.

Fraudci deserves to be EXECUTED for his BS.

EuroPox , 16 hours ago

Who cares how many 'cases' there are? The virus is not lethal except for a tiny number of people, who already have other problems. Quarantine them and let the rest of us get on with it.

TeamDepends , 16 hours ago

COVID-19 is as real as Muhammed Atta.

[Sep 01, 2020] The Age of the Mega-City is Over by JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER

Notable quotes:
"... Meanwhile, as politicians forced lockdowns, the city's restaurants and shops went dark, along with theaters, museums, stadiums, and the other organisms that made up the city's rich ecosystem of daily life. ..."
"... The prospect of midtown perhaps permanently abandoned by office workers made an eventual return to normality even less plausible. After four months of virus, the June riots and looting that followed the horrific death of George Floyd sealed the deal, with the luxury stores on Fifth Avenue smashed up and burgled. Who would reopen such a business when riots and looting could break out over a fresh pretext at any time? ..."
"... All of that completely changed the business model for the owners of skyscrapers -- whole floors going empty and now the ground-floor businesses shut down, too. These buildings, with their massive maintenance costs, no longer produced enough revenue to operate them. ..."
"... The situation also harmed the condominium model for residential towers. Without the ground-floor rents, the homeowner's associations would have to steeply raise the monthly maintenance fees for each apartment owner, while significantly lowering each unit's resale value if the owner had to move out. All of this would thunder through the banks and REITs (real estate investment trusts) which owned and managed many of these properties, and ultimately through the city's dwindling treasury coffers. ..."
"... Many like to believe that office towers can be easily converted to apartments. That's just not true. Apart from purely physical issues, like the layout of plumbing stacks, the coming scarcity of capital will obviate these ventures, and, anyway, tower apartments only exist because they're companions to office towers, which may now be permanently obsolete. ..."
"... The pre-virus 21st century New York was a grandiose product of the financialization of the economy, including the global money-laundering orgy that incentivized the luxury condo tower building boom. That's over too. With so many other legacy economic activities flickering out, Wall Street was all that remained. All that held up Wall Street's stock and bond markets was "liquidity" (i.e. money in figment form) prestidigitated by the Federal Reserve. And now even Wall Street had little incentive for maintaining its headquarters on Wall Street, with its wealthy denizens trading and finagling via the Internet from comfortable perches in the Hamptons and the Connecticut hinterlands. ..."
"... For the moment, a lot of former city people are seeking refuge in the suburbs. That will prove to be a bad choice. The suburbs, too, are headed for trouble -- and I'll take that up in next month's commentary. ..."
"... Wow, there's like no facts in this article. Dense living is actually cheaper than sprawl. You need significantly less infrastructure to supporter tall buildings than you do for the same square footage spread out over acres. ..."
"... Less heating and cooling is needed as well since the building have smaller surface areas (1 roof and 1 ground touching floor compared to 50 roofs and floors for a 50 story building). The writer works in a low margin, low innovation industry. Major cities dominate the high innovation industries, that will continue. ..."
"... Higher population density means there are more people to tax to pay for infrastructure maintenance. I've read about suburbs that are struggling to pay for essential maintenance. ..."
"... These are awfully big conclusions to be drawing from not quite six months of crisis: NYC is making progress on reopening, helped considerably by widespread (though not perfect) adoption of the basic public prevention methods. Restaurants have taken a hit, but the survivors are investing in outdoor spaces, which are being enthusiastically patronized. Museums are reopening (Met this week, others in the next four or five weeks). People are starting to see their friends in person again. ..."
"... Cities make it effective for industries that thrive on collaboration AND competition. I work for a software company that works with other software companies (and competes with). Apple and Google both collaborate with hundreds of companies near them. Really thousands. ..."
"... What makes cities disappear is the breakdown and disintergration of the state-order. For example, many cities went into a major decline after the fall of the Western half of the Roman empire. ..."
"... Depending on the definition of "mega-city", I'm not sure its age ever arrived. A town only needs a population of five thousand to qualify as "urban" - when I was growing up, it was half that - which means much of the urban population consists of small towns. ..."
Aug 31, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Urban life has always been about the concentration of life and work, but it doesn't have to be at the colossal scale.

In just a few months, New York City became the poster-child for what's shaping up to be a staggering transformation of the American urban scene. Our giant metroplex cities are set to contract and go broke in the years ahead. The trend was already clear before Covid-19 came on the scene, but the virus accelerated the complex dynamics behind it. Of course, most of our cities occupy important geographic sites, so something will remain; but they will be smaller and increasingly troubled places as the agonizing process plays out. And eventually, they may be better places, in a different way.

The short version of the story is that our biggest cities have exceeded the viable scale of their operation as we enter an era of resource and capital scarcities that will inescapably shrink economies. Their infrastructure is too complex and costly to maintain. The skyscrapers and megastructures that were built to accommodate a particular way of organizing work have very suddenly gone obsolete. The cities face default on their ruinous debt obligations and pension promises. Social and ethnic conflict has turned ugly, and both life and property are at risk as public order founders.

By May 2020, The New York Times reported that 420,000 residents had fled America's largest city, not a few of them permanently (my literary agent among them, whose pre-virus life revolved around eating lunch with editors every day). The wealthiest neighborhoods were the biggest losers -- and they were the city's leading taxpayers. Of course, the initial impetus for flight was fear of catching Covid-19 in an environment densely packed with people. But as corporate offices shuttered, many of these refugees performed their work duties at home over the Internet, and it dawned on the corporations that perhaps it was a waste to lease expensive, high-status headquarters in Manhattan. The iconic Time-Life Building at 1271 Sixth Avenue had accommodated 8,000 workers before Covid-19. In mid-summer 2020, 500 people were showing up there.

Meanwhile, as politicians forced lockdowns, the city's restaurants and shops went dark, along with theaters, museums, stadiums, and the other organisms that made up the city's rich ecosystem of daily life.

The prospect of midtown perhaps permanently abandoned by office workers made an eventual return to normality even less plausible. After four months of virus, the June riots and looting that followed the horrific death of George Floyd sealed the deal, with the luxury stores on Fifth Avenue smashed up and burgled. Who would reopen such a business when riots and looting could break out over a fresh pretext at any time?

All of that completely changed the business model for the owners of skyscrapers -- whole floors going empty and now the ground-floor businesses shut down, too. These buildings, with their massive maintenance costs, no longer produced enough revenue to operate them. Overnight, they were transformed from assets to liabilities.

The situation also harmed the condominium model for residential towers. Without the ground-floor rents, the homeowner's associations would have to steeply raise the monthly maintenance fees for each apartment owner, while significantly lowering each unit's resale value if the owner had to move out. All of this would thunder through the banks and REITs (real estate investment trusts) which owned and managed many of these properties, and ultimately through the city's dwindling treasury coffers.

Many like to believe that office towers can be easily converted to apartments. That's just not true. Apart from purely physical issues, like the layout of plumbing stacks, the coming scarcity of capital will obviate these ventures, and, anyway, tower apartments only exist because they're companions to office towers, which may now be permanently obsolete. The age of giantism is over. Cities are certainly about the concentration of life and work, but it doesn't have to be at the colossal scale. For many centuries it wasn't.

The pre-virus 21st century New York was a grandiose product of the financialization of the economy, including the global money-laundering orgy that incentivized the luxury condo tower building boom. That's over too. With so many other legacy economic activities flickering out, Wall Street was all that remained. All that held up Wall Street's stock and bond markets was "liquidity" (i.e. money in figment form) prestidigitated by the Federal Reserve. And now even Wall Street had little incentive for maintaining its headquarters on Wall Street, with its wealthy denizens trading and finagling via the Internet from comfortable perches in the Hamptons and the Connecticut hinterlands.

All American cities are not the same, of course, and they will get to downscaling in their own special way, subject to different combinations of forces. For instance, Sunbelt cities like Atlanta, Miami, and Dallas are mostly composed of low-rise buildings. But they owe their stupendous growth since 1950 to the phenomenon of universal air-conditioning and mass motoring, both of which will prove to be extraordinary short-lived luxuries of the cheap fossil fuel age. Los Angeles will be challenged by ethnic friction, water problems, and its extreme car dependency (and you can forget about solving that with electric cars). All the cities will be plagued by an epic loss of tax revenue and the failure of government to maintain essential services.

The foregoing suggests epic demographic shifts. People will be on the move -- they already are -- as the cities decant. If the current political mood is any index of things to come, those movements will occur against the background of considerable disorder. That has already begun, too, in the summer of 2020 as looting, burning, and anarchy spread from one place to another. For the moment, a lot of former city people are seeking refuge in the suburbs. That will prove to be a bad choice. The suburbs, too, are headed for trouble -- and I'll take that up in next month's commentary.

James Howard Kunstler is The American Conservative' s New Urbanism Fellow. He is the author of numerous books on urban geography and economics, including his recent work, Living in the Long Emergency: Global Crisis, the Failure of the Futurists, and the Early Adapters Who Are Showing Us the Way Forward .

Dr. Ron Paul: "Here's What I Think Is Coming Next for America" Stansberry Research



Tomonthebeach a day ago

About 15 years ago, I started telecommuting several days a week. Our employer, the National Institutes of Health, even provided PCs and subsidized our ISP fees. That started me wondering why businesses kept building office buildings when it would be less costly to work from home. NIH likely got more work out of me because I did not have to drive to lunch, and time telecommuting was often spent working. Even before telecommuting, Skype meetings were at least a weekly occurrence as we had projects in foreign countries, and professional activities included collaboration with overseas colleagues across the US.

The best answer I could come up with I derived from my years of organizational surveys for FAA and the White House. Most supervisors opposed telework because they had no metrics to ensure people were not slacking off. This struck me as odd, because slacking off would be readily apparent in a drop off in productivity, or increasing customer complaints, or even co-worker complaints. Those are crappy metrics, but they are better than nothing - yet bosses wanted to visually count noses.

Of course, there were other signs that office buildings were going obsolete. For example, Chicago started renaming the iconic John Hancock building and the Sears Tower. Something was not right. The pandemic merely hastened the wake-up call that nobody needed a headquarters anymore. Cities turned deserted factories into lofts. I wonder what they will used empty skyscrapers for.

dermotmara 19 hours ago

It's an interesting view, and may come to pass. Do you think this will be the case in Chinese cities which dwarf most US cities, but are centrally controlled? Or in European cities which have been on a drive for space & livability instead of high-rise, and public transport or biking instead of cars?

Victor_the_thinker 17 hours ago

Wow, there's like no facts in this article. Dense living is actually cheaper than sprawl. You need significantly less infrastructure to supporter tall buildings than you do for the same square footage spread out over acres.

Less heating and cooling is needed as well since the building have smaller surface areas (1 roof and 1 ground touching floor compared to 50 roofs and floors for a 50 story building). The writer works in a low margin, low innovation industry. Major cities dominate the high innovation industries, that will continue.

Also what is he talking about an era where we lack capital? We have tons of capital. We are the reserve currency. If he's talking about social security and can print out own money and haven't seen inflation still. We have massive room to raise taxes too. We're at the highest level of inequality seen in a century and far outstrip other developed countries on this metric.

Dan Fay Victor_the_thinker 15 hours ago

Yes and no. From a high-level perspective, cities should be cheaper to provision infrastructure for. In practice, at least in the US, infrastructure projects are immensely expensive in big cities.

It gets even worse when you look at the provisioning of public goods like K-12 schools and policing.

Victor_the_thinker Dan Fay 14 hours ago

Regardless of what you think about the cost of infrastructure projects, they are expensive where wherever you do them. Rural areas are the most expensive areas to do infrastructure in America.

pja Victor_the_thinker 3 hours ago

you are correct. There is a reason broadband in rural America either lousy, expensive, or both. Low densities make it problematic on a per capita basis. Hence why Congress appropriated $20b for rural broadband - no provider wants to build where they can't turn a proft

gnt Dan Fay 2 hours ago

Higher population density means there are more people to tax to pay for infrastructure maintenance. I've read about suburbs that are struggling to pay for essential maintenance.

Connecticut Farmer Victor_the_thinker 15 hours ago

"Major cities dominate the high innovation industries, that will continue."

I would substitute "major metropolitan centers" for "major cities" (see examples below):

Google--Menlo Park,CA
Facebook--As above
IBM--Armonk, NY
Microsoft--Redmond, WA
Apple--Cupertino, CA

Google, FB and Apple are located in the SanFran-Oakland metro area, with IBM and Microsoft located in suburban New York City and Seattle respectively. There are many tech companies in Boston strewn along both the outer I-495 and inner I-95 belts, both of which wrap around Boston (Raytheon is based in Waltham, MA, just east of I-95). as well as the famous Raleigh-Durham Research Triangle. Tech companies need space-"campuses" as they are called-in order to do their work. Such space is limited in big cities, especially older cities.

Victor_the_thinker Connecticut Farmer 14 hours ago

The vast majority of the high tech stuff in Boston is within Cambridge, not those old rt 128 buildings. Almost the entire biotech/pharma industry is within a few miles in Cambridge. Google has a location in Cambridge. The IBM Watson lab is in Cambridge. All that biotech requires lab space. There is a ton of it within the city.

Wydra Victor_the_thinker 11 hours ago

Rte 128 had a good shot until Ken Olsen came to the conclusion that nobody would ever want to have a computer in their home.
The proximity to world class Universities and Colleges will ensure that the Boston/Cambridge metro area will remain attractive.

Victor_the_thinker Wydra 11 hours ago

The majority of those jobs have moved into the city now. There are still huge amounts of high tech jobs being produced in Boston. I work in Pharma in business development. You HAVE to have a presence in Boston if you're going to be on the cutting edge of biological research. The universities are spinning off companies left and right. California is leading in computer based tech for sure but Boston is leading in biotechnology.

empidonax_road Connecticut Farmer 14 hours ago

Google has a massive three-city-block facility in NYC, with plans to expand, Twitter has a good-sized building a few blocks away (the one Laura Loomer chained herself to briefly). Disney has leveled a full city block a bit to the south of that and is currently building a new massive structure on the site.

Tech is an area where competition for top workers is ferocious. Possible that it's easier to recruit people to live in Chelsea than in Armonk?

Astral Traveller empidonax_road 14 hours ago

Tech's growth is a great stimulus. And that to Congress' recent expansion of H1B visas these cities will soon resemble Bombay.

What Should Be Astral Traveller 12 hours ago

"And that to Congress' recent expansion of H1B visas these cities will soon resemble Bombay."

That's got to change. Unemployment is the worst in almost a hundred years, tens of millions of Americans. H1B and all the other foreign worker visa program should have been abolished long ago, at the very latest after the pandemic started, but our corrupt politicians keeps letting them come.

There should be no foreigners or foreign workers here now. None. Americans need every job in America, the law should state and enforce that, and American executives who evade it with outsourcing tricks and falsified visa affidavits should be in prison.

MPC What Should Be 4 hours ago

Long ago, when the unemployment rate was the best in a long time? It'd perhaps be good to have mechanisms that tie visas to unemployment in some impartial way, that sentiment I can agree with as a practical matter, but the rest of your statements about foreigners are ridiculous. Moderated immigration of talented, ambitious people is a big net gain. I grew up around people like this and you better be on your toes and push yourself because they leave you in the dust otherwise. Agribusiness, tech, media, ie America's biggest cash cows are all heavily reliant on immigrants.

Extreme positions like 'no foreigners!' play right in to the uncoordinated duct taped system we have now. You need to realize that everyone has a seat at the table, and consensus is needed for action.

Victor_the_thinker Connecticut Farmer 14 hours ago

Just so you know, Raleigh-Durham isn't a huge tech leader at least as measured by VC funding. It only constitutes .5% of all VC spending. Atlanta is a bigger deal as far as VC spending than the research triangle.

https://www.google.com/amp/...

Annie from Alaska Connecticut Farmer 13 hours ago • edited
Google, FB and Apple are located in the SanFran-Oakland metro area,

They are located in the outskirts of what grew from Sand Hill Road. Silicon Valley has San Francisco as an amenity, not the other way around.

This supports your point, though.

IBM and Microsoft located in suburban New York City and Seattle respectively.

I didn't think of Armonk as a suburb before, but you're right. I suppose you'd probably drive to White Plains and then take the train, or something like that.

IBM has a very distributed workforce, though, including a highrise in NYC's midtown, so there may be an element of confirmation bias at work here.

Tech companies need space-"campuses" as they are called-in order to do their work. Such space is limited in big cities, especially older cities.

This might be wrong. Google owns the Port Authority building in NYC. It's a full city block and 20 floors, which competes in terms of raw space with their campuses.

In Mountain View their hiring consolidation combined with NIMBYism has sent housing prices through the roof. In NYC Google's hiring doesn't make a dent because they're spread over a large city with companies and people coming and going all the time. The housing bubble and low quality of life in Mountain View is an international joke.

The "campus" model is good for a stable company that will exist for multiple generations without changing size so housing can be built for the workers of that company and not peak or crater in value. When the company implodes the town is destroyed. People's accumulated home wealth is destroyed with it so the individual people are not more mobile than the homes they live in. I think this happens too often, and somewhat by design. Our laws around companies make them easy to start and easy to fold up. I don't think a company stable enough to warrant a company-town campus, like Armonk was and is or like Mountain View has recently become, exists. This concept was also a bubble that had a culty appeal in that brief span between when it was invented and when the first company-town companies started to implode.

We don't want towns to become dependent on any one company, and the companies are becoming huge. That means the convenient and sustainable commuting radius of the town needs to be huge in terms of number of people, not miles. It could be a dense place with bad trains like NYC or a sprawling place with good trains like Washington DC.

I look forward to seeing the "new urbs" take on this arrangement. Will we work and live in the same town? If not, how will we get around?

Connecticut Farmer Annie from Alaska 13 hours ago

Interesting. I've heard that about Mountain View, by the way. Also, I understand that apartment rentals in San Francisco have gone through the roof with the influx of high paid tekkies who commute to/ from Silicone and who can't afford to buy.

Victor_the_thinker Annie from Alaska 13 hours ago

People who work in high tech industries are disproportionately likely to be married to spouses with similar levels of education and income these days. Usually they don't work at the same company. They need to live near other areas with high end job opportunities for their spouses. It's known as the two body problem.

Jason Segedy Victor_the_thinker an hour ago

JHK has written multiple books on the topic of sprawl, cities, and urban development. His writing is informed by plenty of facts. I suspect that he has read, thought, and written more about the topic than you have.

I Don't Matter 15 hours ago

Yes the guy who had been wrong about everything forever pens another just so story boldly stating fictions and making predictions about the future without a date in sight. Capital scarcity? Resource scarcity? Any evidence for either with both interest rates and commodity prices in the dump? No, who needs evidence when there's a story to tell.

Matt 15 hours ago

What is the reasoning behind the claim that we are about to "enter an era of resource and capital scarcities"? This article gives none.

empidonax_road 14 hours ago

These are awfully big conclusions to be drawing from not quite six months of crisis: NYC is making progress on reopening, helped considerably by widespread (though not perfect) adoption of the basic public prevention methods. Restaurants have taken a hit, but the survivors are investing in outdoor spaces, which are being enthusiastically patronized. Museums are reopening (Met this week, others in the next four or five weeks). People are starting to see their friends in person again.

We're still a long way from the full menu - live performances, for example are still a long way off - but the things that draw people to the city and keep them here are coming back online.

No one thinks the old normal is going to be the new one, but I'm more optimistic about the city's future than I was back in April.

Viking Raffi Le Pen 5 hours ago

In the long run, fossil fuels are likely to go up and up in price, as they get more expensive to extract. Even if we disregard the effect on the environment, do you really doubt that a great many of the conveniences we now take for granted may be far more expensive in the future? This is barring our finding some effective substitute(s) for coal, natural gas, and petroleum, of course. Can't be ruled out, but we are taking our chances by continuing to live our current lifestyles, I'd say.

MPC Viking 4 hours ago

I've gamed out the possibilities a bit, it's an interesting topic to me.

Anything hard to transition off of 100% petroleum I think will have a hard time first. Air travel and international shipping. Perhaps alternatives will develop, but they won't be nearly as efficient as before. Economies will localize again.

Electricity is the most able to replace generation fuels but as others decline that's going to place huge reliance on just one key system for almost everything. Even if we did get solar and wind and backup power reserves roaring at a decent price, which I think we can, everything is riding on that one basket and the increasingly complex delivery. Hydro is a gold mine if you're lucky enough to have it (US really does not in most parts).

Also there's the mining angle, eventually some resources are just going to be economically exhausted. Solar panels can't be made of wood...yet.

Collin Reid 13 hours ago

Considering the lack of facts in this article and assuming lots of 'trends' over the last 6 months, this does very little to convince people.

1) Since 2000, we have heard endless articles about the end of mega-cities and it never happens.
2) Looking at the population growth of Texas cities and suburbs the last 20 years, seems like cities/urban areas continue to grow even if New York's population is flat.
3) What the heck is 'the challenged by ethnic friction?' What if it does not happen? This just like Trumpian good Housewife talk.
4) Mega-cities have not only grown in the US, but they have grown in all developed nations.

PeteZilla Collin Reid 13 hours ago • edited

Agree with this point.

I think the writer fails to mention or understand that cities have gone thru changes in the last decade or so.

For example the economies in the Bay Area California grew and changed so much to pull into the regions around it.

They call it a super region that connects Sacramento, San José, etc. New York has something similar. I know folks who commute from Sacramento to San Francisco for work and vice Cerda.

Cities make it effective for industries that thrive on collaboration AND competition. I work for a software company that works with other software companies (and competes with). Apple and Google both collaborate with hundreds of companies near them. Really thousands.

As long as industries keep hiring (and paying decently) these regions and industries will continues to drive markets.

If anything cities are becoming effective at catering to certain industries.

What I hope to see is more allowance and leeway with remote work. So people can work from places where they can afford a home.

My company used to avoid having too many workers working remotely. But we are struggling to find talent that now we look remotely. COVID added to that push now as well.

YT14 12 hours ago • edited

I wouldn't trust this swan song on metropolitan demise. In the long run, plagues are momentary disturbances - they are frequently over in a year or less despite horrific loss of life in between. The same goes for aerial bombardment of European cities during WW2. Once war was over, the cities rebuilt fast. Only few were arguing it was too dangerous to live in a city anymore.

What makes cities disappear is the breakdown and disintergration of the state-order. For example, many cities went into a major decline after the fall of the Western half of the Roman empire.

Victor_the_thinker YT14 11 hours ago

Yes and the experience of the Roman Empire simply isn't relevant today. At the time of Rome, the vast majority of the population was illiterate. The people who were knowledgeable and were pushing the empire forward technologically were a very very small constituency in the population. The knowledge that they had was all contained in analogue format so a fire burning down a library really could destroy hundreds of years of work. This isn't a possibility today. We now have hundreds of thousands of scientists and engineers capable interpreting the innovative science we produce and knowledge is distributed around the world and is much easier to reconstitute.

Harry Huntington YT14 7 hours ago

Still waiting for Detroit and Gary, Indiana to reconstitute, as you put it. In NY, shootings are getting out of control. In Chicago, over the past 18 months, shootings, muggings, and assaults have skyrocketed in the 1st and 18th Police Districts (where the fancy people live). Folks are afraid to walk at night. I live in Chicago near the lake.

On any typical night within a quarter mile of my home there will be police reports of "man with a gun," "woman assaulted," "woman with knife," "man using bottle as weapon," or "group fighting." Not the stuff you want to hear if you want to take a 9:00 PM jog through Grant Park or along the lake.

I good friend of mine had her cell phone grabbed out of her hand during the middle of the day in the skate board park at the South End of Grant Park. Crime of this sort is what drives people out of cities. The promise of downtown Chicago was you could walk or rely on public transportation. You cannot do either when people are mugged every day on public transportation or along the main city streets in downtown.

To your credit, maybe a big City like Houston can survive. Reality is, however, Houston is more a sprawl than any kind of connected city. Major employers in Houston actually have rules against walked to work (because of the heat).

YT14 Harry Huntington 7 hours ago • edited

Well yes, breakdown of the state-order is an important factor. As the proverbs state: "pray for the welfare of the government: if not for the fear it inspires, man would swallow his neighbor alive."

Viking 6 hours ago

Depending on the definition of "mega-city", I'm not sure its age ever arrived. A town only needs a population of five thousand to qualify as "urban" - when I was growing up, it was half that - which means much of the urban population consists of small towns.

For significantly larger cities, it has long been the case that the population of the suburbs and exurbs tends to be at least half of the total metropolitan area. Jacksonville and Albuquerque may be exceptions to this rule, but they are in the minority, and anyway I doubt that James Kunstler has them in mind when he writes of mega-cities. I seriously doubt that there was ever a time in America when the megalopolis dweller was in the majority, or even the plurality.

[Aug 31, 2020] 9,210 the real US COVID death number? Why Fauchi pretended that this is a new Black Death?

Did Fauci and Birx knew something about origin or the virus that we do not know and that's why they panicked?
Notable quotes:
"... When you are over 75 years old, you are going to succumb to serious underlying conditions covid or no covid. Those who's deaths are being attributed to covid are primarily in that age group. It is disingenuous to create a panic over a virus that almost exclusively contributes (at most) to the deaths of the elderly with underlying serious conditions. Many of those who have died, succumbed to the underlying condition, but incidentally had covid. ..."
"... Actually, Laura, when you are over 75 years old, the risk of dying increases, period. Once you're into the 85 year old and over bucket, which many covid deaths are, you were probably going to die regardless; unless you're a vampire or some other inhuman death defying creature. Is this really news to anyone? ..."
"... CDC has an annual budget of $12 billion. Then there are public health budgets at NIH and other federal, state and counties. ..."
"... How come there was no agreed upon pandemic response plan? If there was, why wasn't it executed? Do public health authorities have a plan now that can be executed? ..."
"... It would appear to me this was a failure across all segments of society. The public because they so easily succumbed to fear. The media for fanning the flames of hysteria. Private healthcare for not providing realistic and alternative views. The government for not executing a coordinated response. ..."
"... dan of Steele - a contributory factor in the death toll in Italy might be the mandatory influenza vaccine. In the autumn/winter 2019, a super influenza vaccine (4 strains in one dose) was administered to old people and health care workers in Italy. Research suggests that influenza vaccine derived virus interference is significantly associated with coronavirus. ..."
"... For some reason, the authorities want COVID-19 to be recognized as The New Black Death. Rising numbers of 'cases' substitute for deaths in order to keep the fear factor high (as far as I can make out) when higher case numbers are an unsurprising consequence of ramped-up testing. There are allegedly high numbers of false positives, and many if not most of the cases uncovered by testing are in people who are asymptomatic or not very sick, certainly not in danger of dying or even having to be hospitalized. ..."
Aug 31, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"So get this straight – based on the recommendation of doctors Fauci and Birx the US shut down the entire economy based on 9,000 American deaths to the China coronavirus." The Gateway Pundit."

"... the coronavirus fatality rate reported by the liberal mainstream media was completely inaccurate and the actual rate more like a typical seasonal flu – the media was lying again.

Doctors Fauci and Birx were next to push ridiculous and highly exaggerated mortality rates related to the coronavirus:

  1. Dr. Tony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx used the Imperial College Model to persuade President Trump to lock down the ENTIRE US ECONOMY.
  2. The fraudulent model predicted 2.2 million American deaths from the coronavirus pandemic.
  3. The authors of the Imperial College Model shared their findings with the White House Coronavirus task force in early March
  4. Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx then met with President Trump privately and urged him to shut down the US economy and destroy the record Trump economy based on this model

But the Imperial College model Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx pushed was garbage and they recommended the destruction of the US economy using this model." Gateway Pundit

----------

Hmmm ... The Fauci is a god crowd will heap scorn on this but, thing about it. pl

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/08/shock-report-week-cdc-quietly-updated-covid-19-numbers-9210-americans-died-covid-19-alone-rest-serious-illnesses/


Eric Newhill , 30 August 2020 at 11:17 AM

Yes, Col Lang., as you know, this is what I've been saying for months. It is what the good data and analysis (not that CDC garbage) reveals. However, no one wants to believe the evil capitalist private insurance companies. They think government is far more trustworthy and competent. More of that conditioning of attitude and perception by the powers that be in the plan to implement a big global govt.

The govt could have worked with the insurance companies to understand this thing. Seems like the logical move if you have poor quality data and insurance has good data, and you really believe there is a lethal pandemic on the loose.

Eric Newhill , 30 August 2020 at 05:10 PM

Laura Wilson,

When you are over 75 years old, you are going to succumb to serious underlying conditions covid or no covid. Those who's deaths are being attributed to covid are primarily in that age group. It is disingenuous to create a panic over a virus that almost exclusively contributes (at most) to the deaths of the elderly with underlying serious conditions. Many of those who have died, succumbed to the underlying condition, but incidentally had covid.

Another new report has come out that shows a significant proportion of covid positive tests are showing positive for minuscule viral loads in the system; not enough to cause illness (or serious illness). How many of those elderly that died of underlying conditions fall into that category? Many of the tests show false positives.

This whole thing has been one big scam - and I believe deliberately.

Eric Newhill , 30 August 2020 at 05:15 PM

Actually, Laura, when you are over 75 years old, the risk of dying increases, period. Once you're into the 85 year old and over bucket, which many covid deaths are, you were probably going to die regardless; unless you're a vampire or some other inhuman death defying creature. Is this really news to anyone?

We must look at years of expected life lost, not raw body counts. That approach reveals covid to not be a threat to society.

turcopolier , 30 August 2020 at 06:13 PM

walrus

The numbers are consistent because the strategy has been carefully worked out to have consistent documents. There will not be 20 million COVID cases requiring hospitalization because a high percentage do not get sick. In re the IO, been there done that myself. My question is, which group or constellation of groups is running the op.

rho , 30 August 2020 at 06:44 PM

dan of steele,

"Here in old Europe it seems we are on the verge of a new outbreak. Some people have gone on vacation and the number of daily new cases is on the rise."

The number of daily new cases in Germany has recently doubled because the number of daily tests has also roughly doubled. The share of positive tests among all tests has remained constant at around 1% for 3 months now.

https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/Infekt/EpidBull/Archiv/2020/Ausgaben/35_20.pdf?__blob=publicationFile
(see page 11)

Must be a very strange "new outbreak". The number of Covid patients in the ICUs of German hospitals have been stagnating at a very low level (around 250 patients in the whole country) for several weeks.

https://www.divi.de/joomlatools-files/docman-files/divi-intensivregister-tagesreports/DIVI-Intensivregister_Tagesreport_2020_08_30.pdf
(look at the pink line in the bottom right diagram)

Where are all the sick people that you are so worried about?

Jack , 30 August 2020 at 07:04 PM

All

What has intrigued me about the Wuhan virus is the panicked, off-the-cuff response. A pandemic is not new. We've had several in the recent past. SARS, H1N1, H2N2.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/basics/past-pandemics.html

CDC has an annual budget of $12 billion. Then there are public health budgets at NIH and other federal, state and counties.

How come there was no agreed upon pandemic response plan? If there was, why wasn't it executed? Do public health authorities have a plan now that can be executed?

It would appear to me this was a failure across all segments of society. The public because they so easily succumbed to fear. The media for fanning the flames of hysteria. Private healthcare for not providing realistic and alternative views. The government for not executing a coordinated response.

Money is never the issue in the USA. No one spends like us on healthcare, education, national security. Outcomes are a different matter altogether. Value for money is poor since there's a high "corruption" factor.

We've had many "wars". War on Poverty. War on Drugs. War on Terror. We've spent huge amounts on each. They've all been failures!

Deap , 30 August 2020 at 07:24 PM

Laura, When you get to a certain age, everyday you wake up to most of obituaries being for people younger than yourself. It is a landmark point in one's life.

Before they were all so old. Now they are all so young. And no, they did not die "of covid". The died. Fate played out their final hand. And you ask not for whom the bells toll ............. you just praise every single blessed day that is still yours to enjoy.

182,000 did not die "of covid" in the US. CDC played games with the numbers from day one. The only mystery is why? And why did we let them do this. Because we did - Brix admitted up front on TV they tossed anyone suspected of "covid" into the covid basket.

Any screw up were not facing covid, but overkilling "covid". The leftist cabal made sure no other points of view were allowed. If a covid report did not include or imply OrangemanBad, it never reached the airwaves. Please don't have selective memory problems about any of this. Or else you have come to the wrong place to push them.

So now tell us where the new CDC data is flawed (9K deaths), and why that is justification for believing their prior data is not flawed. (182K deaths)

dan of steele , 30 August 2020 at 07:28 PM

rho

I don't have a dog in this fight. I do hope that one day we will find out what is really going on with this covid-19. I merely look at worldofmeters corona virus page and watch the numbers of new cases, serious cases, and deaths. Those numbers were horrible for Italy for a long time and after months of being locked down hard, the numbers got better.

15 August is a very famous Italian holiday with everyone going to the beach, having picnics, and so on. Oddly enough a week to 10 days later the numbers of new cases went up...quite a bit. Happily the deaths have not gone back to the 1000 a day from the early days but I am holding my breath. In our little village we have 4 active cases and 21 in quarantine. They were infected by people who had gone on vacation somewhere else.

as for Germany, my son lives near Hamburg and he is mostly teleworking and overall they are quite good at implementing good pandemic control measures. Testing was free but I believe they are starting to charge for it again. My brother in law went to Cyprus on his vacation this year and upon return he and his family were all tested.

believe me, I don't want this crap to go on any more than you do. It does not affect me all that much as I am finally retired and have a single family home with a yard. being somewhat of a recluse anyway didn't make it worse.

Deap , 30 August 2020 at 07:31 PM

"New outbreaks" that lead to herd immunity are a good thing; when the death rate remains static or declines. Which is what is happening right now.

As long as every passing day adds more very elderly with 3.5 co-morbidities to the body count, one can assume this flu is taking its normal course through this population demographics.

As it does every single year, since the flu was always previously known as "the old man's friend". Sad, of course. Any death is sad. Very sad.

For reflection on eternal life however, take a look at the Czech opera "The Makropolus Case". The diva lives for 300 years, and when it comes time to take the magic potion again that keeps her eternally alive, she muses about the trials, tribulations and practical burdens of her eternal life.......... and she finally decides to .......?????

Deap , 30 August 2020 at 07:44 PM

Always hate it when media reports a percentage increase - "twice as many cases" -- but never mentions the numbers. 2 case is twice as many as one case. Zut alors! We need new cases to finally reach herd immunity.

Cases are okay. In fact, it is relief we are finally existing outside of this artificial bubble, and at a time we now know a lot more about treatment and to stop killing people with forced ventilator abuse.

Original game plan - flatten the curve - end up with the same numbers of cases, but over a longer period time to ensure health care delivery would not be overwhelmed should they all happen at once. That was the bargain - flatten the curve, but not change the numbers infected.

When did "someone" demand we flat-line the numbers of infections, until they reach absolute zero? Who, what, where, when, how or why did that change?

Will anti-Trump riots after Trump's 2020 re-election push "covid" off the front pages?

Fred , 30 August 2020 at 08:16 PM

Laura,

How many of the 500,000 attendees at Bike Week died of this, it's been three weeks already? How about all those 'mostly peaceful' protests? (Not counting than the two who died of the AR15 virus in Kenosha)

cirsium , 30 August 2020 at 08:28 PM

dan of Steele - a contributory factor in the death toll in Italy might be the mandatory influenza vaccine. In the autumn/winter 2019, a super influenza vaccine (4 strains in one dose) was administered to old people and health care workers in Italy. Research suggests that influenza vaccine derived virus interference is significantly associated with coronavirus.

See https://www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.m810/rr-0
and https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31607599/

Mark , 30 August 2020 at 08:33 PM

For some reason, the authorities want COVID-19 to be recognized as The New Black Death. Rising numbers of 'cases' substitute for deaths in order to keep the fear factor high (as far as I can make out) when higher case numbers are an unsurprising consequence of ramped-up testing. There are allegedly high numbers of false positives, and many if not most of the cases uncovered by testing are in people who are asymptomatic or not very sick, certainly not in danger of dying or even having to be hospitalized.

The WHO admitted publicly that the chief reason it declared a pandemic was that too many countries were - in its opinion - not taking the threat seriously enough. Therefore, even the declaration of a pandemic was for scare value. When COVID-19 was at its peak for infections and deaths, the WHO (Dr. Fauci himself, actually) claimed that medical-grade masks were not necessary for the public, because the WHO deemed it necessary to reserve the supply of masks for medical use. I don't think anyone would disagree that non-medical cloth masks have much less filtration capability. But then Fauci reversed himself, and now a plethora of 'experts' claim it is proven that non-medical cloth masks work to reduce the spread of COVID-19, and there is growing and relentless pressure from the busybody sector to make them mandatory wear in all public settings. Now, when the death rate is steadily dropping. No clinical trials have ever achieved results which demonstrate that cloth masks do anything to stop the spread of an airborne virus - not masks and only masks. Trials in which the subjects regularly washed their hands, avoided touching their faces after touching other surfaces AND wore a mask demonstrated a somewhat reduced infection rate. Tests in which only masks were used showed either a statistically insignificant difference or no difference at all, but were not proper clinical trials as the sample size was comparatively small and the masked group contained a significant number who admitted they did not wear it all the time. But forcing everyone to wear a mask has become a test of will for public authorities against a public in which many do not want to wear them and are afraid compulsory wear will become the norm. Once again, there is NO PROOF that they work, as the theory has never been properly tested, I don't care what 'expert' is telling you the results are in, and masks work.

For those 'COVID warriors' who label all dissenters 'maskholes' and 'Covidiots', cite me a proper clinical trial that establishes masks on their own significantly reduced the infection rate of an airborne virus. That means show me how uninfected people wore a mask and did not take other precautions, in the presence of an infected person (without touching them or handling objects infected people handled) and remained uninfected. While you're at it, find me where the '6-foot rule' came from. Nobody seems to know how that number was arrived upon, the WHO says it did not come from them, and how does it account for different environments such as the presence or absence of wind? People have to stand six feet apart outside while waiting to be allowed in to the grocery store. How does that protect you from an airborne virus that theoretically can only travel six feet in still air?

I am always willing to have my mind changed by actual science. But so far I am not seeing it. Just a lot of politics.

[Aug 31, 2020] We might have to wait forever for science to show the Covid threat is over, so let's use our common sense get back to normal -- RT Op-ed

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... It's time to stop fetishizing scientific methods. We have to accept that there are many elements of Covid-19 that science may never understand and if we wait for it to do so, we will never again be able to live a normal life. ..."
"... Science, if it is working properly, will not come to a conclusion that is wholly wrong. But not everything that is true can be established by a randomized control trial followed by peer review. Take the theory, popularized by Dr John Lee's work in the Spectator , that Covid has become less deadly as it spreads, and is now basically inert. ..."
"... People need to accept this about Covid (and hopefully later, much else) and stop fetishizing the scientific method at times when a bit of common sense would do the job. ..."
"... Consider this article , written by three scientific minds. It is a measured and 'data driven' analysis of whether Covid is becoming less deadly. But is blinkered by an assumption that only official data, no matter how muddled, can be relied upon. All you really need to do is ask doctors whether they are seeing people come in with Covid, or if they are dying of Covid when they do. Instead it focuses on case numbers, which are not worth the paper they are written on. ..."
"... So many people have been so frightened – understandably – by exaggerated accounts of the threat posed by Covid-19, and it will take a lot to persuade them that they have been sold a pup. But they need to be persuaded, so that can get their old lives back. The present regime will never take on this responsibility because it would center on an admission of massive guilt on their part. ..."
"... What is needed now from all sensible people is calm but insistent argument, with friends, relations and authorities alike, for the total abolition of all coronavirus-related restrictions. We saw some of that in London and Berlin over the weekend, and it was fantastic to see such well organized and clear minded dissent against the sinister 'new normal'. ..."
Aug 31, 2020 | www.rt.com

By Peter Andrews , Irish science journalist and writer based in London. He has a background in the life sciences, and graduated from the University of Glasgow with a degree in genetics

It's time to stop fetishizing scientific methods. We have to accept that there are many elements of Covid-19 that science may never understand and if we wait for it to do so, we will never again be able to live a normal life.

The Covid-19 outbreak is largely over, and man's attempts to slow, stop or understand the virus have failed. Science will eventually discover more about the pandemic but it is a slow process.

Science, if it is working properly, will not come to a conclusion that is wholly wrong. But not everything that is true can be established by a randomized control trial followed by peer review. Take the theory, popularized by Dr John Lee's work in the Spectator , that Covid has become less deadly as it spreads, and is now basically inert.

This would perfectly explain why so many people died of Covid-19 in a short period of time, and why deaths have basically flat-lined since April. It fits with many Covid studies confirming fast evolution , different strains and reinfection . Furthermore, a change to the virus itself could explain why the same patterns in deaths have been seen everywhere, irrespective of lockdowns, demographics, contact tracing or any other scheme.

ALSO ON RT.COM Weird science: Covid-19 does NOT cause heart damage, as blockbuster study had basic calculation errors

In fact, with each passing day it is increasingly probable that the virus has mutated to a milder form. The trouble is it would be nigh on impossible to establish this with the instruments of science, now or any time soon. The vagaries of individual human bodies and microscopic particles are just beyond the scope of exact science.

People need to accept this about Covid (and hopefully later, much else) and stop fetishizing the scientific method at times when a bit of common sense would do the job. We are paralysed by a need for the World Health Organization or Public Health England to conjure up some peer-reviewed study or other confirming to 99.9 percent likelihood that we can go back to normal now. That will never happen, but we have to get back to normal.

Consider this article , written by three scientific minds. It is a measured and 'data driven' analysis of whether Covid is becoming less deadly. But is blinkered by an assumption that only official data, no matter how muddled, can be relied upon. All you really need to do is ask doctors whether they are seeing people come in with Covid, or if they are dying of Covid when they do. Instead it focuses on case numbers, which are not worth the paper they are written on.

Here is another paper , co-authored by the brilliant Professor Carl Heneghan of the University of Oxford's Center for Evidence-Based Medicine. He has been tireless in his questioning of the government's interpretation of coronavirus statistics, although it has taken far too long for him to be given any kind of platform from which to address the public.

The study, while no doubt accurate and valuable for establishing fine points of detail, seeks to answer whether the infection fatality ratio has been falling in the UK. A comprehensive review of the limited data suggests that it has, but so what? What does that mean to the average Joe, confused as to whether they should send their child to school in the morning, or whether it would be irresponsible to give their elderly parents a hug?

ALSO ON RT.COM Just wait for a vaccine? First confirmed REINFECTION means there may be no way to eradicate Covid

So many people have been so frightened – understandably – by exaggerated accounts of the threat posed by Covid-19, and it will take a lot to persuade them that they have been sold a pup. But they need to be persuaded, so that can get their old lives back. The present regime will never take on this responsibility because it would center on an admission of massive guilt on their part.

What is needed now from all sensible people is calm but insistent argument, with friends, relations and authorities alike, for the total abolition of all coronavirus-related restrictions. We saw some of that in London and Berlin over the weekend, and it was fantastic to see such well organized and clear minded dissent against the sinister 'new normal'.

Like this story? Share it with a friend!

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

[Aug 27, 2020] The US Justice Department is mulling civil rights investigations of four Democrat-run states whose governors forced elder care homes to take in Covid-19 patients, potentially contributing to thousands of deaths.

Aug 27, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

PATIENT OBSERVER August 26, 2020 at 2:15 pm

And this is also ominous:
https://www.rt.com/usa/499147-justice-dept-nursing-homes-democrats/

he US Justice Department is mulling civil rights investigations of four Democrat-run states whose governors forced elder care homes to take in Covid-19 patients, potentially contributing to thousands of deaths.

The governments of New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and Pennsylvania have been ordered to turn over Covid-19 data to the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division as the agency weighs whether to pursue the probes, according to a statement released on Wednesday. Investigations would be launched under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA), a law meant to protect the rights of those living in state-run nursing homes.

Likely the responses will be "We didn't know " or "How could anyone accuse us compassionate/all-caring/liberty-affirming of doing nothing but good ".

Now, there is a campaign weapon the Trump team should wield like a sledge hammer. It will be high quality protein for the us conspiracy-theory folks as well.

ATIENT OBSERVER August 26, 2020 at 2:29 pm

Worth quoting from the above:
All four states' Democratic governors infamously required care homes to admit patients from hospitals without testing them for Covid-19, despite knowing that the virus could – in the now-immortal words of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo – spread through the facilities "like fire through dry grass."

As public outcry grew with awareness of the NY governor's order, Cuomo tried to blame virus-stricken care homes for not disobeying him and refusing Covid-19-positive patients. The order itself was even stealthily deleted from the New York healthcare website amid the outrage.

While Cuomo has tried to defend his policies by arguing New York actually had a lower percentage of deaths in nursing homes than other states, recently-released federal statistics suggest the state dramatically undercounted its care home fatalities by omitting residents who died in hospitals from the totals. While the official tally of 6,600 care home deaths is already the highest in the nation, an AP report earlier this month suggested the real number may be as much as 65 percent higher.

Per the internet, total Covid deaths in New York State is currently about 35,000. Per the above, nearly 11,000 were killed in nursing homes or in hospitals after being infected in nursing homes. Most of those were apparently in the early stages of the pandemic thus perhaps accounting for a majority of the deaths.

Per the internet, over 40% of all fatalities were related to nursing homes nation-wide.

https://www.nytimes.com/svc/oembed/html/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2Finteractive%2F2020%2Fus%2Fcoronavirus-nursing-homes.html

Protect those people who comprise less than 0.4% of the population but who accounted for over 40% of the fatalities. JHC!

MARK CHAPMAN August 26, 2020 at 3:23 pm

I have to say, the behavior of governments in the COVID 'crisis' has been appalling. Formerly polite and reserved Canada is no more, and I would say it is just like America if America had not reached for new levels of bizarre that still just barely edge it out – let's settle for saying Canada is just like America was just before the COVID/BLM/pre-election frenzy of hyperbole. Check this out;

"But Ball went too far. He responded with amendments to the province's Public Health Protection and Promotion Act that looked more like something from a police state than a democracy. The new law suggested inspectors could pull people over, scroll through their cellphones, copy their private information and forcibly perform COVID-19 tests. The law made clear that if two ministers decided that a person had contravened the act, he or she could be imprisoned or expelled from the province without a hearing. The province also began barring non-Newfoundlanders from entering, contrary to the division of powers set out in the Constitution Act, 1867, and without any regard to the interprovincial mobility rights set out under Section 6 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This unconstitutional order meant that a woman who lived in Nova Scotia -- which was nearly COVID-free -- couldn't attend her mother's funeral."

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/opinion-politicians-receive-low-marks-on-protecting-rights-during-covid

The 'crisis' has encouraged people who could not be trusted to look after your cat while you're in Little Rock to assume limitless powers, to the point where jumped-up jackass 'ministers' have the power to expel you from your province if they determine you have contravened some 'Act' they just made up. If they don't look out, they'll have an armed insurrection on their hands, just like our neighbours – threatening to 'deport' people because they are suspected of spreading a virus that most people have a better than 99% chance of surviving and which global medics are trying to kill by suppression, by denying it victims. Everyone has lost their minds.

There is at the present time not a single soul in the Canadian political stable who is worth the effort of casting a ballot. Democracy is just another word for nothing left to lose. Political parties everywhere should be starved to death the way they are trying to starve the coronavirus – by waking up to find the entire electorate stayed home and not a single vote was cast. It'll never happen, because too many people are sheep and buy that 'change is coming' bullshit that accompanies every election the way flies swarm on dung. But 'democracy' has descended too deep into farce to be saved.

PATIENT OBSERVER August 26, 2020 at 3:51 pm

It has happened so fast! One must assume that there is a renewing reservoir of people with a propensity to become petty tyrants when it was safe and the opportunity was there to do so. What a profoundly sick society!

However, I will vote and vote for Trump. Heck, I might even put a Trump in 2020, 2024 and 2028 sign in my yard (although we live at the end of a dead end street so hardy anyone will see it). Why? If this country is heading for a civil war, lets get it on.

[Aug 27, 2020] Dr. Fauci Worried New CDC Guidelines Are Being -Misinterpreted

Junk coverage but some interesting graphs
Aug 27, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

All of this happens just days after WSJ published a lengthy piece of "analysis" examining dissenting views on the efficacy of lockdowns?

The problem with "science" is it's often in flux, and such is the situation right now with SARS-CoV-2, a mysterious virus that continues to confound even seasoned epidemiologists and virologists.

But now, Dr. Fauci - in his latest attempt at playing mediator - is saying he believes the CDC guidelines are being misinterpreted. Though he also told CNN that the decision was made without his direct involvement, because he was in surgery.

"I was under general anesthesia in the operating room and was not part of any discussion or deliberation regarding the new testing recommendations," Fauci told CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

He reiterated that asymptomatic spread is of "great concern", and that people shouldn't get the wrong message just because the guidelines on testing have changed slightly.

"I am concerned about the interpretation of these recommendations and worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern. In fact, it is," the doctor added.

We suspect this will be an even bigger deal tomorrow.

[Aug 22, 2020] One thing that is definitely Not Happening is the psychopaths in both parties, the media, the medical mafia, Wall Street, and corporations taking responsibility for their crime spree and fraud.

Aug 22, 2020 | www.unz.com

No Friend Of The Devil , says: August 20, 2020 at 8:48 pm GMT

One thing that is definitely Not Happening is the psychopaths in both parties, the media, the medical mafia, Wall Street, and corporations taking responsibility for their crime spree and fraud.

Now the medical community has been fully exposed to be less legitimate than crack dealers, because at least crack dealers are not pretending to cure people like the medical mafia is all based on blatant scientific fraud!

Now that these evil fraudulent psychopaths have totally destroyed the lives of hundreds of millions locking the country down resulting in people losing their businesses, jobs, homes, and apartments let Nuremburg 2 trials begin!

[Aug 21, 2020] Fauci and neoliberalized medical community which, due to neoliberal cult of greed, more and more reminds a gang of creepy criminals

Notable quotes:
"... the government is owned by finance people. I guess we can't really stop them from using the money to pay for military stuff but the idea that any of this has any relationship to what's good or bad for "Americans" has been proven to be a complete crock of bull. ..."
"... We are all basically squatters in the parking lot of a shopping mall living in RVs and eating whatever food they sell at the nearest convenience store. That's all America is for me these days. ..."
Aug 21, 2020 | www.unz.com

No Friend Of The Devil , says: August 20, 2020 at 8:48 pm GMT

One thing that is definitely Not Happening is the psychopaths in both parties, the media, the medical mafia, Wall Street, and corporations taking responsibility for their crime spree and fraud.

Now the medical community has been fully exposed to be less legitimate than crack dealers, because at least crack dealers are not pretending to cure people like the medical mafia is all based on blatant scientific fraud!

American Citizen 2.0 , says: August 21, 2020 at 3:41 pm GMT
@No Friend Of The Devil ree-for-all for cash where you don't even have to be a US citizen to get benefits anymore What exactly is the point of having a military other than it's just another way to spend loads of cash. I definitely wouldn't support any kind of war on behalf of "American Interests" now.

We have been swamped by illegal immigrants and the government is owned by finance people. I guess we can't really stop them from using the money to pay for military stuff but the idea that any of this has any relationship to what's good or bad for "Americans" has been proven to be a complete crock of bull.

We are all basically squatters in the parking lot of a shopping mall living in RVs and eating whatever food they sell at the nearest convenience store. That's all America is for me these days.

[Aug 02, 2020] Here in Georgia, a YMCA camped had an outbreak. 262 people infected. Mostly children. Highest rate of spread was the 6 to 10 age group.

What idiot send 6 year old children to YMCA camp, when parents are at home ? Georgia camp outbreak shows rapid virus spread among children
Aug 02, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
y_arrow

Sardonicus , 3 hours ago

Here in Georgia, a YMCA camped had an outbreak. 262 people infected. Mostly children. Highest rate of spread was the 6 to 10 age group.

Kind of blows up the myth that kids don't get or spread it.

The only reason it seemed that way is because most kids have been isolating at home since March.

Georgia camp outbreak shows rapid virus spread among children

[Aug 02, 2020] US COVID19 will be done in 4 weeks [Aug 25] with total reported deaths below 170,000. How will we know it is over? Like for Europe, when all cause excess deaths are at normal level for week. Reported COVID19 deaths may continue after 25 Aug. reported cases will, but it will be over.

Aug 02, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

y_arrow 1


TRM , 3 hours ago

Nobel-laureate Dr. Michael Levitt (Chemistry and structural biology at Stanford) has made another prediction on July 25, 2020:

"US COVID19 will be done in 4 weeks [Aug 25] with total reported deaths below 170,000. How will we know it is over? Like for Europe, when all cause excess deaths are at normal level for week. Reported COVID19 deaths may continue after 25 Aug. & reported cases will, but it will be over."

Yes this is the same person who on May 04, 2020 said:

"If Sweden stops at about 5,000 or 6,000 deaths, we will know that they've reached herd immunity, and we didn't need to do any kind of lockdown."

https://www.stanforddaily.com/2020/05/04/qa-nobel-laureate-says-covid-19-curve-could-be-naturally-self-flattening/

July 27, 2020: As of July 24, 2020 Sweden has 5,700 deaths:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1105753/cumulative-coronavirus-deaths-in-sweden/

He was correct and the conclusion is that the lockdown was needless.

So will the politicians "follow the science" or continue to enforce stupid mask laws.

Macho Latte , 3 hours ago


WuFlu Hysteria Ends Nov. 4

More than 55.3 million tests confirm:
✓ Deaths from WuFlu = Flat Line
✓ Hospitalization from WuFlu = Flat Line


The Virus Charts thru 7/31/20 https://ibb.co/QF2ZBLK

DemonRats = an Existential Threat to America & Humanity

WuFlu Lies Matter

slightlyskeptical , 1 hour ago

Flat line at a pretty high level.

[Aug 02, 2020] Fauci and bullsh*t

Aug 02, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Contrary to claims by the media and the ego maniac Dr. Fauci about a tidal wave of Covid infections, I have first hand, albeit anecdotal evidence, that there is a lot of bullshit surrounding reports of people who have "tested" positive for Covid.

[Aug 01, 2020] Georgia camp outbreak shows rapid virus spread among children

Aug 01, 2020 | www.ajc.com

Some 260 cases of the coronavirus have been tied to attendees and staff at a North Georgia YMCA children's camp in June, according to a report released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of the largest known superspreading events in the state.

https://3e33db899339e8977e70a67a31244693.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html

The report details how COVID-19 spread rapidly among children and teens within the camp and raises questions about the effectiveness of safety protocols as school districts and colleges contemplate reopening for in-person instruction this fall.

YMCA Camp High Harbour, identified in the report as Camp A, suffered an outbreak at its Lake Burton location in late June. As of July 10, about 85 cases of the virus had been linked to the camp, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported, a figure that has since tripled. Explore Complete coverage of COVID-19 in Georgia

The CDC study of 597 campers and staff from Georgia found the camp did not follow its guidance to require campers wear masks, though staff did.

Three-quarters of the 344 attendees and staff for whom the CDC was able to obtain test results tested positive for the virus. Credible reporting in incredible times.
Support local journalism. SUBSCRIBE NOW

The CDC said the overall attack rate of the virus was 44%, though the agency acknowledged that's an undercount because it includes more than 250 for whom they had no results.

"This investigation adds to the body of evidence demonstrating that children of all ages are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection and, contrary to early reports might play an important role in transmission," the report said.

Explore The AJC's redesigned COVID-19 dashboard with real-time charts

https://3e33db899339e8977e70a67a31244693.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html

Brian Castrucci, CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation, a Maryland nonprofit that assists public health agencies and a former epidemiologist in Georgia, said the report is a warning for local school districts and others about the potential for spread in congregant settings.

"This should show you how actively kids can transmit it," he said. "If you have a low prevalence in your community, you can start to do things. If you have rampant and rapid community spread, then there is no opening school, there is no opening colleges. It is not going to work."

Ga. OK'd camps with restrictions

Gov. Brian Kemp initially allowed day camps to open for the summer as part of the state's broader reopening plan. An executive order in May later allowed overnight camps to operate, but outlined health and hygiene guidelines, including temperature checks and a requirement for campers and staff to have a negative COVID-19 test within 12 days of the start of camp.

Though many camps opted not to open, some, including High Harbour, did.

Spokespeople for Kemp did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

"This investigation adds to the body of evidence demonstrating that children of all ages are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection and, contrary to early reports might play an important role in transmission."

- New CDC report

Dr. Harry J. Heiman, clinical associate professor at the Georgia State University School of Public Health, said spread of the virus was growing in June, presenting a high likelihood the virus would spread in a camp setting.

"We know that congregate settings, particularly indoor congregant settings, are among the highest risks," he said.

High Harbour followed the governor's executive order, the federal report said, but the camp did not follow CDC recommendations for universal masking of campers or for increased ventilation in buildings. Staff were required to wear masks, the report said.

"Relatively large cohorts sleeping in the same cabin and engaging in regular singing and cheering likely contributed to transmission," the CDC said. "Use of cloth masks, which has been shown to reduce the risk for infection, was not universal."

Explore From May: Summer camp operators gauge how to work with Georgia's new rules

The CDC said its investigation is ongoing and will attempt to identify specific sources of exposure, the course of the illness and "any secondary transmission to household members."

"Physical distancing and consistent and correct use of cloth masks should be emphasized as important strategies for mitigating transmission in congregate settings," the report said.

Statement of regret

The YMCA did not make anyone available for an interview. In a written statement, Parrish Underwood, chief advancement officer for the YMCA of Metro Atlanta, said the organization now regretted holding the camp.

"We made every effort to adhere to best practices outlined by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the American Camp Association," and the governor, Underwood said.

"Attending Camp High Harbour is a tradition numerous generations of Y families look forward to every summer," Underwood's statement said. "Many of these individuals reached out to our staff to express their desire for us to open our residential camps in an effort to create normalcy in their children's lives due to the detrimental impact of COVID-19. This weighed heavily in our decision to open, a decision in retrospect we regret."

Explore COVID-19 'superspreading' took place across metro Atlanta, study finds

The YMCA said it notified parents that a counselor tested positive for COVID-19 on June 24. The camp told parents they could pick up their children early. The YMCA closed its Lake Burton and Lake Allatoona locations.

The YMCA said the counselor passed required health screenings, as did all other campers and staff.

Parents who have spoken to the AJC have said they did not think the YMCA showed enough urgency. The camp was not immediately closed. Parents were given the option of picking up their children over a period of a few days before the camp closed for the season.

Fever, headaches and sore throat

The CDC study offered some caveats to the infection rates. Georgia suffered high rates of spread at the end of June, and some of the infections might have occurred prior to or after the camp.

Information about the conditions of infected campers and staff also was limited, and the report did not detail the severity of infections.

But the report said of the 136 cases with symptom data, about a quarter reported no symptoms. Of the three-quarters reporting symptoms, fever, headache and sore throat were the most common.

The median age of campers was 12 and staffers was 17. There were seven staffers between the ages of 22 and 59.

Explore Atlanta Public Schools to start year with virtual learning

Fifty-one kids, or roughly half, of the children aged 6 to 10 tested positive. About 44% of children aged 11 to 17 tested positive and a third of the remaining people from 18 to 59 tested positive, the report said.

Cases of COVID-19 tend to be milder for children and young adults than for the elderly, but the disease isn't without risk.

There have been 12,290 confirmed cases among children 5 to 17 in Georgia, with 165 hospitalizations and one death, an analysis of state data shows.

To date, 186,352 people in Georgia have tested positive for the coronavirus, including about 4,000 announced Friday. There have been 3,752 deaths, including 81 reported on Friday.

Georgia in the 'red zone'

Knowledge of transmission between children and adults is not well understood, but health experts have told the AJC they fear infections in children and adults can easily spread to more vulnerable people.

Though people over 60 make up the largest cohorts of hospitalizations and deaths, a recent Emory University study said children and adults under 60 are much more likely than the elderly to spread the disease to others.

Some schools are pushing forward with August opening plans, while allowing home instruction or blended in-person and distance learning.

Other systems, including Atlanta Public Schools, announced plans to delay the start of the school year and to begin instruction online amid substantial community spread of the virus.

On July 24, the CDC published guidance endorsing the full reopening of schools, citing risks to children's health and education that could be inflicted by not having schools open for in-person instruction. That guidance came after pressure from President Trump, who has called for full reopening of schools.

The CDC guidance called for keeping students in small groups, staffed by a single teacher and to use outdoor spaces for learning. The guidance includes recommendations for masking and other hygiene protocols and plans for when a student contracts the virus.

But many independent public health experts, while acknowledging the importance of in-school instruction, have been critical of the new CDC guidance.

Heiman, the Georgia State professor, said schools often have poor ventilation. Reopening for in-person instruction endangers students and their family members and school staff.

Georgia is one of 21 states outlined in a White House task force report in the "red zone" for coronavirus spread. That report has recommended the state mandate masks and close bars, nightclubs, entertainment venues and put stricter limits on indoor dining and groups.

Kemp has so far decided not to mandate masks, though he has encouraged face coverings. He also has balked at new restrictions on the movement of business and people.

A group of more than 2,000 medical professionals have called on Kemp to implement the White House task force's recommendations and to allow local jurisdictions to enact stricter measures.

"Many of us have said all along that unless we can get the level of COVID-19 down in communities, it is not safe to open schools and colleges," Heiman said. "This (report) certainly reinforces that."

[Aug 01, 2020] Trump administration overspent on ventilators by as much as $500 million, Democrats' report says

Aug 01, 2020 | www.msn.com

WASHINGTON -- An investigation released Friday by House Democrats says President Donald Trump's administration overpaid by up to $500 million on ventilators as the coronavirus pandemic first struck the United States.

Click to expand 00:00 00:47 Fauci optimistic on COVID-19 vaccine availability

In a review of thousands of pages of internal administration documents, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said Phillips North America was contracted to deliver 43,000 ventilators to the federal government for a significantly higher price than it did under previous contracts for functionally identical ventilator models delivered under contracts dating to President Barack Obama's administration.

Donald Trump wearing a suit and tie: President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at the White House. © Evan Vucci, AP Images President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at the White House.

"The American people got ripped off, and Donald Trump and his team got taken to the cleaners," said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., whose subcommittee led the investigation. "The Trump Administration's mishandling of ventilator procurement for the nation's stockpile cost the American people dearly during the worst public health crisis of our generation."

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Start the day smarter. Get all the news you need in your inbox each morning.

Democrats called for Phillips to return the amount of money they said the government was overcharged.

More: Trump praises Jim Jordan and Anthony Fauci after they clashed during coronavirus hearing

More: Biggest coronavirus vaccine deal yet: $2.1 billion to Sanofi/GSK for up to 100 million doses

Phillips denied the report's findings, saying the company did not raise prices in relation to the pandemic, and argued the increased price of the ventilators actually represented a "discount."

Frans van Houten, CEO of Royal Philips, said in a statement the company did "not recognize the conclusions in the subcommittee's report, and we believe that not all the information that we provided has been reflected in the report."

"I would like to make clear that at no occasion has Philips raised prices to benefit from the crisis situation," van Houten said.

According to Phillips, the list price of the ventilator ordered under the contract is $21,000 and was supplied to the Trump administration for $15,000, which the company called a "discount" given the rushed production schedule.

More: How ventilators work and why COVID-19 patients need them to survive coronavirus

The report, however, disagreed with Phillips' claim. A functionally identical ventilator was delivered to the Obama administration under a 2014 contract for $3,280. Based on the report's review of purchases between December 2019 and May 2020, other small purchasers, even those that purchased only one ventilator of the same model, secured them for as low as $9,327.

"No American purchaser paid more than the U.S. government," the report said.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere told USA TODAY in a statement the report was "misleading and inaccurate."

"Because of the President's leadership, the United States leads the world in the production and acquisition of ventilators. No American who needed a ventilator was denied one, and no American who needs a ventilator in the future will be denied one."

Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Ryan Murphy said the Trump administration's efforts ensured the "federal government procured enough equipment to care for all hospitalized patients in the United States who needed a ventilator for respiratory support related to COVID-19 infections."

Some of the ventilators ordered under the contract were already in use to treat COVID-19 patients, he added.

Murphy declined to comment on an ongoing contract, but said HHS follows "all Federal Acquisition Regulations for Strategic National Stockpile contracting efforts."

The Trump administration has frequently touted the production of ventilators as evidence of its response to the coronavirus pandemic.

"When you look at the United States response, you look at the fact that we were supposed to have a ventilator shortage. In fact, we had a ventilator surplus," White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said at a Friday briefing.

Phillips had first signed a contract with the Obama administration to deliver 100,000 ventilators in the event of a pandemic by June 2019, but the delivery date was pushed back, eventually to June 2021, as the company missed deadlines, the report said. Phillips approached the Trump administration about moving up the delivery date in January 2020, when the first coronavirus cases were reported in the United States, but the Trump administration ignored the offer, according to the report.

Then, in March 2020, the Trump administration agreed to extend the ventilator delivery deadline to September 2022, but did not ask Phillips to produce more ventilators or move up delivery times. Instead, in April 2020, the Trump administration negotiated a new contract with Phillips to deliver 43,000 ventilators at a price of $15,000 per ventilator.

According to the report's review of documents, "the Administration accepted Philips' first offer without even trying to negotiate a lower price."

According to emails released by the committee, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, who served as the lead negotiator with Phillips, offered to prepay half of the total cost, or over $323 million, to Phillips before a single ventilator was even delivered. Department of Health and Human Services staff later reduced the amount prepaid to 10% of the total cost of the contract, or about $65 million.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump administration overspent on ventilators by as much as $500 million, Democrats' report says


[Jul 31, 2020] N95 masks are not all "vented to breathe straight out without filtration." Not those intended for medical use, for certain

Jul 31, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

AntiSpin , Jul 30 2020 19:55 utc | 7

@ the disinformationists posting @ #1 and #2

N95 Masks DO WORK, and the Proof is Available All Over the Net!

There has been so much oh-so-earnest and so much oh-so-authoritarian nonsense bruited about on this site about the non-effectiveness of the N95 masks that it's getting really, really disgusting. It also calls into question either the honesty (trolls?) or the intelligence of those who could so easily have just looked up the information from, and about, the inventor of the N95, Dr. Peter Tsai.

If they had done just that little bit of research, they would have discovered that the N95 works because of an inner layer of plastic fiber that carries an electro-static charge that attracts and destroys the virus, and that can be cleansed and sterilized for re-use by a number of different techniques.

Please do not believe any of the contra-factual and sometimes dangerous nonsense being spewed about by people who don't know what the hell they're talking about.

Oh, and N95 masks are not all "vented to breathe straight out without filtration." Not those intended for medical use, for certain. There are some vented N95 masks that are intended for firefighters and other non-medical usages, and not for protection against viruses. And as you can see below, the electric charge attracts even sub-micron particles, so the idea that the mask cannot trap viruses because they're too small is simply more nonsense from uninformed and/or deviously motivated individuals.

//

Here's just a small sample of information that's easily found all over the net:

Brief bio: Peter Tsai, Ph.D.
Employment: Research faculty, Joint Institute of Advanced Materials, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Expertise: Development of meltblowing (MB) systems and the electrostatic charging (EC) of materials for making air filter electrets. The MB and the EC developed by Tsai have been used in the industries worldwide making tens of billions of pieces of N95 respirators or face masks. He has received three prestigious awards from UT in recognition of his contribution to technology innovation. Tsai is a Fellow Member of American Filtration and Separation Society and a member of Electrostatic Society of America.
https://utrf.tennessee.edu/information-faqs-charged-filtration-material-performance-after-various-sterilization-techniques/
//
Peter Tsai and the Electrostatic Filter Mask
https://engineeringethicsblog.blogspot.com/2020/04/peter-tsai-and-electrostatic-filter-mask.html
"Prof. Tsai's innovation was to find a way to take a cold pre-fabricated mat of non-woven material and subject it to two electric discharges of opposite polarity, one after the other. Under the right conditions, this process embedded quasi-permanent electric charges into the plastic fibers and made them very attractive to even sub-micron particles, like the 100-nanometer-diameter SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. The charge is durable and will persist even if the masks are sterilized with steam, according to a new article that Prof. Tsai just put up on a University of Tennessee website.'
//
The retired inventor of N95 masks is back at work, mostly for free, to fight covid-19
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2020/07/07/peter-tsai-n95-mask-covid/
//
More technical information for those curious enough:
https://aim.autm.net/public/project/53844/

//

Finally, let's dispense with a couple of other oh-so-popular misconceptions:
"Q: Do face masks cause oxygen deficiency?
"A: The prolonged use of medical masks when properly worn, does not cause oxygen deficiency nor CO2 intoxication, according to WHO. Make sure your face covering fits properly and that it is tight enough to allow you to breathe normally.
" 'This is a common misconception being perpetuated that has no evidence behind it,' said Krutika Kuppalli, a Palo Alto infectious disease doctor and a biosecurity fellow with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

"Q: Does wearing a face covering put you at risk for carbon dioxide poisoning?
"A: No. CO2 molecules diffuse easily through everything from bandannas to medical masks to N95 respirators, allowing for normal breathing."
Aidin Vaziri. San Francisco Chronicle


uncle tungsten , Jul 30 2020 21:14 utc | 17

Thanks b. The mask - a simple and elegant precaution in high risk environments. But so much foaming hysteria and opposition from pumped up nay sayers its just like the response to the early motor car or the mandatory seat belt. Extraordinary, hyperventilated nonsense and inflamed debating points.

I assume this noise is to distract from calling it by its proper name - Fort Detrick Flu.

Peter AU1 , Jul 30 2020 21:59 utc | 23

Yankistan IQ

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-30/louie-gohmert-tests-positive-for-coronavirus-donald-trump/12506114
""It's really ironic, because a lot of people have made a big deal out of my not wearing a mask a lot. But in the last week or two, I have worn a mask more than I have in the whole last four months."

Mr Gohmert then wondered if his mask was to blame for contracting COVID-19.

"But I can't help but wonder if my keeping a mask on and keeping it in place, that if I might have put some germs or some of the virus onto the mask and breathed it in -- I don't know. But I got it, we'll see what happens from here, but the reports of my demise are very premature," he said."

The 'mask'.
https://am23.mediaite.com/tms/cnt/uploads/2020/07/louie-gohmert-mask-coronavirus-positive.jpg

dp , Jul 30 2020 21:59 utc | 24

about a decade ago there was outbreak of TB in Seattle I was a nurse at the time. We were told by infection disease at the time if we were to see TB patients we had to wear an individually fitted respirator... every nurse was fitted and red pepper was sprayed around the masks to test the fit. I couldn't wear one ... and was told I could wear a surgical mask but that it would only provide about 30 min of protection and then I would need a new mask... Now tell me why me way a fashion mask, a bandanna or scarf can protect me or another from a virus (which is much smaller than a TB bacteria?
I just drove from coast to coast across the US. I avoided large cities and felt perfectly comfortable with social distancing. I was in two states that never had a "true" lock down and no mask mandates,,,, and you know what people weren't dropping like flies, people weren't afraid... they were just acting respectful to one another"s personal space.

John Iacovelli , Jul 30 2020 22:03 utc | 25

Let's see now... we have an aerosolized pathogen; shades of the discussion in 2001 regarding weaponized Antrax! We have, seemingly, a very low number of mutations; it's either been out there or cultured for some time. No one has any 100% accurate test; the test criteria of Koch's Postulates seem to have been forgotten or ignored. In the dearth of trustworthy data, the deluge of untrustworthy data, and the general level of greed-generated-mistrust towards all western societal organizations, no one in the general public has the proper knowledge to make life-or-death decisions concerning themselves or their families. Perhaps, rather than the "Trump flu" that the partisan-oriented commenter proposed previously, if a large group of people called it instead the "Fort Detrick Flu," western governments might be persuaded to seek and/or spread truthful data.

Lurk , Jul 30 2020 22:24 utc | 29

@ dp | Jul 30 2020 21:59 utc | 24

The purpose of the mask is to stop (asymptomatic) carriers of the disease from spreading it, or at least dramatically reduce the spreading. The mask limits outgoing aerosols, not incoming ones.

Moreover, rural areas where people spend a lot of time outdoors and generally meet only a limited amount of different people are much less likely to be affected by the initial phase of a pandemic than densely populated cities where most people spend most of their days closely packed with numerous other random people in badly ventilated indoor places such as offices, factories, subways.

Roberto , Jul 30 2020 23:19 utc | 34

Dear friends and foes,

on "benefits" of masking:

1) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00392-020-01704-y
2) https://fortune.com/2020/07/29/no-point-in-wearing-mask-sweden-covid/
3) Belarus no mask no lockdown....then they get very nice numbers.

On panic:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8373857/Norways-PM-admits-closed-schools-nurseries-fear.html

On lockdown:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/490659-ferguson-undermined-uk-lockdown/

Best regards to you all

Un gran abrazo a todos desde Chile

[Jul 31, 2020] How a Massive Societal Shift Could Undo a Century of Ugly Building by James Howard Kunstler

"Cities have become our nests."
Jul 31, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

This new disposition of things, which we are quite unprepared for, will demand a revival of the building wisdom of the ages. It will be a vast improvement over the anxious, neurotic exercises that can now be plainly described as yesterday's tomorrow . The necessary return to traditional modes and materials will yield a revived architecture of grace notes, humility, and decorum. Wait for it!

James Howard Kunstler is The American Conservative's New Urbanism Fellow. He is the author of numerous books on urban geography and economics, including his recent work, Living in the Long Emergency: Global Crisis, the Failure of the Futurists, and the Early Adapters Who Are Showing Us the Way Forward .


Jim Richard2 days ago

It surprises me that James makes no mention of sacred geometry in architecture . It relates to this topic .

Mccormick47a day ago

TAC seems to publish an article deriding modern architecture on a monthly basis. Like jazz or cilantro, modern architecture is something you either love or hate. Waste of space to argue about it.

Rkramden66 Mccormick47a day ago

I agree with this.

Ugly disposable culture = ugly disposable architecture

Anything else would be a surprise, but this is a dog-bites-man non-story.

Pete Barbeaux Mccormick47a day ago

There's actually a specific group of olfactory genes (OR6A2) that people have or don't have, that changes the taste of cilantro and causes this whole differentiation.

L RNYa day ago

The thing I find about modernist architecture is that some of it is quite beautiful such as the early BauHau and Art Deco design aesthetic. If you compare lets say a band or an entertainers early work which is smart, crisp, new, innovative to their later works which often arent good. They look like copies of earlier successes (resting on ones laurels so to speak). In modernist architecture which was truly innovative at the time incorporating large plate glass windows (from floor to ceiling) integrated the outdoor environment with the indoor environment. It created rooms with lots of natural light and unobstructed views which made older buildings which were gorgeous on the exterior with architectural embellishments and gorgeous moldings, wallpapers, paint colors, fabrics moldings, etc adorning the interior, look like windowless caves or coffins. Modern and Contemporary Architecture (form, fit, function) was innovative because it deconstructed all architecture down to the skeletal structure and windows but then comes the problem. A design can only be deconstructed so much before its sterile, bland, dead. Its why some of the great modern and contemporary architecture is surrounded by older buildings that have more embellishments which magnify the clean lines of the structure. Its hard to achieve urban density with modern buildings because the clean lines and large windows require some open space between the buildings. As with most art and design movements, the best of the prior movements will be incorporated into something new....but instead of deconstructing...a new architectural movement will be adding rather than subtracting

briarpickera day ago

Salingaros published ATOA in 2006, and has published several books since. Not that his writing isn't timeless, but there are no details in this piece to tease out what is new.

aha!a day ago

Yes, a lot of ugly junk out there. Some of the houses built in the 1960's appeal to me, after that, not so much.

Myron Hudsona day ago

Easy to overlook is the role of building designers in pushing their idea of ..whatever... and the role of developers especially in wanting things built as quickly and cheaply as possible. The latter are primarily responsible for strip malls, which are truly awful, but utilitarian..

Eda day ago

I'll be reading both these books, but the key failures of contemporary design and planning aren't really about style, its about building codes, land use laws, transportation and the way development is financed. Why does the strip look like the strip? Because its the preferred mode of planning commissions, tax collectors and, most of all, banks who are lending the money.

Arch Stantona day ago

"When we build, let us think that we build for ever" - John Ruskin

Stephena day ago

I agree with the author that modern architecture is ugly, but this is not some isolated, mysterious ailement. Architecture is a form of art, and modern art is every bit as ugly, inhuman and soul killing as modern architecture. I recently spent a seven month stretch working inside many very expensive homes in Aspen Colorado. These multi-million dollar homes are full of the most ugly and repugnant examples of modern art you could ever imagine. There are paintings that sell for over a million which literally look like someone vomited on the canvas. I don't have to tell that today's music is mostly garbage. All of this reflects perfectly the modern world view. Namely, there is no God, there is no Truth, there is no beauty. Humans are just accidental, meaningless beings, living pointless lives in a pointless universe. As long as modern society clings to these awful lies, art in it's many forms has no chance of making a comeback. When we earnestly return to God and reverence for the eternal beauty of his creation, we will again seek to honor God and our fellow humans with works of love and beauty. It's not complicated really.

joanhello Stephen15 hours ago

The taste of the rich does not stand separate from their relations with the rest of us. In acknowledging the turning point about a hundred years ago, Kunstler overemphasizes WWI and under-emphasizes the 1917 Communist revolution in Russia. Before that year, Marxism was a fringe movement that had never held power anywhere. Given that atheism was part of its philosophical foundation, people of faith could not believe it would ever be anything else. After that year, the elite realized that God was not protecting their supremacy and began to fear the common people. Therefore the old aesthetic which allowed the elite to have the same taste as everyone else but just express it more expensively was supplanted by a new aesthetic that upheld tastes acquired and formed through an expensive education. The point was not to impress the common people but to confuse them. It was part of the Cult of the Expert. Its purpose was to convince the common people that they could not understand what was going on at the elite levels and therefore they were not fit to rule. I remember some British writer who called sunsets "sentimental", which puzzled me until I figured out that this writer was part of (or was mocking) a movement to narrow the definition of beauty to that sort of beauty that only people of refined (i.e., elite) taste could appreciate, while beauty that could be appreciated by everyone was downgraded by renaming it "sentimentality". After the decline of the Soviet Union became obvious in the 1980s, ornament and detail were allowed to return, but only in an ironic or whimsical way. There's still an element of confusion there, of calculated incomprehensibility.

At a time like this one, beauty is still being produced but on the fringes. Surrealism lives on in the works of artists like Jesse Allen and Susan Seddon Boulet, who don't rate Wikipedia pages but whose paintings are easily googled. Michael Reynolds builds Earthships (conservationist architectural fantasies in the mode of Antoni Gaudí) out of literal trash. (It's no accident that Reynolds, like Christopher Alexander and many other architectural innovators, went to the Southwest, where snobbery-informed building codes have historically been lax or non-existent. Traditional musicians from around the world connect with each other and cross-fertilize to produce the genre known as world music. If you don't care what the elite like, it's actually a glorious time for the arts.

Davyd2 hours ago

Modern architecture neglects the person and substitutes visual ideas as its mission for providing places to foster human well-being, delight and comfort.

The whole game is given away by an exchange with one of my design tutors while studying architecture: we gave our presentations of our displayed projects (that is, pretend buildings) and the tutor remarked that none of us talked about people. We had all tried to mimic the journals (picture books usually) that we read and pretended to be abstract sculpture artists. Crap, of course.
But being cheeky, I piped up and said "its because you guys never talk about people!"

We had been taught that buildings are 'walk-in scupltures' where as they are places for meaningful personal purpose.

[Jul 27, 2020] Fauci- Some messages from Trump's task force don't match reports from 'trenches'

Jul 27, 2020 | www.msn.com

During an in-depth interview that will air Tuesday night on ABC News as part of a primetime special, "American Catastrophe: How Did We Get Here?," Fauci was pressed to explain why, months after COVID-19 first reached U.S. soil, the U.S. government is still struggling to provide adequate testing for Americans and sufficient personal protective gear for essential workers.

"We keep hearing when we go to these task force meetings that these [issues] are being corrected," Fauci said. "But yet when you go into the trenches, you still hear about that."

Fauci said he does not have a "good answer" and "cannot explain" the discrepancy, especially since those matters are not part of his "day-by-day" responsibilities, but part of the problem stems from the fact that "many of the things that we needed were not produced in the United States."

The U.S. government ended up competing for those materials with other nations stricken by the pandemic, and the White House ultimately had to invoke emergency powers to push U.S. companies to help.

Those challenges were exacerbated by what Fauci admitted were early missteps on testing by the Centers for Disease Control, which developed tests that "didn't work" initially because – it turned out – their results were based on potentially contaminated samples. That forced the federal government to further rely private companies.

Asked about any missteps he may have made himself – including initially telling the public that the average American didn't need to wear a mask – he said such decisions were "based on the information at the moment."

[Jul 26, 2020] Fauci critics are taken from the air: Sinclair pulls interview with 'Plandemic' conspiracy theorist after CNN-backed outrage campaign

Jul 26, 2020 | www.rt.com

25 Jul, 2020 21:42 / Updated 11 hours ago Get short URL Screenshot © Twitter/ @WeAreSinclair 126 1 Follow RT on RT Sinclair Broadcast Group, the US' largest local news conglomerate, has canceled an interview with a coronavirus conspiracy theorist, after CNN whipped up an online outrage campaign against the conservative broadcaster.

In a segment due to air this weekend, 'America This Week' host Eric Bolling sat down with Dr Judy Mikovits, a disgraced scientist who believes that the coronavirus pandemic was orchestrated by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases head Dr Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates to push vaccines on the population – a theory she set out in the documentary film 'Plandemic,' which has been effectively censored off the internet.

ALSO ON RT.COM CNN outraged at Sinclair-owned local news stations for interviewing doctor at heart of 'Plandemic' conspiracy theory

Bolling called Mikovits' claims "hefty," and brought on medical contributor Dr Nicole Saphier to refute them, but CNN claimed the host didn't push back hard enough against Mikovits' "baseless conspiracy theory," and hammered Bolling for allowing Mikovits to "continue to make her case."

As CNN's article circulated on Twitter on Saturday morning, the network's liberal audience called for a boycott of Sinclair. The broadcaster initially stood by its decision to run the segment, declaring that "at no juncture are we aligning with or endorsing the viewpoints of Dr Mikovits."

However, within an hour, Sinclair bent the knee and pulled the episode from the air until additional content could be added to counter Mikovits. "All stations have been notified not to air this and will instead be re-airing last week's episode in its place," Sinclair tweeted. For good measure, the company added "we valiantly support Dr Fauci and the work he and his team are doing to further prevent the spread of Covid-19."

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=true&id=1287110687093714944&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F495871-sinclair-cancels-plandemic-conspiracy%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=9066bb2%3A1593540614199&width=550px

Sinclair is an incredibly powerful organization to have been swayed by an online outrage campaign. The company and its partner organizations own nearly 300 local TV stations around the country, and reach 40 percent of American households.

Proponents of the boycott celebrated their victory on Twitter, declaring that "we shamed them into doing the right thing."

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=true&hideThread=false&id=1287118082255847425&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F495871-sinclair-cancels-plandemic-conspiracy%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=9066bb2%3A1593540614199&width=550px

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-2&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=true&id=1287118204511424513&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F495871-sinclair-cancels-plandemic-conspiracy%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=9066bb2%3A1593540614199&width=550px

Amid a recent upsurge in 'cancel culture,' few campaigns have brought a company to its knees as fast as Saturday's blitz by CNN. Similar campaigns have been mounted against Fox News' Tucker Carlson – with an advertiser boycott and attempts by journalists to doxx his family among the most recent moves, but Carlson remains on the air and unapologetic.

For Bolling and his colleagues at Sinclair on the other hand, it's back to the studio to reshoot their offending segment at CNN's behest.

[Jul 23, 2020] America is now a mad house

Jul 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Mark2 , Jul 23 2020 18:00 utc | 17

I'd be interested on peoples views on this important link.
One hour long. A whistle blower nurse in a hospital in New York ! I have watched 10 mins and am already shocked, disgusted and sickened. I'll get back to it when I'v calmed down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV0hOOB3oG4


America is now a mad house, if you are a sane member of the public hit the streets and protest. Or god help you.

[Jul 21, 2020] That is only the *valved* masks. Non-valved medical masks do not breath out freely

Jul 21, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Richard Steven Hack , Jul 20 2020 4:06 utc | 64

@ james | Jul 19 2020 18:35 utc | 20 they are designed to breathe out freely

That is only the *valved* masks. Non-valved medical masks do not breath out freely. See here.

More factual information from 3M here: (PDF).

The real problem is masks that don't measure up. This article says half of the masks manufactured in China don't actually capture 95% of particles. Since all of my masks are from China, that is concerning to me. However, even if a mask only does 50%, that's still better than most non-respirator masks.

As for health issues from wearing masks... here's the scoop on that. In short - no, they don't.

Further">https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/whats-the-difference-between-n95-and-kn95-masks/">Further discussion on Chinese KN95 masks - *if made properly*, they are just as good as American N95 masks.

The Smart Air company has a number of good articles on masks for use with the pandemic. I recommend reading them.

[Jul 21, 2020] Mask-wearing obligatory in confined public spaces in France from today

Jul 21, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

willie , Jul 20 2020 7:20 utc | 86

Mask-wearing obligatory in confined public spaces in France from today .Initially announced by Macron in his july 14th speech for the first of August,but over the weekend Health minister said it is in application from this monday 2 july.Fine is 135 euros.This will lead to more gigs cancelled,unless they are in the street.How can one sing masked?
Well,I tried wearing one saturday,but it is a sloppy experience and I don't think I will wear one correctly,it hangs down from my nose,it is to escape french fines.Before people start insulting me for that,i have to tell you that I see practically nobody,apart from going to supermarket once a week....

Richard Steven Hack , Jul 20 2020 3:27 utc | 60

@ Perimetr | Jul 19 2020 17:09 utc | 10

I pointed out that cloth masks were ineffective relative to N95 months ago here. The hierarchy is N100, N99, N95, surgical masks, then anything else. There is a reduction of maybe 25% in effectiveness per level (except for the N masks.) T-shirts are almost useless, having an effectiveness of maybe 10-15%.

*Doesn't mean they shouldn't be worn.*

People don't seem to understand that avoiding infection is a game of probabilities. It's not a binary either-or situation. Anything you can do to impede the progress of a viral load from the environment to your vulnerable surfaces is worth doing if it's practical. Wearing a mask is practical.

Minor repeated reductions in oxygen or increases in carbon dioxide is not going to kill you and is unlikely to have long-term physical effects. And there's a good chance that eventually we'll stop wearing them once the virus has been reduced in the environment.

Asians have been wearing masks frequently for a long time. Health workers wear masks frequently for extended periods. Cite a study where that has had long-term negative health effects.

[Jul 21, 2020] The COVID-19 peak death rate occurred the week of April 11- 18

Jul 21, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

The COVID-19 peak death rate occurred the week of April 11- 18

"But there is a graph here that if I explain this properly, it'll make sense to you. This is from the Centers for Disease Control. And it is death counts attributable to COVID-19 through July 11th. The week ending July 11th, which is the most recent date for data. They run about, you know, a week to two weeks behind here.

So throw the chart up. This is by age. All sexes by age. So if you look at the top line, the red line, the very top, that is the week ending April 11th. You can't see this on the chart. Go ahead and put the chart up there, Brian, switch it over. The top line is red. You can't even probably tell that. But, trust me. The top-most line is red, and it occurs on April the 11th. That is the peak death rate, and it's probably about 6,000 . I don't know in what interval that this thing is reporting.

Probably Eh, it's in a week. The key is to go all the way over to the right side. You see the peak of death rates was April the 11th. It isn't now. The peak death rate was April 11. That red line is people 85 years and older. The line under it is people 75 to 84. That's the yellow line. The blue line underneath that is people 65 to 74. We're under 4,000 now in a week. So the top line is people 85 and older.

If you go to the This is where I'm not gonna There are two reds, but you can't tell the difference in them. Just trust me. Let's move to the far-right side of the chart. That's July 11th, and you'll see that the death rate is not even 500, right now, per week -- CDC -- in all ages, in all demographics, says the CDC. We're not at peak death rate. The peak death rate was April the 11th to April the 18th." Limbaugh

----------------

But, what would Fauci say? pl

scott s. | 21 July 2020 at 11:05 AM

I see now we are being encouraged to ignore "death rate" as unimportant. What we are told to panic about is a higher incidence of "positives" among population under 40 years of age. This population apparently doesn't have as bad an outcome (hospitalization/death) and that's "bad" because they don't get contact traced and thus have "community spread".

I just love how AP/NYT and local journos all quote seemingly random "experts" with no discussion of just what their "expertise" consists of, other than perhaps a credential (and the relevance of the credential to the "expert statement" (more correctly opinion) is never provided).

At least Fauci has some standing.

Eric Newhill | 21 July 2020 at 11:18 AM


Sir,
Yes. You are thinking right about Cuomo murdering the elderly that cost the state so much money - many having the homes and medical treatment paid for by Medicaid (Medicare only pays for 30 days). Only it wasn't just Cuomo it was also Witmer in Michigan and Murphy in New Jersey. They killed off the costly elderly and got the bonus of more deaths to raise the fear of the virus and gain subsequent control over the lives of citizens + via twisted logic, try to give Trump a black eye. Those govs are are morally sick people. It is a no brainer, if you care about the elderly, to not place people with what you believe is a deadly highly contagious virus in homes full of elderly infirm people. I mean what is there to even consider or weigh about that decision?

Had those murderers handled the nursing homes correctly (like Florida did) the virus would have been a lot less deadly.

Btw, with regard to schools re-opening, note that the line of the graph for school and college age people is basically synonymous with the X-axis; meaning they didn't die from the virus even at its peak lethality.

Jim | 21 July 2020 at 02:47 PM

To know what Fauci [don't wear a mask it don't help; wear a mask it helps] would say, let's look at how Aristotle would help us elucidate this answer.

Q: What can one conclude from [the mouth of] the liar [Fauci]?

A: Answer: nothing
Absolutely Nothing.
+++++++++++++++
And on this basis, from his mouth, our national "pandemic" "strategy" was thus formulated, from Mr. Nothing aka Fauci.

And onto more black humor, and the wearing a mask as virtue signalling -- since they can only slow down by at most ten minutes any disease transmission of the novel coronvirus, there is this "gem" spoken by someone who apparently believes the mask kool aid? I D K . . . --and for me at least, his essay, Attorney Jonathan Turley, was funny to read, irrespective of whether that was his intent:

[[There is a new form of protests sweeping across the country as individuals put on anti-Mask masks to defy mandatory mask rules. The anti-masks are made of thin material, mesh or even crochet and are advertised as having no protective qualities for Covid-19. The question is whether they are legal. They appear to be so.]]


https://jonathanturley.org/2020/07/18/are-anti-mask-masks-legal/

[Jul 21, 2020] You're Probably Gonna Get It...

Jul 21, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Whether you like it or not, the world is going for "herd immunity." Unfortunately, there is no other viable option; there will be no vaccine, there will be no miracle cure and besides, the virus isn't even all that dangerous if you are young and healthy. Simply put, COVID-19 won't flame out until 50 to 80 percent of us get it (the precise number is open to debate).

For the past century, most people have accepted that from time to time they'll get a cold or flu. It was considered a fact of life and an inconvenience. Somehow, in this age of fake news and social media, a disease that's a bit worse than the annual flu, has taken on a persona that's terrifying. I understand why that's happened; the media and various "influencers" sell fear and astute politicians harness this fear for votes. Meanwhile, anyone with a dissenting voice is marginalized. Along the way, data has been tampered with and facts have become bastardized. Is anyone else disturbed that the Democrats and Republicans each support different miracle cures? Basic science hasn't been this politicized since Galileo opined about celestial bodies.

... ... ...

Now, I don't intend this post to be political; you can twist most data to prove almost any spectrum of facts. Rather, let me throw out a strawman; let's assume COVID-19 led to almost certain death, do we have the ability to stop it? We could quarantine all of humanity for years, but COVID-19 would still be out there; it wouldn't die out -- there would always be new flare-ups as people got sloppy or ignored the rules. We tried an aggressive quarantine in America and did little more than "flatten the curve." Unlike smallpox or polio, there will never be a vaccine (there has never been a COVID vaccine for a variety of reasons) -- therefore, as soon as quarantine ends, we'd all begin to spread it again, as there will always be infected humans. Countries that hermetically sealed their borders would not be immune either -- they've simply deferred infection. Eventually, there would be an accident -- one single pathogen would undo years of work. You can quarantine a village in Africa and stop a disease like Ebola that strikes fast and often kills the host. You cannot stop the spread of something that tens of millions of global citizens unknowingly have, while lying dormant for up to three weeks.

I think it should be obvious that you cannot stop COVID from spreading, at best, you can slow it down so that hospitals do not become overwhelmed. Instead, governments are passing draconian and arbitrary laws that do little to slow the spread, yet destroy businesses and communities. If anything, this takes a biological crisis and turns it into an economic one.

[Jul 21, 2020] Alarmist Fauci rejects his proper nickname

Trump has penchant to sticky nicknames ;-)
The the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was actually on sidelines and did not yet contribute anything signigicat in understadning this coronavirus
The level of subservience of Fauci to Big Pharma is open for review
Jul 21, 2020 | www.msn.com

WASHINGTON -- Dr. Anthony Fauci on Monday rejected President Donald Trump's recent criticism of him in which he called the infectious disease expert an "alarmist."

... Fauci warned last week that the coronavirus pandemic could be as bad as the 1918 flu pandemic, which is estimated to have killed at least 50 million people worldwide. He also warned late last month that the number of COVID-19 cases could top 100,000 a day.

[Jul 20, 2020] Are asymptomatic cases just false positives or they are a short stage of the disease (and it is unlear if at this stage person cantranmit the virus to others) after which it became regular, symptomatic case ?

Jul 20, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

m , Jul 20 2020 7:09 utc | 83

Is the high share of 70% asymptomatic cases really confirmed?? The last time I heard something about that isue it whas claimed to be 15-20% with no evidence for high numbers of undiscovered asymtomatic cases. The extensive testing with a low percantege of positives seems to confirm this.

If the asymptomatic cases were really around 2/3 then this would mean the number of real cases is much higher the the number of officially counted cases, by the factor of 3 roughly.

[Jul 20, 2020] For anyone who has forgotten, Fauci told 60 Minutes that "There's no reason to be walking around with a mask"

And this Big Pharma stooge was right: in open spaces unless you are inthe dence coud there is no reason to wear any mask
Notable quotes:
"... No – for a solid hour, I heard the following: that COVID19 – in reality, at most, a moderately serious flu virus – is the worst medical threat the United States has ever faced. ..."
Jul 20, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Blue Dotterel , Jul 20 2020 9:13 utc | 96

For anyone who has forgotten, Fauci told 60 Minutes that:

There's no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you're in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little better and it might even block a droplet, but it's not providing the perfect protection that people think it is. And often there are unintended consequences – people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face."

But he does make an astute point:

"Recently I had the poor judgment to turn on National Public Radio for about an hour, under the impression that I was going to learn something about the day’s news.
...
No – for a solid hour, I heard the following: that COVID19 – in reality, at most, a moderately serious flu virus – is the worst medical threat the United States has ever faced.
...
But the real theme of the hour was masks, masks, masks: how to make them, how to wear them, their different types, who doesn’t seem to have enough of them, and why muffling our faces (even though no such thing was ever demanded of us during dozens of past viral outbreaks) is absolutely, positively good for us all."

[Jul 18, 2020] Stockman- The Clown Cars Are Fully Loaded And Dr. Fauci s Is Leading The Parade -

Jul 18, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Stockman: The Clown Cars Are Fully Loaded And Dr. Fauci's Is Leading The Parade by Tyler Durden Sat, 07/18/2020 - 11:30 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Authored by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

When it comes to the topic of clown cars, we'd say Dr. Fauci gets a limo version all to himself...

Yesterday he uttered the following incoherent babble, saying the recent surge in new cases is because the Virus Patrol didn't go far enough in throwing 50 million Americans out of work:

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'We did not shut down entirely,' Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said. 'We need to draw back a few yards and say, "OK, we can't stay shut down forever." You've got to shut down but then you've got to gradually open.'

Got that?

What does this pretentious old windbag think - that the blooming, buzzing mass of a $21 trillion economy can be calibrated up and down by the week via some magical dimmer switch?

Never mind because he was then on to this preposterous comparison:

Fauci also said he expects the public to compare the Covid-19 pandemic to the 1918 pandemic flu, which killed around 50 million people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Well, it so happens that the US death rate from the Spanish Flu was 655 per 100,000 persons (675,000 deaths in a population of 103 million). That's obviously orders of magnitude larger than the 39 per 100,000 deaths to date from the Covid.

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In fact, the impact of the Spanish Flu was not only 17X greater in terms of the overall mortality rate, but it was also a true Grim Reaper in the sense that it struck across the entire age spectrum of the population (dark blue bars).

It actually started in the giant domestic military training compounds stood up by Woodrow Wilson to join a European war that was none of America's business, but the virus did kill tens of thousands of 18-30 year-old draftees in their own barracks long before they got to the killing fields of France.

By contrast, as we now surely understand, and you would think Fauci would, too, the Covid (light blue bars) is primarily a harvester of elderly persons already struggling with life-threatening respiratory, heart, vascular, renal and diabetic illnesses.

Accordingly, among the 191 million Americans under the age of 45 years, there have been only 1.5 WITH-Covid deaths per 100,000, while for the elderly, the opposite is true. Nearly 70,000 or more than 60 percent of all WITH-Covid death have been among the 75 years and older population, resulting in mortality rates as follows:

Now, you don't need to take a single class in epidemiology to understand a core truth: That is, when nearly 60 percent of the population under 45 years accounts for only 2.5 percent of the reported WITH-Covid deaths and has a rounding error mortality rate, while the 6.5 percent of the population 75 years and older accounts for 60 percent of the deaths -- you don't fight the disease with a one-size-fits all strategy of generic lockdowns, quarantines, and social regimentation.

And surely you don't shutdown the schools, gyms, bars, restaurants, movies, ball games, concerts, beaches, theme parks etc. because the vulnerable elderly don't patronize these venues in appreciable numbers anyway, and could easily be warned to stay strictly away.

The key point, however, is that this whole unspeakable Lockdown Folly does not remotely stem from the "science", as the MSM supporters of Fauci claim.

It's just a hair-brained experiment in social control that happened because the Donald was too weak, ill-informed, distracted, and innumerate to send Fauci and his camarilla of doctors and vaccine-peddlers packing when the mid-March guidelines were first issued by the CDC.

Yes, the Donald's political enemies in the ranks of big city mayors and Blue State governors have feasted upon the chum Fauci & Co have persistently tossed into the fetid waters of national politics, but that doesn't let Trump off the hook.

If the truth be told, this is the Trump Lockdown Folly and ranks among the greatest blunders ever committed by a US President. That's because even at this late date nearly four months into the resulting economic disaster:

Yet, the twin pillars of Fauci's hare-brained social regimentation scheme assumes they very opposite: Namely, that healthy Americans must be put under house arrest because they are silent spreaders and killers of their fellow citizens; and that the disease is so virulent that its #1 enemy -- the powerful immune system of every healthy American -- cannot be trusted to do its job if the virus is permitted to follow its natural course of contagion and eventual herd immunity.

As to the silent spreaders trope, here is how the very head of WHO's COVID-19 Task Force, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, recently explained that transmission of the virus from asymptomatic patients appears to be very rare:

It still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual."

For crying out loud. That knocks the very rationale for stay-at-home orders to hundreds of millions of healthy citizens into a cocked hat.

In a constitutional democracy, where the liberties and properties of citizens are protected by law, you need overwhelming proof of an existential threat to society before ordering mass house arrests. But in this instance, the head of the WHO task force–the agency that fomented the whole coronavirus hysteria in the first place–has said quite unequivocally: No cigar!

In a word, Dr. Fauci is peddling dangerous humbug under the banner of pseudo-science, and should have been shut-up and forced into retirement long ago. The unfortunate truth, however, is that the Donald is too chicken to use the Fake "your fired" tool that made him a short-lived TV star, if not a successful businessman.

His defenders, of course, mumble that his hands are tied because Fauci is a member of the legally protected Senior Executive Service (SES). That's Jimmy Carter's gift to insubordinate bureaucracy, which your editor happily voted against back in the day -- but the excuse is poppycock.

Under Federal law, Fauci can be fired if he is found to have engaged in --

misconduct, neglect of duty, malfeasance, or failure to accept a direct reassignment or to accompany a position in a transfer of function", is or to be "less than successful [in his] executive performance.

If not "malfeasance", what would you call the absolute savaging of the livelihoods and life's work of tens of millions of American workers and small businessmen for no good reason of state, which have resulted from Fauci's idiotic pronouncements and guidelines?

The thing is, after four months Fauci's blatherings and instructions to state and local authorities have fomented an outright public Hysteria of biblical proportions.

It is not just that officialdom has closed restaurants and gyms via unconstitutional "takings" of their owners' properties. By now, Fauci's Virus Patrol and its megaphones and misanthropes in the MSM have rendered large portions of the American public fearful about leaving their own homes.

And, needless to say, they have also given the Donald's legions of rabid political enemies license to stage malign theatrics in the name of Covid-fighting that would be unthinkable under any other circumstances.

For instance, it has now been announced that the school districts of Los Angeles and San Diego, which collectively serve nearly one million students, will not have in-person teaching to start the school year.

But if you are conversant with any facts at all, you can only sputter: WTF!

There are nine million school age children in California, and not a single WITH-Covid death has occurred among them.

That's right. There have been 27,400 positive tests among these nine million kids, but all of them, positively all of them, have been either asymptomatic or mildly ill -- as children are wont to become -- and have recovered.

Yet here is where America's growing fleet of clown cars comes in. It seems that the politicization has gone so far off the deep end that the LA teachers union–35,000 strong -- is now taking the schools hostage for their own parochial ends.

They recently proclaimed that no schools should open in LA until there is a Charter School freeze; the police are defunded; Medicare-for-all is adopted by the US Congress; new state taxes on the wealthy are enacted; and there is a Federal bailout of the LA school district.

You can't make this stuff up. And while they were taking the children hostage in the name of Covid-fighting, they also insisted that the already dysfunctional schools of LA become completely pointless:

The union outlined numerous major provisions it says will be necessary to reopen schools again, including sequestering students in small groups throughout the school day, providing students with masks and other forms of protective equipment, and re-designing school layouts in order to facilitate 'social distancing.'

Of course, the latest outbursts of this kind of mindless social destruction has been fueled by the absolute mendacity of the Virus Patrol and its MSM megaphones with respect to the so-called outbreak of new cases in the Sun Belt states.

But the whole brouhaha is a crock. There is no public health crisis in the so-called hot spots, as the up-to-date chart below makes abundantly clear.

Yes, the 42-day trend of "new cases" has risen sharply in tandem with far more testing, and repeat testing of the same individuals -- outcomes that were inherent in re-opening plans, which required employers to have their employees tested as a condition of operating.

But, alas, the death count trend in these 50 counties has not risen at all - except for the last few days when a lot of "catch-up" data for earlier fatalities was thrown into the data hoppers by some of the counties involved.

That hasn't stopped the Covid-Howlers from proclaiming a phony medical crisis in Texas and elsewhere, with the same old tropes about overflowing hospitals and strained ICU capacity in places like Houston.

But as the eagle-eyed maven of the corona-data, Alex Berenson, tweeted this AM, it's just a big fat lie. While CNN may have managed to find one or two crowded facilities in the whole of the Houston-Harris county region of some 5 million souls, there are actually still more than 2,500 empty hospital beds in the area.

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Here's the thing. The Virus Patrol has switched from the death count to the "case" count because the latter is not at the 3,000 per day predicted by the CDC in early May, and ballyhooed by the NYT and MSM as the leading edge of a horrid "second wave" coming down the pike.

In fact, during July to date (thru the 14th), the daily WITH-Covid death count has averaged 613, or only one-fifth of the projected June-July-August surge; and even that level is suspect, given the growing evidence that many local jurisdictions are doing retrospective death audits to pad their case counts.

In any event, the readily available state-by-state data tells you all you need to know. This so-called Sun Belt wave of cases is, indeed, the equivalent of the normal flu.

In the case of Florida, for instance, during the first 14 days of July, there have been 139,195 new cases reported, but only 4,322 new hospitalizations. So that means only 3.1 percent of this ballyhooed surge of cases was sick enough to even require hospitalization.

Needless to say, that's not a crisis; it's just one more part of the indictment against Fauci and his gang of malpracticing doctors. They have put the anti-Trump press into a rabid feeding frenzy, and that coverage, in turn, has caused the American public to head back into their Covid holes.

As it happened, three of the nation's largest banks reported their totally confected earnings for Q2 this AM, but the one thing that stood out as meaningful was a collective $28 billion provision for future loan losses. That is, they see the massive wave of defaults set in motion by Fauci's misbegotten Lockdown Nation strategy, and are getting prepared for the worst.

Meanwhile, the Fed's lunatic $3 trillion injection of liquidity into the canyons of Wall Street since the Lockdown Nation incepted in mid-March continues to do its mischief, fueling a stock market bubble that gets more ludicrous (and dangerous) by the day.

We noted yesterday that during the Monday's great reversal on the stock market that Tesla had gained a "GM" ($38 billion) in the morning spike, but lost a "BMW" ($42 billion) in the afternoon.

A timely piece by Bloomberg this AM helps explain how this kind of madness actually happened:

Almost 40,000 Robinhood accounts added shares of the automaker during a single fourhour span on Monday, according to website Robintrack.net, which compiles data on the investing platform that's much beloved by day trading millennials.

The frenzy in interest means that as of the end of Monday's trading session, there are now roughly 457,000 users on the Robinhood app that hold shares of the company in some form. That makes it the 10th-most popular stock on the platform, ahead of even Amazon.com Inc., which is held by 358,000 users.

The one-day return may not have turned out so well. Tesla was up as much as 16 percent at one point before paring gains through the day and finishing 3 percent lower. It was a rare losing day for the high flying stock, which has surged 56 percent over the past 10 days.

So how did these mindless gamblers reason about a company that has never, ever made a four-quarter profit, and which reported Q2 volumes well below last year, in coming to a peak valuation of $325 billion Monday morning?

Well, a sell-side analyst explained both that question, and the large fleet of clown cars now cruising up and down Wall Street about as well as could be expected. Said this master of the crystal ball:

'At the current price, Tesla's stock reflects an expectation of 2030 volume of 5 million units, which is more than ten times what the company appears on track to achieve this year,' Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said.

Why, you don't say!

Then again, projecting EV car sales in the year 2030 is probably as good a use for Wall Street's clown car riders as any other.

Certainly, it would not dawn on them to ask whether a stock market held up by the Terrific Ten, and especially the FAANGs and Microsoft, has anything at all to do with the dire state of the US economy.

It seems these trading sardines make up a quarter of the S&P 500 index by value, but just 8 percent of its composite revenues and a mere 1 percent of jobs in the American workforce.

So, yes, the Acela Corridor has the clown cars coming and going - even as the stock bubble which will take down this whole fantasy reaches its historic asymptote, as we will essay further in Part 3.

[Jul 18, 2020] Fetanil competes with COVID-19 in killing Americans: 2 years of drug overdose killed as many Americans as plandemic.

Jul 18, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Record Number Of Americans Died From Drug Overdoses In 2019 As Fentanyl Moved West

Nearly 71,000 Americans died from drug overdoses last year...

Soaring overdose deaths in the US have helped drag down average life expectancy for 3 straight years, and by the looks of it, No. 4 might be right around the corner.

play_arrow

sbin , 1 hour ago

St Floyd died of an overdose.

2 years of drug overdose killed as many Americans as plandemic.

Work for funeral homes many more overdose and suicide deaths 20 to 40 year olds than covid +70 and most were already dead but still breathing and making nursing home money.

Lucius Quinctius , 1 hour ago

The Chinese have a legitimate grievance ,(actually several), with regards to the deliberate introduction of opium into their country by the British, in the 1800 s,as a means to repatriate sterling used to pay for tea .Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank,(HSBC),very central to funding this traffic as well as a Jewish-British banking family, the Sassoons, originally from Baghdad ,directly involved.The immiseration of millions of Chinese in opium addiction as well as the failed Chinese attempt To free themselves from this in the Opium Wars has left them bitter,rightfully.

So, introducing fentanyl to the west is payback. Two years ago I looked up on Alibaba ,out of curiosity ,the cost , quantity and availability of a common antibiotic, Vancomycin. It was amazing, at least 30 responses, producing in quantity, hundreds of kilograms, cheap ....,,you want it when? The Chinese pharmaceutical production capacity is enormous. Fentanyl is no problem to produce in huge quantity for these folks. They, in their minds, have reason to send it our way. We are at war.

MerLynn , 1 hour ago

yes its a Bio Chemical War.... and all Bio Weapons come from the Barrel of a Needle

Sid Davis , 1 hour ago

If you are free, that means you can make good choices for yourself and bad ones, too.

When you are a slave on the big government run plantation we call the USA, pain from being subjugated encourages escape, and since the underground market in drugs is one of the few remaining free markets, you still have the freedom there to make bad choices.

It isn't much solace to those you leave behind that you managed to permanently escape your pain.

[Jul 17, 2020] Newsmax network in the US the guest COMPLETELY ripped into Gates and Fauci

Jul 17, 2020 | off-guardian.org

kevin , Jul 16, 2020 10:44 PM

Off topic, but yesterday on Newsmax network in the US the guest COMPLETELY ripped into Gates and Fauci. Newsmax is a major conservative media outlet that has both a TV network and website with millions of viewers/readers. You can watch it here:
https://twitter.com/KarluskaP/status/1283315374025515008

[Jul 15, 2020] Fauci has been wrong about everything...- Navarro

Jul 15, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"And when Fauci was telling the White House Coronavirus Task Force that there was only anecdotal evidence in support of hydroxychloroquine to fight the virus, I confronted him with scientific studies providing evidence of safety and efficacy. A recent Detroit hospital study showed a 50% reduction in the mortality rate when the medicine is used in early treatment.

Now Fauci says a falling mortality rate doesn't matter when it is the single most important statistic to help guide the pace of our economic reopening. The lower the mortality rate, the faster and more we can open." Navarro in USA Today

-------------

"Laputa's population consists mainly of an educated elite, who are fond of mathematics, astronomy , music and technology, but fail to make practical use of their knowledge. Servants make up the rest of the population.

The Laputans have mastered magnetic levitation. They also are very fond of astronomy, and discovered two moons of Mars. (This is 151 years earlier than the recognized discovery of the two moons of Mars by Asaph Hall in 1877.) However, they are unable to construct well-designed clothing or buildings, as they despise practical geometry as "vulgar and mechanick". The houses are ill-built, lacking any right angles, [6] and the clothes of Laputans, which are decorated with astrological symbols and musical figures, do not fit, as they take measurements with instruments such as quadrants and a compass rather than with tape measures . [7] They spend their time listening to the music of the spheres. They believe in astrology and worry constantly that the sun will go out." wiki on Gullivers Travels.

--------------

Ah, I see it now! Dr. Fauci is a Laputan seer! He is devoid of any real comprehension or respect for the ordinary humans trying to deal with actual pandemic problems rather than "the music of the spheres."

Is he a Democratic Party operative? I doubt it. He is simply "out of it." pl

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/todaysdebate/2020/07/14/anthony-fauci-wrong-with-me-peter-navarro-editorials-debates/5439374002/


J , 15 July 2020 at 10:46 AM

The first thing that should popped up like a red flag that Fauci was a few bricks of a shy load upstairs, was his 'luv' for Hillary.


From 2013:

https://theconservativetreehouse.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/sketchy-fauci-2.jpg

nbsp; Mike46 , 15 July 2020 at 12:40 PM

Fauci doesn't matter. Over the weekend the WH tried to strongarm parents to get on board with school reopening. They are fucking with the wrong interest group.

Mark K Logan , 15 July 2020 at 12:47 PM

There is a better, albeit a more difficult way to undermine Fauci. Educate the people that this issue has vast economic consequences and we must factor in those consequences when crafting an over-all policy. Fauci, I expect, will openly admit he is approaching the topic from a purely medical perspective...which is exactly what he's supposed to be doing.

As is, Trump is leaves himself wide open to the obvious counter: Neither he nor his economic adviser have any medical expertise.

Trump may be trapped in a zero-sum game mindset.

Terence Gore , 15 July 2020 at 02:07 PM

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/04/bobby-kennedy-jr-claims-dr-fauci-gates-foundation-will-make-billions-coronavirus-vaccine/

"Tony Fauci has many, many vaccine patents and there's one vaccine patent that he has that is a way of packaging a coronavirus with some other vaccine in a protein sheet and then delivering it through a vaccine he somehow ended up owning that patent Tony Fauci will be able to cash in . So Fauci's agency will collect half the royalties for that vaccine [related to the coronavirus]."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4-DMKNT7xI

The founding of moderna on mrna medicine. At end of video talks about analogy of climbing Mt Everest and needed to have 1 big investor

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/14/early-moderna-backer-on-core-investing-lesson-from-big-covid-19-bet.html

"Sunderland co-founded the VC firm, known for making ambitious investments, after having led program-related investments for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which provided financial support to Moderna while she was there. Since 2010, Moderna has been working on developing messenger RNA (mRNA) that allows the body's cells to act like reprogrammed biological factories, producing antibodies needed to battle diseases, including viruses.

"The nice thing about big bets is that they play out over time. ... We made an investment five years ago in Moderna, and mRNA was a big bet, and you see it playing out in terms of their ability to get a rapid vaccine for Covid. ... You have to take those big bets," Sunderland said."


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8211291/U-S-government-gave-3-7million-grant-Wuhan-lab-experimented-coronavirus-source-bats.html


https://www.ajmc.com/interviews/fauci-countless-lives-have-been-saved-but-a-vaccine-and-cure-remain-elusive

Fauci interview

"The other thing that is amazing in its evolution is the amount that we've learned about HIV pathogenesis, the reservoir, the potential for controlling the virus, either in the absence of antiretroviral [treatment] or in a modified regimen that takes away the need to have a single pill or multiple pills every single day. The thing that remains the holy grail of unaccomplished goals is the development of a highly effective, safe vaccine. And that is something that's not surprising because of the very special situation with HIV, that the body -- as much as we study pathogenesis and understand it so incredibly well -- the body does not make an adequate immune response against HIV, which is the reason why no one has yet spontaneously cleared the virus by their immune system. And so what we need to do, and where we're combination putting a lot of effort into, but also struggling with, is the issue of the development of a vaccine that would be effective enough to be able to be deployed.

We have one situation that took place, well after that meeting in San Francisco, where a trial of a candidate vaccine -- in a trial named RV 144 that took place in Thailand -- showed a 31% efficacy, which gave us some great hints of correlates of immunity and are the basis for a number of subsequent trials, but still was not good enough to deploy. So we have a number of very large vaccine trials, going on now throughout the world, including a heavy concentration in southern Africa. But we also are pursuing another line of vaccine research, which is the attempt to present to the body, in the proper conformation with sequential immunizations, the capability of making broadly neutralizing antibodies. And if we're successful in that, then I think we have a really good chance of developing a vaccine that would have an efficacy and safety profile good enough to actually deploy it."

I think over time mrna "vaccines" will change medicine. Are we opening Pandora's box? Possibly.

[Jul 15, 2020] Fauci bedside deception of American public

Jul 15, 2020 | www.msn.com

Navarro wrote in the op-ed for USA TODAY Tuesday that "Fauci has a good bedside manner with the public, but he has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on."

...

The White House's deputy chief of staff for communications, Dan Scavino, who has been by the president's side since the 2016 campaign, on Sunday posted a cartoon on Facebook depicting Fauci as a running faucet washing the U.S. economy down the drain.

"Sorry, Dr. Faucet! At least you know if I'm going to disagree with a colleague, such as yourself, it's done publicly -- and not cowardly, behind journalists with leaks. See you tomorrow!" Scavino wrote in a caption accompanying the cartoon.


[Jul 09, 2020] Russia-Baiting Is the Only Game in Town by Philip Giraldi

Notable quotes:
"... The cash must be Russian sourced , per the NYT, because a couple of low level Taliban types, who were likely tortured by the Afghan police, have said that it is so. ..."
Jul 09, 2020 | www.unz.com

There is particular danger at the moment that powerful political alignments in the United States are pushing strongly to exacerbate the developing crisis with Russia. The New York Times, which broke the story that the Kremlin had been paying the Afghan Taliban bounties to kill American soldiers, has been particularly assiduous in promoting the tale of perfidious Moscow. Initial Times coverage, which claimed that the activity had been confirmed by both intelligence sources and money tracking, was supplemented by delusional nonsense from former Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice, who asks "Why does Trump put Russia first?" before calling for a "swift and significant U.S. response." Rice, who is being mentioned as a possible Biden choice for Vice President, certainly knows about swift and significant as she was one of the architects of the destruction of Libya and the escalation of U.S. military and intelligence operations directed against a non-threatening Syria.

The Times is also titillating with the tale of a low level drug smuggling Pashto businessman who seemed to have a lot of cash in dollars lying around, ignoring the fact that Afghanistan is awash with dollars and has been for years. Many of the dollars come from drug deals, as Afghanistan is now the world's number one producer of opium and its byproducts.

The cash must be Russian sourced , per the NYT, because a couple of low level Taliban types, who were likely tortured by the Afghan police, have said that it is so. The Times also cites anonymous sources which allege that there were money transfers from an account managed by the Kremlin's GRU military intelligence to an account opened by the Taliban. Note the "alleged" and consider for a minute that it would be stupid for any intelligence agency to make bank-to-bank transfers, which could be identified and tracked by the clever lads at the U.S. Treasury and NSA. Also try to recall how not so long ago we heard fabricated tales about threatening WMDs to justify war. Perhaps the story would be more convincing if a chain of custody could be established that included checks drawn on the Moscow-Narodny Bank and there just might be a crafty neocon hidden somewhere in the U.S. intelligence community who is right now faking up that sort of evidence.

Other reliably Democratic Party leaning news outlets, to include CNN, MSNBC and The Washington Post all jumped on the bounty story, adding details from their presumably inexhaustible supply of anonymous sources. As Scott Horton observed the media was reporting a "fact" that there was a rumor.

Inevitably the Democratic Party leadership abandoned its Ghanaian kente cloth scarves, got up off their knees, and hopped immediately on to their favorite horse, which is to claim loudly and in unison that when in doubt Russia did it. Joe Biden in particular is "disgusted" by a "betrayal" of American troops due to Trump's insistence on maintaining "an embarrassing campaign of deferring and debasing himself before Putin."

The Dems were joined in their outrage by some Republican lawmakers who were equally incensed but are advocating delaying punishing Russia until all the facts are known. Meanwhile, the "circumstantial details" are being invented to make the original tale more credible, including crediting the Afghan operation to a secret Russian GRU Army intelligence unit that allegedly was also behind the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury England in 2018.

Reportedly the Pentagon is looking into the circumstances around the deaths of three American soldiers by roadside bomb on April 8, 2019 to determine a possible connection to the NYT report. There are also concerns relating to several deaths in training where Afghan Army recruits turned on their instructors. As the Taliban would hardly need an incentive to kill Americans and as only seventeen U.S. soldiers died in Afghanistan in 2019 as a result of hostile action, the year that the intelligence allegedly relates to, one might well describe any joint Taliban-Russian initiative as a bit of a failure since nearly all of those deaths have been attributed to kinetic activity initiated by U.S. forces.

The actual game that is in play is, of course, all about Donald Trump and the November election. It is being claimed that the president was briefed on the intelligence but did nothing. Trump denied being verbally briefed due to the fact that the information had not been verified. For once America's Chief Executive spoke the truth, confirmed by the "intelligence community," but that did not stop the media from implying that the disconnect had been caused by Trump himself. He reportedly does not read the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB), where such a speculative piece might indeed appear on a back page, and is uninterested in intelligence assessments that contradict what he chooses to believe. The Democrats are suggesting that Trump is too stupid and even too disinterested to be president of the United States so they are seeking to replace him with a corrupt 78-year-old man who may be suffering from dementia.

The Democratic Party cannot let Russia go because they see it as their key to future success and also as an explanation for their dramatic failure in 2016 which in no way holds them responsible for their ineptness. One does not expect the House Intelligence Committee, currently headed by the wily Adam Schiff, to actually know anything about intelligence and how it is collected and analyzed, but the politicization of the product is certainly something that Schiff and his colleagues know full well how to manipulate. One only has to recall the Russiagate Mueller Commission investigation and Schiff's later role in cooking the witnesses that were produced in the subsequent Trump impeachment hearings.

Schiff predictably opened up on Trump in the wake of the NYT report, saying "I find it inexplicable in light of these very public allegations that the president hasn't come before the country and assured the American people that he will get to the bottom of whether Russia is putting bounties on American troops and that he will do everything in his power to make sure that we protect American troops."

Schiff and company should know, but clearly do not, that at the ground floor level there is a lot of lying, cheating and stealing around intelligence collection. Most foreign agents do it for the money and quickly learn that embroidering the information that is being provided to their case officer might ultimately produce more cash. Every day the U.S. intelligence community produces thousands of intelligence reports from those presumed "sources with access," which then have to be assessed by analysts. Much of the information reported is either completely false or cleverly fabricated to mix actual verified intelligence with speculation and out and out lies to make the package more attractive. The tale of the Russian payment of bribes to the Taliban for killing Americans is precisely the kind of information that stinks to high heaven because it doesn't even make any political or tactical sense, except to Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff and the New York Times. For what it's worth, a number of former genuine intelligence officers including Paul Pillar, John Kiriakou , Scott Ritter , and Ray McGovern have looked at the evidence so far presented and have walked away unimpressed. The National Security Agency (NSA) has also declined to confirm the story, meaning that there is no electronic trail to validate it.

Finally, there is more than a bit of the old hypocrisy at work in the damnation of the Russians even if they have actually been involved in an improbable operation with the Taliban. One recalls that in the 1970s and 1980s the United States supported the mujahideen rebels fighting against the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. The assistance consisted of weapons, training, political support and intelligence used to locate, target and kill Soviet soldiers. Stinger missiles were provided to bring down helicopters carrying the Russian troops. The support was pretty much provided openly and was even boasted about, unlike what is currently being alleged about the Russian assistance. The Soviets were fighting to maintain a secular regime that was closely allied to Moscow while the mujahideen later morphed into al-Qaeda and the Islamist militant Taliban subsequently took over the country, meaning that the U.S. effort was delusional from the start.

So, what is a leaked almost certainly faux story about the Russian bounties on American soldiers intended to accomplish? It is probably intended to keep a "defensive" U.S. presence in Afghanistan, much desired by the neocons, a majority in Congress and the Military Industrial Complex (MIC), and it will further be played and replayed to emphasize the demonstrated incompetence of Donald Trump. The end result could be to secure the election of a pliable Establishment flunky Joe Biden as president of the United States. How that will turn out is unpredictable, but America's experience of its presidents since 9/11 has not been very encouraging.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .


Zarathustra , says: July 7, 2020 at 4:28 am GMT

Also there are the poppy fields.

Milton , says: July 7, 2020 at 4:35 am GMT

The Deep State vermin who pulled-off the violent, proxy overthrow of Yanukovych in 2014, and who are also behind the Arab Spring, Syrian Rebels, ISIS, and the ongoing domestic unrest Stateside, are the descendants of the vermin who overthrew Christian Russia in 1917 using the same modus operandi of color revolution and “peaceful protests.”. Putin undid all their hard work in Russia and kicked them out and seized their ill gotten gains: this, coupled with their congenital hatred of Russia, is the reason for the non-stop, bipartisan refrain of “Russia, Russia, Russia.”

anonymous [316] • Disclaimer , says: July 7, 2020 at 5:05 am GMT

It is probably intended to keep a “defensive” U.S. presence in Afghanistan, much desired by the neocons, a majority in Congress and the Military Industrial Complex (MIC), and it will further be played and replayed to emphasize the demonstrated incompetence of Donald Trump.

There are other reasons for wishing to stay in Afghanistan. Generals don’t like losing wars. It is personally humiliating to retreat. The whole country is also worn down by lost wars and the psychological blow lasts for over 10 years like during the post-Vietnam era. Keeping 10,000 troops in Afghanistan permanently won’t win the war but it will prevent a defeat and potentially humiliating last minute evacuation when the Taliban retake Kabul.

Also Al-Qaeda is still present in Afghanistan: “Al-Qaeda has 400 to 600 operatives active in 12 Afghan provinces and is running training camps in the east of the country, according to the report released Friday. U.N. experts, drawing their research from interviews with U.N. member states, including their intelligence and security services, plus think tanks and regional officials, say the Taliban has played a double game with the Trump Administration, consulting with al-Qaeda senior leaders throughout its 16 months of peace talks with U.S. officials and reassuring Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri, among others, that the Taliban would “honour their historical ties” to the terrorist group.” https://time.com/5844865/afghanistan-peace-deal-taliban-al-qaeda/

vot tak , says: July 7, 2020 at 5:10 am GMT

While the melodrama about trump=pro Russia and dems=anti Russia makes good political theater to keep folks running in circles chasing their tails, this is not the main reason for the continuous attacks on Russia by organs of the zpc/nwo. The main reason is Russia is not owned by them. Not a colony. The main reason for the psywar is not about trump vs dems, it is about keeping the Russia=bad guys theme seeded in the propaganda. That was the main reason behind “Russiagate”, as well. And as with that scam, both “sides” knowingly played their part hyping the theater to keep that Russia=bad guy propaganda theme in the mind of americans.

Robert Dolan , says: July 7, 2020 at 5:12 am GMT

I can’t imagine that any intelligent person believes this bullshit about Russia. I completely tune it out the same way I tuned out any news about “CHAZ.”

Some things are just too silly to bother with.

Harold Smith , says: July 7, 2020 at 5:29 am GMT

“So, what is a leaked almost certainly faux story about the Russian bounties on American soldiers intended to accomplish? It is probably intended to keep a “defensive” U.S. presence in Afghanistan, much desired by the neocons, a majority in Congress and the Military Industrial Complex (MIC), and it will further be played and replayed to emphasize the demonstrated incompetence of Donald Trump.”

Let’s say for the sake of argument that the story is true. So what? I don’t see how it can be used as justification to double down on a pointless war. (Reasonable people might see it as another reason to get out of Afghanistan sooner rather than later).

Moreover, I don’t think they’d have to create such drama to get Trump the imperialist to keep the troops in Afghanistan (if he actually had any intention to withdraw them in the first place).

This propaganda effort reminds me of the Skripal affair. Perhaps Trump’s handlers and enablers realize that he’ll lose the election (if we have one) so they’re trying to manipulate him into escalating tensions with Russia (just as they are with China, Iran and Venezuela).

Alfred , says: July 7, 2020 at 5:30 am GMT

The Americans were always very proud and upfront about how they organized, trained, equipped and financed the Taliban to oust the Russians from Afghanistan. In view of this, why do they act so surprised should the Russians do something similar on a much smaller scale?

Obviously, the whole story was concocted in Washington, but so what?

Anyone with half a brain should know that the Americans are in Afghanistan because the Americans control the world trade in narcotics. Columbia is the cocaine end of the business.

I do wish some smart chemists would synthesize heroin and cocaine in a laboratory and put the CIA out of business.

Patagonia Man , says: July 7, 2020 at 5:33 am GMT

“and it will further be played and replayed to emphasize the demonstrated incompetence of Donald Trump”

The demonization of a democratically-elected President by the zionist-owned New York Times , Washington Post and CNN is somewaht reminiscent of the demonization of a certain Austrian in the Western media after the 1933 World Jewry’s declaration of war on Nazi Germany.

“He who controls the narrative controls the consciousness”

With Wolf Blitz’s, Bolton’s, and this week’s release of Trump’s relative’s book discrediting his mental health. How many books is that now???

But, times have moved on. Trump can ride this wave by learning the dark art of playing the victim using the mantra ‘look how hard I’m trying’ and appealing to US voters as their ‘law and order’ president.

Geopolitically speaking, if the US Zio-cons were smart, rather than suffering from ‘Groupthink’, they would be trying to entice Russia away from its partner, China, and draw Russia into playing a greater role in Europe. Recall that Putin had asked if Russia could join NATO.

But, alas, they’re still making the same mistake they did in 1991 after the collapse of Central Industrialism in the former USSR.

No Friend Of The Devil , says: July 7, 2020 at 6:51 am GMT

The Mujahudeen morphing into Al Qaeda is a new one on me that I have never heard before. I had read and heard countless times that it was Al Qaeda all along in Afghanistan that the U.S. assisted to fight against the USSR. It does not make sense either, since the MEK ( Mujahudeen ) is a twisted Shiite cult Iranian, and Al Qaeda is Arabic and twisted Sunni cult. So, the language and religious differences do not make any sense that one became the other.

I guess that it makes perfect sense to say anything at all, regardless of the facts, to the Terrible Trio in the DNC, just to keep the focus on themselves, rather than on Biden.

Mike_from_Russia , says: July 7, 2020 at 7:32 am GMT

We in Russia read both the main and alternative press in the United States with great interest. Sites with those translations are quite popular.

Mikhail , says: • Website July 7, 2020 at 7:40 am GMT

Initial Times coverage, which claimed that the activity had been confirmed by both intelligence sources and money tracking, was supplemented by delusional nonsense from former Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice, who asks “Why does Trump put Russia first?” before calling for a “swift and significant U.S. response.” Rice, who is being mentioned as a possible Biden choice for Vice President, certainly knows about swift and significant as she was one of the architects of the destruction of Libya and the escalation of U.S. military and intelligence operations directed against a non-threatening Syria.

The pathetic Rice has plenty of company. During a 7/5 CNN puff segment with Dana Bash, Tammy Duckworth (another potential Biden VP), out of the blue said that the Russians put out a bounty on US forces. Of course, Bash didn’t challenge Duckworth.

Downplayed in all of this is the fact that Russia was one of the first, if not the first nation, to console the US on 9/11, followed by Russian assistance to the US military operation in Afghanistan.

Achilles Wannabe , says: July 7, 2020 at 7:54 am GMT

“…the kind of information that stinks to high heaven because it doesn’t even make any political or tactical sense, except to Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff and the New York Times.”

Pelosi is the proud daughter of a shabbos goy father; Schumer is “shomer” or professed guardian of Israel; Schiff is the decendent of the Internationale Banker who supported Trotsky’s take down of the Czar; the NYT is what happens when Hebrews learn to write English. The Jews have been trying to rule Russia for almost 200 years as Solzhenitsyn would have told us if he could have gotten a publisher in the Jewish American publishing industry. If Stalin hadn’t thrown the Bolshevik Jews out, there might not have been a cold war. Watch out Gentiles. These people have taken us into 3 wars for their interests and they NEVER change.

Ray Caruso , says: July 7, 2020 at 8:01 am GMT

And, of course, the “conservative” maggots are going along with the obvious liberal lies once again. There has never been a group of more cowardly and worthless individuals than American “conservatives”.

Emily , says: July 7, 2020 at 8:10 am GMT

Russia
The hope of the world.
Edgar Cayce
Famous US psychic.

As the USA continues its path into a political, moral and military cesspit of pure corruption, lies, violence, mass murder and sheer evil, it is increasingly difficult to argue with Cayce.
He was certainly on to something, and that something was like, 80 years ago.
One can even put more belief and trust in a psychic these days – than anything being claimed or reported by the USA alphabets, government or MSM
Sickening and frightening really.

Emily , says: July 7, 2020 at 8:15 am GMT
@Zarathustra

Absolutely and full of the USA military.
Take a look.
Notice U tube has censored the Vid.
Tells you all you need to know about the content – if you have half a brain …….
https://www.globalresearch.ca/drug-war-american-troops-are-protecting-afghan-opium-u-s-occupation-leads-to-all-time-high-heroin-production/5358053

Ann Nonny Mouse , says: July 7, 2020 at 8:23 am GMT

Philip, I wish you hadn’t written, “a certainly forks story.”

I’ve been seeing that too much, recently, that silly fashion of using “forks” for “false”.

Please stop it. Use correct English.

Emily , says: July 7, 2020 at 8:25 am GMT
@anonymous

There are other reasons for wishing to stay in Afghanistan. Generals don’t like losing wars

You would have thought by now the American Generals would have got used to ‘losing wars’.
They haven’t won one other than Grenada in living memory.
The Russians even had to win WW2 for them….
Russia and China would eat them alive today.
So we are now down to sheer bullying, bluster and illegal economic sabotage.
Venezuela springs to mind.

Franklin Ryckaert , says: July 7, 2020 at 8:47 am GMT
@Milton

Yes, but they also hate Putin for liberating Russia from its rapacious oligarchs, nearly all of whom were Jews. The present artificially created hatred for Russia in the US is in reality the hatred of the frustrated Jewish Mafia.

Ann Nonny Mouse , says: July 7, 2020 at 8:59 am GMT
@Alfred

I agree. Except it would be fatal for the smart chemists. They’d all die for reasons smart chemists wouldn’t be able to work out.

But isn’t this the Art of the Deal? Breaching the deal? Hadn’t the US just made a deal with the Taliban to pull out? Pull its troops out?

So Russia was needed to help the U.S. pull out of the deal, right? Doesn’t Russia provide that help again and again and again?

animalogic , says: July 7, 2020 at 9:07 am GMT
@Robert Dolan

“I can’t imagine that any intelligent person believes this bullshit about Russia”

Lenny is clapping his hands excitedly.
“Oy believe it, George ! I do – I do – I do !”
George grunts, clears his throat & spits with some force & accuracy at a scrunched up copy of the NYT.

animalogic , says: July 7, 2020 at 9:14 am GMT
@Harold Smith

“Let’s say for the sake of argument that the story is true.”
For amusement’s sake, lets wonder what would happen should the Russians offer a bounty to US & allied troops to kill each other . A kind of cash incentive to bring back the final years of the Vietnam war.

Anon [833] • Disclaimer , says: July 7, 2020 at 9:26 am GMT

It sure will be entertaining to watch Joe Biden try to cope with the duties of the presidency. He makes the fictional President Camacho from the movie “Idiocracy” look like a statesman with the intellectual skills of a Teddy Roosevelt by comparison. I can picture his inaugural address in my head, as he inevitably loses his place on the teleprompter and starts babbling about pony soldiers and you know, the thing. After a grope fest at his inaugural ball, instead of the Oval Office he will immediately be consigned to the White House basement for the duration of his term. If you thought an inarticulate President Donnie made for good reality TV, just wait till a totally incoherent President Joe has the whole world rollicking with laughter. Plus, Republicans get their turn to amuse with grid lock of the Congress and the discharge of mass quantities of bog sediment at the administration every single day for four solid years. It’s a win for comedy no matter which candidate is elected!

animalogic , says: July 7, 2020 at 9:29 am GMT
@Ann Nonny Mouse

Ann, you’ve got the quote wrong. Here is what he actually wrote:

“So, what is a leaked almost certainly faux story about the Russian bounties”

I’m going to assume you didn’t mean “forks” but actually “faux”.
Using “faux” is here is not incorrect. Giraldi could have meant the NYT article was “not real, but made to look or seem real” — which goes considerably further than “false”.
However, that does not necessarily mean that other users of “faux” are not indulging themselves in a “silly fashion”.

mcohen , says: July 7, 2020 at 9:51 am GMT

Meena talk to me

Robjil , says: July 7, 2020 at 9:52 am GMT
@Ann Nonny Mouse

Forked tongue.

In that sense it makes sense.

The US/Israel and its Zion MSM always talks in Forked tongue.

Patagonia Man , says: July 7, 2020 at 9:56 am GMT
@Emily to consecrate Russia to the heart of Mother Mary – which still hasn’t fully been fulfilled, btw – is another indication of Russia’s leadership in a community of a shared future for humanity, aka Community of Common Destiny (CCD), as advocated by the Russian President’s ‘double-helix’ partner, China’s President Xi Jinping.

Compare and contrast that with, then President, Obama’s words to Putin: “The United States has exclusive rights to anywhere in the world.”

What an incredibly exciting time to be alive!

Cheers!

Patagonia Man , says: July 7, 2020 at 10:07 am GMT
@anonymous

Just a headsup!

Newsweek, TIME, The Readers Digest , & CNN are US propaganda outlets. It would be unwise to cite any of these sources.

Cheers!

Franz , says: July 7, 2020 at 10:15 am GMT
@Alfred family bankruptcy when every pharmacist knows they re-branded and off-shored their loot several years ago. Their fine was pocket lint to them.

But that fake allowed the corporate-government axis to make ALL serious painkillers effectively illegal, including the ones being used safely before Purdue Pharma came along.

Narcotics are safe when used properly, but where’s the CIA’s take there? So they killed their competitors and made your family doctor an agent. And sell lots of dope. Because the nation the CIA protects is in terminal debt, agencies need hard cash from somewhere .

tyrone , says: July 7, 2020 at 10:43 am GMT
@Robert Dolan

Yeah, but you don’t want to accidentally drive into some “CHAZ” ……planet of the apes scenario.

tyrone , says: July 7, 2020 at 10:51 am GMT
@Emily

That’s why the democrats and the left fight to keep the southern border open ,the hordes of third world peasants are just a “bonus”……look at who the drugs are destroying i.e. the target

Erzberger , says: July 7, 2020 at 10:52 am GMT

The Democrats have predictably been outdone by the anti-Trump Republicans in this matter. You can’t sink any lower in Russia-baiting than the Lincoln project’s recent release, “Fellow Traveler”. Beyond stupid and revolting. Gives you a clue of their very low opinion of the American voter

https://www.youtube.com/embed/eUBAAeuBpPQ?feature=oembed

peter mcloughlin , says: July 7, 2020 at 10:57 am GMT

There is a dangerous illusion – characterized in part by demonizing rivals – and that is the developing crisis is merely a re-run of the Cold War. After the Napoleonic wars the Congress system was established to maintain peace in Europe. It worked reasonably well, interrupted significantly by the Crimean war, but finally buried with the outbreak of WWI in 1914; it did not prevent that cataclysmic conflict. Then came the League of Nations for a short time; it did not stop WWII. The United Nations and other post-war institutions were established in the 1940s. Now we are in the approaches to WWIII. But very few see. The apocalyptic conflict feared during the Cold War is nearing.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/

Sick of Orcs , says: July 7, 2020 at 11:18 am GMT

Russia Hoax 2 is supposed to keep our minds off the Uniparty’s anarcho-tyranny, but it’s awfully hard to fear Putin with orcs and shitlibs running amok wrecking statues of racist elks.

BL , says: July 7, 2020 at 11:30 am GMT
@Robert Dolan olostomy Bag, or were able to steal it on election night, Trump would be spending the rest of his life in prison right now.

And Russia would have acquiesced to, though more likely quietly assisted, the frame-up. What we don’t know at this point is what generational geopolitical payoff Russia was promised by Brennan in March 2016, for its participation. My suspicion is that Nord Stream II was merely a down payment.

I don’t envy Barr or Durham. How do they resolve this greatest political scandal in American history when at the center of it you have a former CIA Director who is a Russian mole.

Tom Welsh , says: July 7, 2020 at 11:55 am GMT

Michael Morell: “Let Us Kill Iranians and Russians in Syria!”

https://gosint.wordpress.com/2016/08/11/michael-morell-let-us-kill-iranians-and-russians-in-syria/

JoaoAlfaiate , says: July 7, 2020 at 11:55 am GMT

If you review the New York Times editorial page and its oped pieces you will see more half of the content each day is anti Trump. The Times has also played up the civil rights aspect of the BLM movement while playing down the hooliganism of Antifa and the looting by Blacks which has accompanied it. Many neighborhoods in Manhattan were trashed and looted far beyond what The Times reported. So promoting the “Russian Bounty” lie doesn’t surprise me at all. Remember also Times employees went absolutely crazy when the paper printed an oped by Sen. Tom Cotton. What a bunch of lying flakes and chicken shits.

Really No Shit , says: July 7, 2020 at 11:55 am GMT
@Franklin Ryckaert

“The Deep State vermin…” that @Milton is talking about is about the Jews. You’re merely reinforcing his salient points.

Tom Welsh , says: July 7, 2020 at 11:57 am GMT
@Anon

“… the intellectual skills of a Teddy Roosevelt…”

????

Patagonia Man , says: July 7, 2020 at 11:57 am GMT
@tyrone of more and more of the total of products and services produced in the US economy every year (GDP) goes to capital, i.e., the holders of wealth, rather than workers, which in turn creates a drag on further GDP – so eventually it becomes self defeating.

Think: Vicious Cycle of Poverty, as opposed to Virtuous Cycle of Prosperity.

But that explains why neither the Dems / Repubs are determined to do anything about the 1,000,000+ illegal immigrants crossing the US-Mexican border every year.

As said many times by many others: ‘The US has one political party – the business party, with 2 wings.’

Tom Welsh , says: July 7, 2020 at 11:59 am GMT
@Emily

“The Russians even had to win WW2 for them….”

The Soviets actually had to stop the Wehrmacht cold (very cold, indeed) and be ready to start rolling it back before the USA even dared to join the war.

Old and Grumpy , says: July 7, 2020 at 12:00 pm GMT
@Patagonia Man

US Ziocons movement is a family affair. They’re into the second and third generation, who are still following their daddy’s’ or grandpa’s playbook. Original ideas are hard to come by with this lot.

Z-man , says: July 7, 2020 at 12:04 pm GMT

The Democrats are suggesting that Trump is too stupid and even too disinterested to be president of the United States so they are seeking to replace him with a corrupt 78-year-old man who may be suffering from dementia.

Good one but what do you mean may be suffering ? (Grin)
Not only replace Trump with Biden but with all the radicals now infesting theDemo’krat party and manipulating demented, sleepy Joe.

anonymous [400] • Disclaimer , says: July 7, 2020 at 12:06 pm GMT

These are all made up stories. By the time one fake story is laboriously dismantled another one is made up. It’s always a game of playing catch-up. Russia makes a good boogyman and has served well in that role for three generations now so it’s a tested formula. It’s a dangerous game since all these idiots could sleepwalk us into an armed clash with Russia somewhere. Then of course there’ll plenty of problems but perhaps there’s a calculation that something like that could benefit this band of war inciters.

Patagonia Man , says: July 7, 2020 at 12:12 pm GMT
@BL ?

Are you not aware that cover stories are used to control explanations – to prevent any critical thinking by American voters of any incident/event?

This excellent,, short article explains what you need to know to defend yourself against cover stories in the future: Cover Stories Are Used To Control Explanations – UR columnist & insider Paul Craig Roberts.
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/05/25/cover-stories-used-control-explanations/

Old and Grumpy , says: July 7, 2020 at 12:17 pm GMT

I know old liberals have ate up all things Russia, Russia, Russia. Have the POBs (people of brown)? Have all those post ’67 immigrants? They all vote democrats, and are now the future demographic of America. Its their kids that have to wanna die for the war machine now. Has the Yiddish propaganda sheet worked its magic on them? The 1619 Project sure did. My humble guess is no, despite their voting. Most just want money.

Folks, it is time to get your love ones to stop enlisting and re-enlisting in the US military. It is the only boycott we can do that will actually hurt.

Patagonia Man , says: July 7, 2020 at 12:19 pm GMT
@anonymous

anonymous[400]

“but perhaps there’s a calculation that something like that could benefit this band of war inciters.”

What better way for a tiny ethno-religious (~22 million) of getting majority-Christian nations to wipe each other out?

Same was true of WWI.

Except for Japan, the same was true of WWII.

Its not referred to as the oldest hatred for nuttin’!

anonymous [144] • Disclaimer , says: July 7, 2020 at 12:20 pm GMT

For what it’s worth, Pillar got shitcanned and rusticated by Cofer Black, Kiriakou got locked up, Ritter got framed as a pedo, and McGovern got the shit beat out of him by my DoS goons. So shut the fuck up a little, OK?

XXOO

Mistress Gina

Truth3 , says: July 7, 2020 at 12:30 pm GMT

Explainable in one simple sentence…

JEWS ARE LIARS AND THEY HATE RUSSIA AND WILL USE ANY LIE AS A WEAPON NO MATTER HOW STUPID IT MAY BE.

Z-man , says: July 7, 2020 at 12:31 pm GMT

So, what is a leaked almost certainly faux story about the Russian bounties on American soldiers intended to accomplish?

To sound like a broken record again , the CABAL hates Russia and specifically Putin because he re-established Christian Orthodoxy as the de facto state religion of Mother Russia. They would get The USA into a hot war with Russia if it meant hurting Putin, never mind what it would do to us. Their hatred is so strong that they could care less what it would do to America, the snakes that they are.

Dick French , says: July 7, 2020 at 12:40 pm GMT

All Russians would have to do to exploit the current unrest in America would be to knock out a social media platform or two, or perhaps to leak dirt on the people ginning up war. Those targets are absolutely hated by the American people outside the Imperial City.

Richard B , says: July 7, 2020 at 12:45 pm GMT
@Zarathustra and historically illiterate pseudo-intellectual BS about 1619 and Evil America that, because its evil, should change the names of the military bases where those soldiers trained under the impression they were going to defend their country!

The Hostile Elite is a rabid dog so totally out of control it needs to be put down immediately.

Whatever happens, no one should ever take the moral condemnation of psychopaths seriously.

Battered Wife Syndrome?

I give you Battered Nation Syndrome.

Time to prove to the world it’s possible to recover from it and move into a larger freedom.

dimples , says: July 7, 2020 at 12:45 pm GMT
@No Friend Of The Devil not called al-
Qaeda at this stage but some other name. Apparently the name al-Qaeda was first used by the FBI to reference this group due to some sort of misunderstanding, but it eventually became the name they adopted for themselves since that was what everybody was calling them anyway when they became famous after further adventures.

The above should be taken with a grain of salt since this is only what I have been able to glean from reading various articles. Presumably what is called al-Qaeda today are the descendants or associates of personnel from this particular group as opposed to other groups, but I don’t know.

Jake , says: July 7, 2020 at 12:46 pm GMT

When Russia was controlled by Marxists, Leftists and Liberals loved Russia, defended Russia, excused Russia, promoted Russia. Now that Russia has survived Marxist totalitarianism and begun rediscovering Russian cultural heritage, which features Christianity, Leftists and Liberals HATE Russia.

Who coulda thunk it possible?

More important is that our Neocons and our old guard Yank ‘conservatives’ – who control foreign policy for both Republicans and Democrats – in the military and the spy game see Russia today exactly as the Leftists and Liberals see Russia.

Both the Neocons and the Yank WASP Country Club types in the so-called ‘conservative’ arena agree with Leftists and Liberals about Russia.

There’s plenty of meaning there for those with ears to hear and eyes to see.

Anglo-Zionist Empire.

Beavertales , says: July 7, 2020 at 12:46 pm GMT

The Dem’s election strategists are grasping at straws again.

The deplorables they despise the most are flyover Americans who go to church or who serve in the military. These are the people they think are stupid and easily manipulated by wild tales and false flags.

The “bounty on American soldiers” is hogwash to gin up what they perceive to be a voting bloc of gullible whites.

The Dems weakness with working class whites is one they will try to shore up by crassly fake, flag-waving appeals to bedrock patriotism.

Erzberger , says: July 7, 2020 at 12:47 pm GMT
@anonymous equal, except negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”

With Russia abolishing serfdom and slavery at the time – and much later than Western Europe – something had to be done to not be outdone by the Russians, of course. The hypocrisy would indeed have been unbearable. It still is.

Jake , says: July 7, 2020 at 12:51 pm GMT
@Really No Shit the mass of whites before the post-WW2 era, then you are ignorant. If you think the current Deep State is entirely Jewish, or even majority Jewish, you are ignorant.

Without any doubt, Jews now, and for decades, have per capita dominated the American Deep State. But they did not create it, nor did they create its evil. The Mossad did NOT create MI6 and the CIA. British Secret Service created the CIA and the Mossad.

America has a Deep State that flowed naturally from the British Deep State. The Brit Empire was the Anglo-Zionist Empire Part 1. America is the Anglo-Zionist Empire Part 2.

mike99588 , says: July 7, 2020 at 1:00 pm GMT
@Tom Welsh

Best to let someone else do the dying for you…

US strategy at the end of WWII included letting Germans and Soviets wear each other down and kill as many of each other as possible, without US forces involvement. Obviously “we”, various US investors and the US taxpayer still gave the Soviets too much stuff, that propelled USSR economic success claims for the next 20 years.

mike99588 , says: July 7, 2020 at 1:05 pm GMT
@Beavertales

Just more Liberal/Dim/Zio/CCP sponsored horsesh*t, to drive US and Russia apart, to drive Russia toward China, when US would be better off trying to treat Russia neutrally (hang our CCP paid dems).

Richard B , says: July 7, 2020 at 1:10 pm GMT
@Milton

The Deep State vermin who pulled-off the violent, proxy overthrow of Yanukovych in 2014, and who are also behind the Arab Spring, Syrian Rebels, ISIS, and the ongoing domestic unrest Stateside, are the descendants of the vermin who overthrew Christian Russia in 1917 using the same modus operandi of color revolution and “peaceful protests.”.

Spot on!

But, a more accurate name than The Deep State is Judeocracy Inc.

Ahoy , says: July 7, 2020 at 1:24 pm GMT

Henry when he was running the world. All smiles and happiness for things going well.

https://www.google.com/search?q=putin+photo+with+kissinger&rlz=1C1SQJL_enGR884GR884&sxsrf=ALeKk01SoCRUg9amQT8FuVu5GpM2aFx0Ig:1594106491151&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=hvCJDUJwL5ljFM%252C6-3cEPq7dQi5TM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kQDzP_0uOL0EoB7SIJD7ymANoY-UQ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwitl465zbrqAhVJxKYKHY5vDf8Q9QEwAXoECAkQBw&biw=1366&bih=657#imgrc=CD-Byc60rmzoLM

Then after this very polite send off Russia is bad, very bad.

https://www.thejc.com/culture/books/review-world-order-1.59212

Alfred , says: July 7, 2020 at 1:28 pm GMT
@Mikhail

followed by Russian assistance to the US military operation in Afghanistan.

Few people seem to understand the logistics of the war in Afghanistan. The US and their allies were hugely dependent on the Russian railway system. It is just so ridiculous to listen to these monkeys who pretend to be statesmen and women.

Susan Rice clearly uses skin whitener and hair straightener to look as much as possible like those she hates so much.

EliteCommInc. , says: July 7, 2020 at 1:30 pm GMT

Unfortunately, the matter with Russia is settled. And while I did not think there was evidence to support the matter. The current executive sign an intel report that accused the Russians and Pres. Putin specifically with sabotaging US election and murder and attempted murder. Unless our executive can reconcile that matter by extracting some manner of penance for hat behavior — reconciling with Russia is just a flat water tide.

Their actions constituted acts of war and while I may disagree with the assessment —

that is the US disposition on which nothing Russia says can be taken further than a pipe.

That intel report which this executive signed locks our posture in place regarding Russia. We kill people in this country for being suspects.

I don’t think the US citizen would look to kindly on shaking hands with a saboteur and murderer.

Whether the signing was a matter of political expediency is irrelevant,. The executive openly cited Russia as an enemy of the US. For me it was one of the most painful memories of the executives tenure, because

1. destroyed a large portion of our foreign policy agenda of toning down our presence anywhere

2. demonstrated the executive was not as string as I believed he needed to be.

If they were willing to interfere in our election and engage in political murder in allied states —there’s no reason to doubt that they would support the murder of our troops in a conflict one.

———————-

It was a devastating moment when the executive agreed to that intel report.

Emily , says: July 7, 2020 at 1:30 pm GMT
@tyrone 07110001-8
https://ips-dc.org/the_cia_contras_gangs_and_crack/
https://artvoice.com/2017/10/27/american-made-cia-drug-sex-trafficking-national-interest/
Latest on the final arrest of Kosovo vile war criminal Thaci a couple of weeks ago
https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-ally-indicted-organ-trade-murder-scheme/5717900
Tom Welsh , says: July 7, 2020 at 1:33 pm GMT
@No Friend Of The Devil iv>

“A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring”.

– Alexander Pope (“Essay on Criticism”)

The MEK is one of many organisations that use the word “mujahidin” in their names. That word is quite generic.

mujahedin (also mujahidin, mujaheddin, or mujahideen)
n plural noun Islamic guerrilla fighters.

ORIGIN
from Persian and Arabic mujahidin, colloquial plural of mujahid, denoting a person who fights a jihad.

– Concise Oxford English Dictionary

Z-man , says: July 7, 2020 at 1:35 pm GMT
@Jake

Agree. See post #49 above.

Emily , says: July 7, 2020 at 1:39 pm GMT
@mike99588 r Germany.
And vastly profiting from both sides – shamelessly.
Britain and the Commonwealth faced Germany alone through dark days indeed until Russia became our ally – before the USA incidently – conveniently overlooked..
The Americans finally came in Dec 1941 after Russia was already standing with us.
It has not been forgotten in Britain to this day.
The USA bled this country for decades, paying for what was so much crap amongst all else..
Lend lease – what a scam that was!!!!!
Whilst you traded and supported the nazi war machine against us.
Jake , says: July 7, 2020 at 1:45 pm GMT
@Truth3

When you work that into the British Empire acting to prevent Russia from forcing the Turks out of Europe and thereby liberating Constantinople, and acting to harm Russia deeply in order to win ‘The Great Game,’ you perhaps will then see that back to Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans that WASP Empire is Anglo-Zionist Empire.

Gidoutahere , says: July 7, 2020 at 1:51 pm GMT

Well, unlike the JewSA, Russia isn’t enthralled with the Jews. Putin and company kicked out Soros and his Open Society as well as the Rothschild bankers. Lastly the four billionaire Jew oligarchs who were running the Yeltsin economic shitshow were also shown the door. Perhaps the “Assad must go” flop played into Jewish ire as well.

David Rodriguez , says: July 7, 2020 at 1:59 pm GMT

Amusing to see Democrats so deeply concerned over the “Russian threat”. I was in the Agency during the Cold War. When the Soviets REALLY were a threat, most of those same Democrats urged retreat, compromise, submission. It makes my guts churn to see these “patriots” making hysterical claims against Russia. It is almost as if they resent the fact that Putin has rejected their entire Globalist plan, re-Christianized Russia, and locked up at least a few of the so-called “oligarchs” who were looting the Russian people of their patrimony. The case of Bill Browder deserves some attention. This Red Diaper baby (his grandfather was Earl Browder, chief of the CPUSA) has been one of the cheerleaders in the campaign to demonize Russia. Following the family tradition of a lack of loyalty (he holds British and U.S. passports, just in case!) this weasel used his granddad’s old Soviet contacts to make hundreds of millions carting off anything of any value left in the old Soviet Union. Of course, he worked with an equally greasy gang of former Soviets to do this, including one Sergei Magnitsky, a “tax advisor” working with Browder who assumed room temperature in a Russian jail after he was nabbed by the tax police. I really wonder if some of these Democrats and others who so denounce Putin had visions of sugar plums and hundreds of millions of dollars dancing in their heads, dreams rudely brought to earth by Putin?

Agent76 , says: July 7, 2020 at 2:08 pm GMT

Follow the CIA drug money!

Oct 20, 2009 Taliban Is Getting American Troops Hooked On Heroin

It diminishes the effectiveness of our troops as well as raises money for the Taliban, who are the ones growing the poppy. How can the US combat this new strategy?

https://www.youtube.com/embed/cb3BXJIA1P8?feature=oembed

December 3, 1993 Opioid problem America?

The CIA Drug ConnectionIs as Old as the Agency

LONDON— Recent news item: The Justice Department is investigating allegations that officers of a special Venezuelan anti-drug unit funded by the CIA smuggled more than 2,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States with the knowledge of CIA officials.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/03/opinion/03iht-edlarry.html

June 10, 2014 Drug War? American Troops Are Protecting Afghan Opium

U.S. Occupation Leads to All-Time High Heroin Production

http://www.globalresearch.ca/drug-war-american-troops-are-protecting-afghan-opium-u-s-occupation-leads-to-all-time-high-heroin-production/5358053

Zarathustra , says: July 7, 2020 at 2:15 pm GMT
@Emily

Very noble endeavor. US Government should be really proud of it.

Agent76 , says: July 7, 2020 at 2:18 pm GMT

Jul 4, 2020 78% of Russians VOTE to break away from western neoliberal dogma

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated on Thursday that the result was a clear sign of the Russian people’s trust in president Putin.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/9QrHFids_s4?feature=oembed

Alfred , says: July 7, 2020 at 2:24 pm GMT
@EliteCommInc. e accused is served by having his lawyers present. Since the defendants have refused to appear in person – three of them disputing the Dutch jurisdiction — the defence lawyers should withdraw.”

THE DUTCH WRITING ON THE UKRAINIAN WALL – STEENHUIS RULING IN MH17 TRIAL PREJUDGES VERDICT

Erzberger , says: July 7, 2020 at 2:30 pm GMT
@Emily t was only done to get into a position to share the spoils. Britain was no more than a vassal state of the US after WW I, and in no position to defeat Germany. Only Russia could, and they did, and would have done so with or without the Anglo-Americans. Stop whining about suffering you brought onto yourself. Besides, Britain suffered very little compared to the continent, including Germany, and European Jewry, and all of them would have suffered less without the British arrogance that they had to defend their national honour. Hope they stay out of European affairs now but it doesn’t look good at this fake Brexit moment
ChuckOrloski , says: July 7, 2020 at 2:57 pm GMT

Wisely, Agent76 said, “The CIA Drug Connection is as Old as the Agency.”

Re; above, I suggest Grandfathered by Operation Gladio and it’s Vatican Bank money laundering component???

Am aware how an England bank, USBC, was caught laundering the Afghanistan drug trade billions and got a “slap on wrist.”

Linked below is an obscure article on President Putin’s special (on scene) Afghanistan envoy, Zamir Kabulov, who accused US intelligence in Afghanistan of drug trafficking.

https://tolonews.com/afghanistan/russia-answers-bounty-claims-says-us-drug-trafficking

Also, my special thanks to commenters, Harold Smith, Franz, and Alfred.

Alfred , says: July 7, 2020 at 2:58 pm GMT
@No Friend Of The Devil to attack Iran. They are totally despised by ordinary Iranians. They are a cult with something in common with the Cambodian Pol Pot way of life. Very dangerous people. They have absolutely nothing in common with the Taliban who are trying to liberate their country from the Americans.

MEK: Who is this Iranian ‘cult’ backed by the US?

Steve from Detroit , says: July 7, 2020 at 3:08 pm GMT
@Alfred

I’m not joking, I initially thought that was Michael Jackson.

ImaBotKnot , says: July 7, 2020 at 3:08 pm GMT
@Gidoutahere ld bring to an end a fledgling democracy and a return to the Cold War days.

“In return, Maxwell’s massive debts would be wiped out by a grateful Kryuchkov, [Vladimir Kryuchkov, head of the KGB] who planned to replace Gorbachev. The KGB chief wanted Maxwell to use the Lady Ghislaine, named after Maxwell’s daughter, as a meeting place between the Russian plotters, Mossad chiefs and Israel’s top politicians. ? Apparently the Rothschilds/Israel Deep State wanted Gorbachev or Yeltsin.

Events are so tangled and interconnected, as Ghislaine is still a Israel Deep State operative.

annamaria , says: July 7, 2020 at 3:15 pm GMT
@anonymous ease the MIC and the Lobby. It is not for nothing that Rice was called “the Typhoid Mary of the Obama-era foreign policy.”
“Her religion is Christianity.” Oh my. What church has been allowing the war criminal Susan Rice to attend religious service next to decent people? This church of anti-Christians: https://bluebicyclebooks.com/2019/10/13/former-u-n-ambassador-susan-rice-at-grace-church-cathedral-mon-nov-18-7-pm/ Grace Church Cathedral, 98 Wentworth St., downtown Charleston.
Trinity , says: July 7, 2020 at 3:24 pm GMT

Funny, I don’t see White Russians hating themselves or other Whites for being proud of their heritage.

Funny, I don’t see White Russians tearing down monuments and statues or desecrating their flag.

Funny, I don’t see White Russians wanting their country to be invaded by hordes of hostile nonwhite WMD.

Funny, I don’t see White Russians apologizing or backing down from identifying themselves as a Christian nation.

Oh, I get it. This is why the so-called, “Deep State” and “Neo-Cons aka Neo-Commies” hate Russia so much. I get it now. It burns (((their))) collective asses that there are actually some largely homogeneous and traditional White nations still around who aren’t willingly accepting their own genocide or apologizing for being evil White racists. My gawd, this is my epiphany, this is MY AWAKENING ( shout out to Dr. Duke’s EXCELLENT BOOK), now I know why Russia is so vilified by (((our media.))) (((Our media))) is racist against Whites, and (((they))) hate the idea that a traditional White Christian nation still exists, especially a powerful nation like Russia. Oh dear, how could I be so gullible not to see this one. I’m Irish American and I am told I must hate the Russkies to be patriotic by other patriotic Israel Firsters.

neutral , says: July 7, 2020 at 3:41 pm GMT

It has to do with two things, and only those two things, all other rubbish about “human rights”, “international law”, blah blah blah, is propaganda meant for the common man.

1) Russia is white, that means it can easily be demonized and is demonized.
2) The jews that fled Russia are an especially virulent strain of the jew, their hatred for Russia has few equal.

Mefobills , says: July 7, 2020 at 3:51 pm GMT
@Jake http://canadianpatriot.org/origins-of-deep-state-part2/
http://canadianpatriot.org/what-is-the-fabian-society-and-to-what-end-was-it-created/

Note that the bad actors were anglo-zionists of their day, grabbing with usury. Their understanding of sin was already perverted in that era.

The sin nature of the Jew has spread and become a sect within Christianity, hence Judeo-Christianity and Zionist-Christianity

barr , says: July 7, 2020 at 3:53 pm GMT

Russia is killing US soldiers. Trump’s response is a shameful dereliction of duty
Michael H Fuchs

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/07/trump-russia-us-soldiers-afghanistan-putin
seems that BBC CNN NYT and Guardian -all are taking their cues from the coteries of Hillary Biden Cotton Rubio.

Agent76 , says: July 7, 2020 at 4:00 pm GMT

Jul 7, 2020 IMF PONZI scheme in Ukraine continues BLM Ponzi scheme boomerang

https://www.youtube.com/embed/NMFBly-o0Ug?feature=oembed

endthefed , says: July 7, 2020 at 4:01 pm GMT

Maybe someone has already stated the obvious. Regardless of the validity (or lack of) a bounty program; it’d be real hard to affect US troops if there were no US troops in Afghanistan.

Jeff Davis , says: July 7, 2020 at 4:05 pm GMT
@anonymous

Intel community horseshit.

Curmudgeon , says: July 7, 2020 at 4:16 pm GMT
@Erzberger ica and the Balkans.
Fourth, had the Admiral Canaris led traitors not been hiding munitions or sending them to the wrong place, the Soviets may not have recovered even with the US re-supply.

If there is something to yawn about, it is the WWII narrative is tiresome. Stalin wasn’t a “good guy”, and neither were Churchill or Roosevelt. The reality is that it took the “world” to defeat Germany. The Italians were of no help, and the Japanese were as much a drain as a resource to Germany. Germany was destroyed to allow the advancement of Marxism, which had already embedded itself in the UK and US.

DaveE , says: July 7, 2020 at 4:18 pm GMT
@Patagonia Man

‘The US has one political party – the business party, with 2 wings.’

Those two ‘wings’ are the Globalists and the Zionists. The Democrats and Republicans are just interns looking for a summer job.

Bill Jones , says: July 7, 2020 at 4:20 pm GMT
@EliteCommInc.

“If they were willing to interfere in our election and engage in political murder in allied states”

No you fool, we’re talking about Russia, not Israel.

Desert Fox , says: July 7, 2020 at 4:25 pm GMT

The zionists are pissed that Russia has saved Syria from the zionist mercenaries aka AL CIADA aka ISIS, which are creations the CIA and the MOSSAD and MI6 and NATO and so the anti Russian propaganda, pouring out of the zionist owned MSM.

Alfred , says: July 7, 2020 at 4:31 pm GMT
@mike99588

Obviously “we”, various US investors and the US taxpayer still gave the Soviets too much stuff, that propelled USSR economic success claims for the next 20 years

The Russians paid for all the “giving” with gold. Kindly stop repeating lies. Even the British went almost bankrupt repaying the Americans for their “generosity”.

It will be interesting to see how the Russians will treat the Americans when the USA experiences feudalism. I suspect the Russians will be far more generous than the Americans deserve.

annamaria , says: July 7, 2020 at 4:35 pm GMT
@neutral kids.
Hilary Clinton has been a very effective butcher of Libyan and Syrian population at large; young children and pregnant women were the greatest victims of Clinton’s subhuman policies.
Susan Rice was good at promoting mass slaughter in Syria, and, along with H. Clinton, S. Rice should be credited with the slave markets in Libya.
Nuland-Kagan helped to make Ukraine into the poorest country in Europe, where zionists and neo-nazis found a complete mutual understanding. So much for holobiz squealing.

What’s wrong with the US? How come that the US society produced these monstrosities?

Harold Smith , says: July 7, 2020 at 4:38 pm GMT
@barr

Being that America kills other countries’ soldiers (and civilians) all the time, why can’t Russia (or any other country) do the same thing? What goes around comes around, right?

DaveE , says: July 7, 2020 at 4:49 pm GMT

Some things (Russiagate) are just too silly to bother with.

I agree – except that I’m getting quite a chuckle these days at the sheer, utter desperation of the “Russia did it”, “Saddam did it”, “Bin Laden did it”, “Assad did it”, etc. etc. etc. noise from the crowd who DID do it.

Shlomo is cornered and exposed – and that IS worth the subscription fee to watch, FINALLY.

anonymous [245] • Disclaimer , says: July 7, 2020 at 5:08 pm GMT
@EliteCommInc.

Please at least proofread your gibberish. Some of it might even make sense.

Wally , says: July 7, 2020 at 5:29 pm GMT
@Alfred

said:
“Anyone with half a brain should know that the Americans are in Afghanistan because the Americans control the world trade in narcotics.”

– Yawn. I’ve heard that before, but have seen no proof.

– So use your “half a brain” and give us the proof.

Sorry, Hollywood movies are not proof.

No doubt you’re one of those ‘No Blood For Oil’ types that Zionists love so much.

Trinity , says: July 7, 2020 at 5:35 pm GMT

“There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states.” General (((Wesley Clark)))

Obviously a patriotic “American” General like Mr. Clark has no problem with the racist state of Israel.

Just another COHENcidence? Nah, after finding about “6 million” COHENcidences you start thinking for yourself, stop dropping the idea that “conspiracy theories” are “conspiracies” and start realizing you have been fed a load of horseshit for a century and counting. We don’t have a Russia problem but Houston, we do have a problem. Wonder what that problem is?

Zarathustra , says: July 7, 2020 at 5:35 pm GMT
@Curmudgeon

And we have to believe you? {You are a real jerk.)

Mr. Cocktail Party Talk , says: July 7, 2020 at 5:48 pm GMT
@Tom Welsh te Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard, at a time when that meant something. He also wrote (presumably without the assistance a ghost writer) some 40-odd books, as Tucker Carlson pointed out in a recent monologue.

I think by any standard, these achievements indicate a fairly high level of intellectual skills.

Whether or not he was a nutcase is another matter, and not mutually exclusive of his having considerable intellectual skills. A good place to start on this question is to read what H.L. Mencken wrote about him.

And it is said that Roosevelt is included in the Mt. Rushmore tableau because he was friends with Borglum the sculptor.

Really No Shit , says: July 7, 2020 at 6:31 pm GMT
@Jake

You retort:

“The Brit Empire was the Anglo-Zionist Empire Part 1. America is the Anglo-Zionist Empire Part 2.”

I rest my case!

Alfred , says: July 7, 2020 at 6:43 pm GMT
@Trinity of different nations. But they live in harmony. Their common language is Russian. When Putin goes to visit the Dagestan, he tells them that their men are brave and their women beautiful. They love it. And they love Putin for it. Sadly, Google and Youtube seem to have cleaned up this stuff.

Here is some compensatory eye-candy:

Iceland’s Miss Universe has her Siberian roots revealed

Ann Nonny Mouse , says: July 7, 2020 at 6:49 pm GMT
@Jake

The current news that the Brutish govt has approved new arms sales to Saudia because Saudi mass killings of Yemeni civilians are all “isolated incidents” so it’s quite proper to sell them the means seems to prove your point.

ThreeCranes , says: July 7, 2020 at 6:58 pm GMT
@Zarathustra

“(You are a real jerk)”. Also sprach Zarathustra.

And this is your idea of a sound argument? Nietzsche would hide his face in shame.

Curmudgeon , says: July 7, 2020 at 7:21 pm GMT
@Zarathustra tinue to ignore the truth.

https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=9780898753974&i=stripbooks&linkCode=qs

No. 6 (page 15) from November 4, 1941:

“Your decision, Mr President, to grant the Soviet Union an interest-free loan to the value of $1,000,000,000 to meet deliveries of munitions and raw materials to the Soviet Union is accepted by the Soviet Government with heartfelt gratitude as vital aid to the Soviet Union in its tremendous and onerous struggle against our common enemy — bloody Hitlerism.” (here)

Trinity , says: July 7, 2020 at 7:38 pm GMT
@Alfred

Iceland is looking better each and every day especially from behind enemy lines in Negro occupied JawJah.

Anon [127] • Disclaimer , says: July 7, 2020 at 8:13 pm GMT
@Alfred

The US is in central Asia for much more than that, it’s about blocking China and Russia, as well as partially cutting off Iran on it’s eastern flank. Iran is almost surrounded by US bases. The US wants to have more control point/choke point control over continental transport routes in Asia. (One such prize would be the Dzungarian Gate, but that’s a little too ambitious for the moment. ) Afghanistan does have resources, but it would be a target without them, as it is so valuable as a (potential) transit corridor.

Antiwar7 , says: July 7, 2020 at 8:19 pm GMT
@Robert Dolan

Totally agree. So that gives an estimate of how many people are intelligent.

Larchmonter420 , says: July 7, 2020 at 8:45 pm GMT
@mcohen

Meena talk to me

The most intelligent person ever walked on earth. A walking taking genius like Einstein on earth!

Ace , says: July 7, 2020 at 8:48 pm GMT
@Emily ulture/history/item/4691-china-betrayed-into-communism" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/history/item/4691-china-betrayed-into-communism">Marshall’s doing all in his power to ensure the victory of Mao over Nationalist forces in 1949

U.S. civilian leaders seem to swoon over enemy sanctuaries for some strange reason. Kill U.S. troops in theater. No problemo but pinky swear we won’t go after you if you go back across the border.

God bless Richard Nixon and his destruction of NVA base areas in Cambodia. Thereafter, enemy activity ceased around my camp and all through MR IV.

Zarathustra , says: July 7, 2020 at 9:02 pm GMT
@ThreeCranes

He claims to read the minds of dead people.
That was kind of too much for me.

Moi , says: July 7, 2020 at 9:28 pm GMT
@Richard B

The US is a Judeocracy

Moi , says: July 7, 2020 at 9:30 pm GMT
@Milton

Anybody who believes what “our” government or the MSM tells us an idiot (and/or a regular American).

Truth3 , says: July 7, 2020 at 9:36 pm GMT

Thank you again to Phil Giraldi, for your tireless work to expose the evil with healthy doses of TRUTH.

Moi , says: July 7, 2020 at 9:36 pm GMT
@Ray Caruso

There was no need to qualify Americans by saying American conservatives. Ignorance, stupidity and violence are like apple pie for us.

Emily , says: July 7, 2020 at 10:00 pm GMT
@Wally

Reading your comment, Wally, I find your name extremely apt.
None so blind as those who refuse to even read.
You can take a horse to water but cannot make him drink.
You can put all the proof necessary but if you refuse to check it out – well – stay a ‘ Wally’.
I guess you subscribe to the philosophy of ‘Ignorance is bliss’.

Bill Jones , says: July 7, 2020 at 10:02 pm GMT
@Agent76

I found this interview on Putin and what, how and why he’s setting up a post Putin power structure interesting

https://www.spreaker.com/user/tomluongo/episode-16-alexander-mercouris-and-whats

Would that there was his like in the West.

Erzberger , says: July 7, 2020 at 10:08 pm GMT
@Curmudgeon Wehrmacht, the Warsaw Rising they so strongly encouraged would not have happened, and not have led to the disaster it was for the city and its inhabitants

“Stalin wasn’t a “good guy”, and neither were Churchill or Roosevelt. “ no objections

“The reality is that it took the “world” to defeat Germany. “ Much of Europe fought on the side of Germany because they realized that Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt weren’t good guys, and they had nothing to look forward to but a horrible peace in case of their victory. Why do you think the EC got together so quickly after the war?

Erzberger , says: July 7, 2020 at 10:20 pm GMT
@Erzberger

Also: the sheer idiocy of claiming that poor little “Britain and the Commonwealth” stood alone against the German monster state! Do you ever look at a map? at human and natural resources? This should have been a turkey shoot if your side had not been as lacking in courage as it was, and as incompetent. And if the rest of Europe wasn’t to a very large extent in the German camp, as it is today

Michael888 , says: July 7, 2020 at 10:29 pm GMT

Scott Ritter has a separate article at consortiumnews noting that the Russians have been giving money to the Taliban (AID) to fight Americans, the CIA and their ISIS proxies since 2014. Surely Obama and/or Biden would have stopped these Russian “bounties” if they were important.

EliteCommInc. , says: July 7, 2020 at 10:56 pm GMT

“Please at least proofread your gibberish. Some of it might even make sense.”

The executive in the WH has agreed that Russia sabotaged the US election process and engaged murder and attempted in states of our allies.

There is no turning the clock bank unless Russia makes some gesture of amelioration — there behavior constitutes an attack on the US. As such they are active enemies of the US.

Unfortunately anyone seeking some manner of Russian love fest — should probably forget it. Whether the executive signed for politically expedient reasons simply doesn’t matter.

—————————-

EliteCommInc. , says: July 7, 2020 at 11:17 pm GMT

“If you believe any of the Skripals nonsense and the MH-17 false flag, you are either gullible or a troll.”

Uhhhh, wholly irrelevant. My position in opposition to the contend that Russia sabotaged the US election was vehemently dubious. My comments at the time make my position abundantly clear. The evidence for the case against Russia in the US simply no there. But at the end of the day, the executive choose to go the other direction. That is unfortunate. But it was also a sign of things to come concerning the executives ability to stand.

And my comments today make that very clear. Your knee-jerk response that I believe what the executive signed onto is incorrect. I knew that his choice destroyed a good deal of his foreign poliy admonition to reduce tensions.

But that was his choice mistake or not he made that choice and as I expressed at the time — we would have to live by it.

——————————————–

In fact, if I were on the opposition, I would like nothing better for the executive to start behaving as though the intel report doesn’t exist. Because I would pull out that report with his signature and commence calling him a weakling, indecisive, and a danger to the US — who is to toothless to hold Russia accountable for her acts of terror in the US and Europe.

I would then commence a campaign explaining why the executive wants to decrease troops ion Europe — he wants to cede our allies over to Russian domination —

But then I am not on the opposition. It was a mistake on the facts for the executive to sign that report for which there was little to no evidence supporting it.

Now if you have a response that gives the president some manner of face saving as he makes nice with a country that overthrew a US election in the US, and engaged in murder and attempted murder — have at it.
—————

Minus some kind of amelioration by the Russians or an about face by the current executive (and tat would really be interesting) no peace and love and understanding can move forward. I can say with certainty

Russia, Pres. Putin has no intention of apologizing for something they most likely did not do regarding US elections.

Though I am sure he will once again have reason to chuckle.

Those of you angry, frustrated, irritated . . . and yada I suggest you take that up with the WH They made that choice.

But by all means name call as opposed to deal with the obvious reality.

anonymous [245] • Disclaimer , says: July 7, 2020 at 11:25 pm GMT
@EliteCommInc.

Or not.

Hibernian , says: July 8, 2020 at 12:03 am GMT
@Emily

You do understand that the US and the UK have been separate sovereigns since 1776, don’t you?

Art , says: July 8, 2020 at 12:28 am GMT

Trump should put on his big boy pants, tell the “Russia Russia Russia” types to go to hell – and schedule a meeting with Putin.

Let the “conservatives” and Jew media poop on themselves.

The voters will love it.

Neoconned , says: July 8, 2020 at 12:36 am GMT

I find it ironic given that during the Soviet era it was those on the left who laughed at Republicans for being Sovietphobes.

But later now its the neolib media pushing the identity politics narrative that has dusted off the tired old Cold War Russia chicken little stuff.

Mefobills , says: July 8, 2020 at 12:38 am GMT

Russia-baiters may also be upset by new Constitution changes in Russia.

https://russia-insider.com/en/new-constitution-means-russias-political-stability-strong-while-west-sinks/ri30819

EliteCommInc. , says: July 8, 2020 at 12:43 am GMT

“Or not.’

The US can not make nice with Russia until Russia makes amends for sabotaging the US election and engage in acts of murder or attempted in murder in the sovereign states of our allies. So says the executive in the WH. In fact he says that Pres. Putin ordered the sabotage and murder.

I think you understand.

There is no way for the current executive to move forward with better relations with Russia without extracting some admission and compensation for sad acts without reaping serious political damage — I would say a loss of credibility, but that is already in question – sadly.

AnonFromTN , says: July 8, 2020 at 12:44 am GMT

Interestingly, whoever invented this lie about Russia and Taliban not only did not know the realities of Afghanistan, but was stupid enough not to consult someone who knows. There is no such thing as a bank transfer in Afghanistan. It exists in the Middle Ages (democracy, my foot!), so the only form of money that functions there is cash, in hand, in a case, or in a bag, depending on the amount.

Art , says: July 8, 2020 at 12:50 am GMT

Serious questions – does the CIA run the State Department and US foreign policy?

Did Pompeo just move the CIA’s agenda to the State Department, when he became Secretary of State?

Who sets US foreign policy – the CIA and the Pentagon? Why are a spy agency and generals running world policy – what good can come of that?

Is Trump the tail on the US foreign policy dog? It seems as though, those two do what they want – not what Trump and his voters desire.

joun , says: July 8, 2020 at 1:23 am GMT

The USA is quickly going to find itself in a corner. There is no realistic path away from a total confrontation with Russia. No politician will dare dissent. I hope Russia is prepared for this.

dimples , says: July 8, 2020 at 1:45 am GMT
@Beavertales

“The deplorables they despise the most are flyover Americans who go to church or who serve in the military. These are the people they think are stupid and easily manipulated by wild tales and false flags.”

Well let’s face it, they usually are. These are the milch cows the MIC relies on to keep its funding secure.

Bob Gwen , says: July 8, 2020 at 1:49 am GMT

Everyone knows that Americans are the most dumbfuck stupid people on the planet. It is more shocking to think that propaganda would NOT affect most of the population.

gsjackson , says: July 8, 2020 at 2:27 am GMT
@Emily ass="comment-text">

Anecdotally, when my family lived in England in a village near London in 1957-58 we were treated like royalty. I’ve always assumed it’s because we were the beloved Yanks who saved Britain’s behind in the war. That doesn’t undercut what you say about the underlying resentment, but my clear impression and that of my parents was that the post-war Brits loved them some Yanks.

Another anecdote, this one not so feel-good. In 1956 we lived on Lakenheath AFB in the UK. During the Suez crisis the base was on full stand-by alert in case we had to go to war with Britain. Seriously.

anon [327] • Disclaimer , says: July 8, 2020 at 3:11 am GMT

In these tough times of toilet paper,
the NYT and WaPo are most useful.

The ink is sustenance for roaches;
the paper is bedding, blanket, headrest,
and ass wipe for the homeless.

Both are well known virus carriers.

Derer , says: July 8, 2020 at 3:33 am GMT
@Patagonia Man re in Washington is beyond repair. The despicable sinister schemes, backstabbing, lies, fake facts in a quest for power has nothing to do with democracy but criminality.

It is time to galvanize support for direct voting…enabled by evolving technology. That process would eliminate:
@ need for electing deceiving proxies that always betray their promises to represent the public interest.
@ Washington proxies making decisions…should be reduced to debating issues.
@ the special interest groups, lobbies self-serving agenda.
@ sending our young people dying on far away places in unnecessary wars.

Wizard of Oz , says: July 8, 2020 at 3:48 am GMT
@Patagonia Man

When was Paul Craig Roberts last an insider? Do you think him capable of picking cover stories generically, that is without relevant particular knowledge of inside stuff?

And you seem to claim to have that ability to pick a cover story. So…. how? What are the generic indicia?

anonymous [157] • Disclaimer , says: July 8, 2020 at 4:50 am GMT
@annamaria cyclebooks.com/2019/10/13/former-u-n-ambassador-susan-rice-at-grace-church-cathedral-mon-nov-18-7-pm/">https://bluebicyclebooks.com/2019/10/13/former-u-n-ambassador-susan-rice-at-grace-church-cathedral-mon-nov-18-7-pm/

Oh gee, your point would make one think that no other pagan Christian Church has produced such mass murderers, or in fact, even greater ones… which would be ludicrous as per history, yeah?

The real source of such satanic evil should be traced to Whitevil (including their Judevil cousins of course) supremacy and their in-house “niggas,” such as the witch you mention.

Neoconned , says: July 8, 2020 at 4:57 am GMT
@Alfred

Looks like a lot of the blonds here except the ones here date thugs and run around til they’re 24ish from dude to dude til they discover the joys of pills & meth and take the full bath into the toilet….

Ann Nonny Mouse , says: July 8, 2020 at 9:08 am GMT
@Ann Nonny Mouse political dancing around and inventing another culprit as criminals always do, successfully disappeared them. Don’t hope they will ever appear again.

And this is the Brutish government that killed another Russian by polonium poisoning and of course invented another culprit, again as criminals always do.

And is now selling weapons for mass killing to Saudia says mass killings are merely incidentals.

Consistently, modern Britain makes Nazi Germany look angelic. Consistently.

These are not Christian moral values. What religion or ritual system or control system acts like this once it takes charge?

anonymous [245] • Disclaimer , says: July 8, 2020 at 10:01 am GMT
@Wizard of Oz The same person also fuzzes up threads by pretending to be more than one commenter, the technique known as “sock puppetry.” See under Mr. Derbyshire’s February 15, 2019, article comment ## 28, 42, 43, 44, 68, 122, where he/she/they got sloppy also posting as “Anon[436].”

Over time, Wizard has emerged as sympathetic to the international bureaucracy of the Establishment of which he may even be a (former?) part, the type of “diplomat” exemplified by Mrs. Nuland’s Ivy League cookie caddy in Ukraine. He broke character a while back, showing emotional hostility to China. But who can be sure? Among this website’s oddest, sophisticatedly trollish commenters.

anonymous [157] • Disclaimer , says: July 8, 2020 at 10:45 am GMT
@No Friend Of The Devil

It does not make sense either, since the MEK ( Mujahudeen ) is a twisted Shiite cult Iranian, and Al Qaeda is Arabic and twisted Sunni cult.

Both of those cults share the same patron… the pagan Christian cult of Whitevil terrorists.

The patron must be destroyed, if we are to destroy other terrorist cults, and for this wretched earth to have any hope of peace.

Patagonia Man , says: July 8, 2020 at 11:25 am GMT
@Emily

You will find that Roosevelt privately was giving both the UK & France assurances that if either were attacked, the US would come to their aid well before 1938 – even tho’ US multinational corporations were still trading with the NSDAP in Germany well into 1941.

Talk about walking both sides of the street!

geokat62 , says: July 8, 2020 at 12:30 pm GMT

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1280562342099480576&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.unz.com%2Fpgiraldi%2Frussia-baiting-is-the-only-game-in-town%2F&theme=light&widgetsVersion=9066bb2%3A1593540614199&width=500px

Wizard of Oz , says: July 8, 2020 at 1:42 pm GMT
@Ann Nonny Mouse

As you can’t even get the Julian Assange bit right I don’t suppose it’s any use asking you to justify your bald assertions or even flesh them our with detail. Let alone explain when Britain became “modern” and ceased to be the country which is rightly credited with ending theslave trade and led the way in abolition of slavery.

Yes, several governments have treated Assange contemptibly but he is remanded without bail pending the resumption of the extradition hearing, not imprisoned for life in cruel or any conditions. How can you waste readers time with such garbage?

Wizard of Oz , says: July 8, 2020 at 1:48 pm GMT
@geokat62

How much credit do you give to someone who sloppily uses the term “terrorist in that context referring to the equovalent of precision bombing in contrast to area bombing without precise aiming?

Alfred , says: July 8, 2020 at 2:02 pm GMT
@EliteCommInc.

Sorry if I misunderstood you.

I am really not qualified to comment on the internal wrangling of the various factions in the USA. I look at their foreign policy actions, not proclamations, with much greater interest.

Alfred , says: July 8, 2020 at 2:06 pm GMT
@gsjackson

Oversexed Overpaid and Over Here: The American Airmen In Britain DVD (Timereel)

https://www.youtube.com/embed/NERTDbNmdv0?feature=oembed

Wizard of Oz , says: July 8, 2020 at 2:14 pm GMT
@Erzberger ut down war industry was started by Germany, arguably in Belgium in August 1814 but certainly in December 1914 when German cruisers indiscriminately shelled three North East England towns. An aberration? No. It was followed by Zepellin raids on London and the use of Big Bertha against Paris. Then, what message and implicit set of rules do you find in the destruction of Guernica? And many civilians were killed in the bombing of Warsaw. Even the virtually symbolic bombing of Berlin was a response to bombs dropped on London, the only point in your favour there being the fact that those bombs were probably not meant to be dropped on London.
Anon [427] • Disclaimer , says: July 8, 2020 at 3:00 pm GMT
@anonymous

How intriguing. Not having your obsessive interest in warning about Wizard of Oz I have failed, at my level of diligence, to find any evidence at all of emotional hostility to China or indeed, about anything much except perhaps the hypocritical mistreatment of individuals like Julian Assange by governments. Can you help?

geokat62 , says: July 8, 2020 at 3:05 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz

How much credit do you give to someone who sloppily uses the term “terrorist

The Wizard of Pedantry obsessed about the proper usage of a term, while the offending party is committing acts of war, lol.

Franklin Ryckaert , says: July 8, 2020 at 3:21 pm GMT
@geokat62

quod erat expectandum .

Franklin Ryckaert , says: July 8, 2020 at 3:26 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz

Alright then, call it “precision terrorism” (an Israeli specialty). Will that be acceptable to your hasbara boss?

Trinity , says: July 8, 2020 at 3:27 pm GMT

The Germans couldn’t believe how inept the average French, American, and British soldier really were, even British described how frightened many of the America soldiers, most barely old enough to shave, appeared. The German was appalled at the physical fitness of the British soldier as well, describing them as weak and frail for the most part. Here is the truth, Western Europe and America fought the German B team at best, often these Germans were little more than schoolboys in some cases. Everyone knows that the bulk of the serious fighting was done on the Eastern Front. Think if tiny Germany hadn’t had to fight on two fronts against what must have seemed like half the world. It doesn’t speak well that it took so many years to defeat a country as small as Germany, a country that was at an extreme disadvantage. The average Western soldier, be it a Frenchmen, a Brit or an American was nothing special to say the least. This isn’t a I hate America thing, but merely the truth. The average German soldier was head and shoulders above the average Brit or America G.I.

Franklin Ryckaert , says: July 8, 2020 at 3:40 pm GMT
@anonymous

Wizard of Oz = Wizard of Iz.

Grahamsno(G64) , says: July 8, 2020 at 3:55 pm GMT

I’m surprised that this hasn’t been posted yet.

https://www.rt.com/russia/494077-nyt-taliban-gru-evidence/

Finally, seven days after its ‘scoop’, the NYT ran another story on the subject, entitled ‘New Administration Memo Seeks to Foster Doubts About Suspected Russian Bounties’, which was published on July 3 and buried in the bowels of the paper.

Its opening paragraphs sought to back up the original story, claiming that an intelligence memo had said the “… CIA and the National Counterterrorism Centre had assessed with medium confidence – meaning creditable sources and plausible, but falling short of near certainty – that a unit of the Russian military service, known as the GRU, offered the bounties.”

It was only in the last paragraph that the real story – that there was no story – was revealed: “The agency did intercept data of financial transactions that provide circumstantial support for the detainee’s account, but the agency does not have explicit evidence that the money was bounty payments.”

So the blood libel lasted a week!

One of the greatest things about the Trump Presidency was to carve the ‘Fake News’ meme on the MSM’s forehead.

annamaria , says: July 8, 2020 at 4:03 pm GMT
@Ace

The US has its comeuppance in the locally-produced “democracy on the march.” The jolly game of regime change is now played in American towns.

Cheney the Traitor and Obama the Fraud are only marginally different. The US is run by financiers and war criminals.

annamaria , says: July 8, 2020 at 4:19 pm GMT
@EliteCommInc.

“…there behavior constitutes an attack on the US”

Mister/Miss, since when the zionized Congress of the US serves the citizenship of the US? Thank you for reminding (and you do this regularly) of the unfortunate fact that the US is an occupied territory and the US Congress is a nest of liars, war profiteers, and rabid zionists.

Les Wexler, Ben Cardin, Chuck Schumer, and Clintons have inflicted more harm to the US than any Maria Butin and such. And don’t forget Dick Cheney and Co, the committed traitors and profiteers by any means.

annamaria , says: July 8, 2020 at 4:20 pm GMT
@EliteCommInc.

Skripals! Well. There was also the Steel dossier and Browder/Magnitsky Act. You certainly have a weak spot for bad forgeries.

Wizard of Oz , says: July 8, 2020 at 4:29 pm GMT
@geokat62

In my experience people who are sloppy with language are sloppy with thinking. I thought you might have had similar relevant experience unlike most commenters here. For example, if you were employing a director of research or even just a junior researcher for a committee of inquiry would you not rate their careful use of language as a qualification? You want to be able to rely on the facts they turn up and their reasoning underlying proposed conclusions do you not?

Wizard of Oz , says: July 8, 2020 at 4:35 pm GMT
@Franklin Ryckaert

I am content to know that you don’t read my comments and are as sloppy and inaccurate in calling me hasbara as the person who called destroying an Iranian nuclear facility “terrorist”. To extend my last comment, you wouldn’t even be on the long list for assisting any inquiry I chaired.

Derer , says: July 8, 2020 at 5:35 pm GMT
@Ace

Do you know at least, what were you fighting for in Vietnam? How Vietnam threatened US shores?
Do not tell me fighting communist ideology, because the same Nixon and Kissinger that bombed Cambodia civilians embraced that communist ideology in China with grave consequences. We have lunatics in Washington and it is time for direct voting – majority rules.

Erzberger , says: July 8, 2020 at 5:48 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz as right in the sense that despite the British and French declaration of war, not much happened – other than the naval blockade and the lame French invasion of the Saar region. Neither Britain nor France had the courage to follow up on their war declaration, for fear of unpopular casualties or further destruction of land and people (France), and both hoped to gain a cheap victory by starving out the German war effort. Had they actually opened a second front in the fall of 39, the Germans would have collapsed, and the war would have been over before Christmas.

The GErman victory over FRance surprised everyone, including the Germans

Curmudgeon , says: July 8, 2020 at 5:59 pm GMT
@Erzberger https://barnesreview.org/product/the-stroop-report/

I think the EC got together so quickly because the US wanted to impose their economic model on Europe with the illusion of control. The Marshall Plan was unraveling as the swindle it was, and the EC was the answer to keep up the illusion. While the UK was in on the scam, they were the front for the Americans, as the idiot Churchill had pissed away the Empire to buy his 15 minutes of fame.
Once the shooting starts there are no good guys. Like all wars, WWII was an economic war. The German economic system could not be allowed to succeed, it was catching on.

Derer , says: July 8, 2020 at 6:00 pm GMT
@EliteCommInc.

You must must have quite a deteriorated mind when Russia can influence your vote. Tell me the logistics of the process. You must have equally deteriorated mind believing what CNN, MSNBC, WP or NYT and others dishonest outfits tell you – they are a propaganda machine for a small unpatriotic parasitic group.

anon [178] • Disclaimer , says: July 8, 2020 at 6:09 pm GMT

There is a hierarchy in the blame game . Trump isn’t on the top . If he were, the vile Democrats would be asking review and discussion by broader media ,Dept of Justice and Treasury either to discredit or confirm the following story

in–“Venezuela’s interim government wants access to funds confiscated in the US from corrupt officials, saying it belongs to the Venezuelan people. But US officials appear to have other plans. The Treasury Department diverted $601 million last year from its forfeiture fund to help build President Trump’s border wall. (Leer en español) https://www.univision.com/univision-news/latin-america/legal-battle-over-venezuelas-looted-billions-heats-up Since the United States initiated a coup attempt against Venezuela’s elected leftist government in January 2019, up to $24 billion worth of Venezuelan public assets have been seized by foreign countries, primarily by Washington and member states of the European Union. President Donald Trump’s administration has used at least $601 million of that looted Venezuelan money to fund construction of its border wall with Mexico, according to government documents first reviewed by Univision Univision reviewed US congressional records and court documents and found that the Trump administration tapped into $601 million of the Treasury Department’s “forfeiture fund” to supplement the wall constructio https://thegrayzone.com/2020/06/29/trump-stolen-venezuelan-money-border-wall-mexico/

Reason no-one is doing it is because hating Trump could always be swapped for worshipping something more sinister and idiotic .

We would have heard a similar story only if Russia extracted something like this from Ukraine or Libya .

Derer , says: July 8, 2020 at 6:10 pm GMT
@EliteCommInc.

I suggest you seek treatment for you pathological hate. Russia want to be a friend in peaceful coexistence but it is sinister players in Washington that constantly need/create enemies to build military industrial complexes instead of consumer goods which are supplied from China.

Curmudgeon , says: July 8, 2020 at 6:18 pm GMT
@Trinity

In Iceland she would not be especially good looking, just another face in the crowd.

EliteCommInc. , says: July 8, 2020 at 6:22 pm GMT

“Sorry if I misunderstood you.”

I have been a supported of the current executive before he considered running. And his choice to agree with the intel report and more was a fairly tough pill to swallow. As it turns it was but one of many.

No I found the intel dubious. And I think the executive could have challenged in a manner that did not call the CIA and other agencies DIA, etc. or damage his ability to curtail his policy agenda. But having signed — he essentially states Pres Putin and the Russians are active enemies of the US given that scenario

one would draw on our behavior in Afghanistan hen we supported the Taliban with weapons to kill Russian soldiers —-

tit for tat foreign policy is not new.

Wizard of Oz , says: July 8, 2020 at 6:32 pm GMT
@Trinity fought more effectively and efficiently than the novice American soldiers. Then there were technical factors which were naturally advantageous to the more experienced military. For example the famous 88mm anti-aircraft gin turned anti-tsnk gun was never matched by the Allies (I thin) and the German tactics for its use were also superior. Germany, though less than the Soviet Union had another advantage over Britain and France. It’s population went on growing fast for a generations beyond the end of high growth in Britain and, especially, France. For example there were 2 million Germans born in 1913 to provide young men for the army in the 30s.
Z-man , says: July 8, 2020 at 7:18 pm GMT
@Derer

Yes, as I’ve said repeatedly, the ‘sinister players’, the Judaic NEOCON cabal want to keep America and Russia apart mainly for their hate of Christianity and gentiles, and try to destroy them both.

Erzberger , says: July 8, 2020 at 7:54 pm GMT
@Curmudgeon uld be a return to what was indeed Hitler’s scheme of continental autarky and a more even distribution of wealth, and a democratic model much more in line with the Prussian model, the latter bearing significant resemblance with the Chinese Mandarin system. The Chinese Communists are really doing nothing different than the old emperors running a meritocracy rather than an idiocracy. Western democracies, esp the US, with their insane and horrendously expensive election circuses tend to achieve the latter. I hear Kanye West is running for president now. The problem with China is not Communism but their adoption of Western state-capitalism.
Buck Ransom , says: July 8, 2020 at 9:24 pm GMT
@Art ry in WW2.

I am sure President Putin would be delighted to draw international attention to this new symbol of a Christian resurgence in Russia. President Trump would appreciate the splendor of such a backdrop for his meeting with another major head of state. Many of the Evangelicals among Trumps’s base would be gobsmacked to learn that Mr. Putin is not running a godless, soulless Communist hellstate. And many of people in the US State Department and the rest of the Swamp would utterly sh*t their pants.

A win all around. Maybe the President will do it.

Ace , says: July 8, 2020 at 9:38 pm GMT
@annamaria

True dat. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the exceptionals.

And Cheney’s daughter burns the midnight oil in order to keep the pot boiling in Afghanistan. MUST have U.S. troops there to oppose “terrorists” with AKs.

mike99588 , says: July 8, 2020 at 9:55 pm GMT

NYT is a rental rag that always favored Soviets and now CCP, why cite it anymore?

The Russia distraction distracts from Piglosi, Feinstein, Biden, Bushes, congress and corps etc etc being in bed$ with China. With the side benefit of Russian alienation from the US driving Russian goods into the China slaughter house on the cheap.

Ace , says: July 8, 2020 at 10:08 pm GMT
@Derer pants over Assad’s or Gaddafi’s purported authoritarianisms like they’re skunk pie. Eeeww!

You’re right that we have lunatics in Washington but I don’t think “direct voting” is the answer. Devolution plus draconian anti-trust enforcement. crucifixion of the Antifa filth, massive deportations, ending black privilege, brutally honest debate over black failure, draconian anti-vote fraud operations, and naming and neutralizing the role and power of organized Jewry and its wealth seem more likely to get us back on track. Please be more creative then “majority rule.”

Ace , says: July 8, 2020 at 10:26 pm GMT
@Anon

Jesus. “Choke points” can be dealt with from afar. It takes a while to rebuild railroad bridges. The concept of the Russian and Iranian enemies has worn a little thin these last few days. It’s just assumed that Russia is a malignant force just as it’s universally assumed that “special sauce” is the way to go on McDonalds’ hamburgers. I accept neither proposition.

I want troops on the U.S. southern border not on the “flanks” of Iran or policing “transit corridors” here and there but that’s just me.

Ann Nonny Mouse , says: July 8, 2020 at 10:41 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz a refuses to extradite a woman to Britain for actual homicide. Zero grounds to hold him.

From their political standpoint the safest way out is for Assange to simply die in the maximum-security prison, so the extradition proceedings can simply be dropped. All problems solved.

So, he is in actual fact in prison for life.

Never mind that Britain did something virtuous in the distant past. Today is today. And notice that serial murderers can be friendly and courteous between murders but that nice behaviour doesn’t exonerate them for the murders. Nazi Germany looks angelic relative to the Britain of today.

EliteCommInc. , says: July 8, 2020 at 11:13 pm GMT

“The Gulf of Tonkin “event” was a lie, so there’s that.”

No. It in reality, it was a series of confused messages from the patrol boat. But was used to support a defense of S. Vietnam — the matter is of no consequence. The US was going to defend S. Vietnamese sovereignty regardless of the Tonkin event.

geokat62 , says: July 8, 2020 at 11:38 pm GMT

Must watch interview…

DAVID VS. GOLIATH: GAB’S ANDREW TORBA TELLS RICK HIS BATTLE TO COMPETE WITH TWITTER

https://www.trunews.com/#/stream/david-vs-goliath-gab-s-andrew-torba-tells-rick-his-battle-to-compete-with-twitter

Description:

Today on TruNews Rick interviews Andrew Torba, the founder of Gab, a free speech alternative to the tyrants at Twitter. They discuss how the Silicon Valley elite use their satanic bias to silence opposition and have a mission to purge Christianity from their platforms.

anon [402] • Disclaimer , says: July 8, 2020 at 11:57 pm GMT

FYI while BLM and RG draw our attention and now RABAS have made all other conspiracies recede into Corona graveyard

( Russia gate and Russia Afghan Bounty American Solider )
Kushner stoke and his DNA repaired the monetary damages back at home of origin .

Israel lobby organizations such as the Zionist Organization of America ($2-5 million), Friends of the IDF ($2-5 million) and the Israeli American Council ($1-2 million) are grabbing huge 100% forgivable loans from the CARES Act PPP program.
According to SBA data released on Monday, Israeli’s Bank Leumi has doled out a quarter to a half billion dollars under the PPP program, despite being called out for operating in the occupied West Bank.
Leumi has given sweetheart deals to fellow Israeli companies Oran Safety Glass (which defrauded the US Army on bulletproof glass contracts) and Energix, which operates power plants in the occupied Golan Heights and West Bank.
This exchange took place today on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal.

This video clip with additional information is available on IRmep’s YouTube Channel.
Grant F. Smith is the author of the new book The Israel Lobby Enters State Government. He is director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy IRmep in Washington, D.C. which co-organizes IsraelLobbyCon each year at the National Press Club.

Patagonia Man , says: July 9, 2020 at 12:09 am GMT
@geokat62
– colonial expansion,
– rolling genocide of the Palestinian people, witness 2014 Operation Protective Edge,
– terrorist attacks of neighboring Arab/Muslim states – Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Occupied Territories, Iran & Syria;
– terrorist attacks on Western nations, incl. the UK, the US, & France (since its Parliament voted to recognize Palestine as a state in 2014), and
– sponsoring of terror organizations e.g, ISIS, to continue its proxy war on Syria.
– etc, etc

To be forewarned is to be forearmed.

Anon [377] • Disclaimer , says: July 9, 2020 at 12:45 am GMT
@Mefobills

Because Biblical word “sin” is not understood, it gives cover and sanction for creditors to run wild.

This truth cannot be stressed enough.
True meaning of Sin = Debt

Derer , says: July 9, 2020 at 2:09 am GMT
@Jake

In addition to Constantinople, years later defending Ottoman remnants in Bosnia and Kosovo against the Christians by “cigar” Clinton and warmonger Blair that introduced the Islamization of Europe.

Wizard of Oz , says: July 9, 2020 at 3:33 am GMT
@Erzberger e lines of making distinctions e.g. between deliberate murder of harmless civilians and forcing choices on them (starve Russian prisoners and ration food to mothers and children e.g.). Of course the choice to get rid of their government and stop the war is unrealistic even in the post Cold War world. What did sanctions on Iran produce?? Just civilian deaths.

** it is only recently that I discovered that it made a big contribution to diverting German effort from the Eastern Front though it is not surprising that Stalin thought the absence of a Second Front in France was meant to help the Germans savage the USSR.

Wizard of Oz , says: July 9, 2020 at 3:50 am GMT
@Patagonia Man he approx dozen Israeli dual citizens he alleges are in the Australian Parliament contrary to the provisions of the Australian constitution.

So, don’t encourage him Geo, by thanking him. That Israeli nonsense is enough to brand him as a nutter.

As to Quadrant, what does it matter that, in the 50s, and maybe till about 1970, it was given some financial support by the CIA? Really, what is the point in the 21st century? Does it matter to current affairs that Robert Maxwell owned the Daily Mirror till the 90s?

If I don’t reply to all the rubbish no one should infer the truth of anything Patagonia Man alleges.

anonymous [157] • Disclaimer , says: July 9, 2020 at 4:12 am GMT
@Z-man

Putin because he re-established Christian Orthodoxy as the de facto state religion of Mother Russia.

You make it sound as if Putin single-handedly guided “mother” Russia from godlessness, to true God-awareness. Lol!

Except, Christianity of all flavours will always remain, Pagan Polytheist Mangods-worship, or Hindooism-lite, or Godlessness.

anonymous [157] • Disclaimer , says: July 9, 2020 at 5:40 am GMT
@Mefobills

“Professor” Hudson sounds like a kook.

He takes various commandments of God and distills it into a silly… Debt = Sin. Indeed, it is true that one can take anything and make it fit their delusional way of thought. E.g. the 3 in 1, of the pagan Trinity.

Of course, that does not mean, Usury (extortionate moneylending) ≠ Sin, which it most certainly is.

The Ten Commandments were about debt? A silly interpretation. They are primarily about Monotheism and a righteous way-of-life, and refraining from usury is just one aspect of it.

Christianity got perverted? Yes, it most certainly is a pagan perversion of True Monotheism.

Alfred , says: July 9, 2020 at 5:47 am GMT
@Curmudgeon

In Iceland she would not be especially good looking, just another face in the crowd

Sorry to rain on the parade.

What Have We Won?—Number One For Chlamydia

Alfred , says: July 9, 2020 at 5:56 am GMT
@Ann Nonny Mouse

I suspect Assange had to be “put away” in case he leaked documents about the then forthcoming Coronascam. The timing is right.

Ann Nonny Mouse , says: July 9, 2020 at 7:08 am GMT
@Patagonia Man

I don’t always agree with the wizard but your mad ad-hominen attack is beastly nonsense, Patagonia Slug.

Patagonia Man , says: July 9, 2020 at 7:19 am GMT
@Wizard of Oz

Forever the denialist, thanks for demonstrating the point.

annamaria , says: July 9, 2020 at 10:44 am GMT
@Erzberger

“Sure, Poland bears major responsibility for WW 2, and lending themselves to now hosting US nukes and troops to be moved over from Germany signals that they once again have not learned a thing from their past.”
— Stepping on rakes as a national pastime.

annamaria , says: July 9, 2020 at 10:59 am GMT
@Ann Nonny Mouse an associated organisation whose stated objective is to ‘maximise support for the State of Israel within the British Liberal Democrat Party’…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Democrat_Friends_of_Israel
Both groups of “Friends of Israel” have been openly disloyal to the UK.
Both groups of “Friends of Israel ” have been actively promoting the rape and destruction of Syria and Libya. The protection and glorification of White Helmets’ murderous jihadis is a nice illustration. Patagonia Man , says: July 9, 2020 at 1:09 pm GMT

@Ann Nonny Mouse

So what kind of self-righteousness is this? I said from my experience

When I want your opinion I’ll ask for it.

In future, don’t comment until you’re specifically addressed.

Franklin Ryckaert , says: July 9, 2020 at 1:17 pm GMT
@annamaria

What British politics urgently needs is a lobby Friends of Britain in all of its political parties.

Erzberger , says: July 9, 2020 at 2:07 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz will be as cruel as the Soviets. Were they wrong?

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-nazis-exploited-shermans-march-the-sea-25437

Spaight claims that drawing the war to the British isles was done in solidarity with the Soviets. This is nonsense but a timely propaganda move at a time when German defeat was assured. Stalin did no fall into that trap. He lknew about Operation Pike and Operation Impossible, and had zero reason to trust the British. Wikipedia has a page on either Operation

Erzberger , says: July 9, 2020 at 2:13 pm GMT
@Erzberger

correction: Operation Unthinkable

Erzberger , says: July 9, 2020 at 2:28 pm GMT
@annamaria

True. Victimhood is essential to Polish nationalism, and their last defense against becoming Europeans

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_of_Europe#Historical_critics

Anon [288] • Disclaimer , says: July 9, 2020 at 2:38 pm GMT
@Patagonia Man

Denialist? A careful textual analysis tells me you are saying WoZ denies what you assert, which is that there are about a dozen Israeli dual citizens in the Australian Parliament, contrary to law. Instead of coyly dancing around the issue what about meeting the challenge to name at least some?

Wizard of Oz , says: July 9, 2020 at 3:00 pm GMT
@Erzberger Thanks. Mind you I think the Blitz was pretty indiscriminate bombing before Britain was in a position to inflict much damage on Germany. I gather attacks on London from the start were a strategic error by Hitler because the Liluftwaffe should have kept up its attacks on Britisk airfields. Interesting that Albert Speer, in the “World at War” series, said that four more raids like the 1000 bomber raid on Hamburg (or maybe it was Cologne) would have finished the war. Why couldn’t Bomber Command do I it? Maybe it was because Eisenhower won the battle to have bombers diverted to bombing the Pas we Calais (mostly) and Normandie.
Erzberger , says: July 9, 2020 at 3:33 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz

“Mind you I think the Blitz was pretty indiscriminate bombing before Britain was in a position to inflict much damage on Germany.”

Wrong.

BTW, the Blitz is a misnomer. Blitzkrieg is tactical air support for ground troops. Neither applies to the air attacks on German cities in May 1940, or the German retaliation, several months later, that we know as the Blitz.

Richard Overy though has argued that the German Blitz showed the British how it was done efficiently, so they improved their bombing strategy accordingly afterwards. Whatever

Z-man , says: July 9, 2020 at 5:45 pm GMT
@annamaria

— Stepping on rakes as a national pastime.

LOL!!! Good one.

[Jul 09, 2020] The U.S. Has Surrendered To The Pandemic

Jul 09, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Dirk , Jul 8 2020 18:11 utc | 3

Aren't they counting now everyone who doesn't say "No, I don't have the virus"? It's strange to me that they shift the narrative every time - even including all the tricks they use - it looks like it's finally over.

Kevin , Jul 8 2020 18:12 utc | 4

So why have the absolute number of covid-19 deaths been in decline since mid-April? Where are all the stories of overloaded hospitals?
Kevin , Jul 8 2020 18:14 utc | 5
If masks are effective, why was it necessary to release prison inmates to prevent them from getting covid-19?
KD , Jul 8 2020 18:33 utc | 6
Wearing mask(if it eventually ingrains itself as a widespread public behaviour) will bring deathknell of all the facial recognition hardware & softwares? What will happen to the millions of webcams which were capturing 24x7 in the public spaces but cant capture now! All investment lost ? It seems to me this is a battle by some TPTB vs some other TPTB.
Michael Droy , Jul 8 2020 18:37 utc | 7
Much as I love MofA's work I am getting rather fed up with the horror stories with no sense of scale over Covid.
What proportion have been infected to date? 5% 15% 25%. No comment from MofA.
Is there a proportion of the pop that is simply immune (like most kids seem to be)? No comment from MofA.
Assume everyone caught it how many would that kill? No estimate from MofA.

Of course it is fair to say that no scare mongers talk about these things, not governments, not the mainstream media that is terrified of challenging the Fear factor. But I have learnt to expect proper analysis from MofA.

6 months in, we are still debating Public policy and personal policy without even discussing the potential scale.

My guess is that if nothing is done to prevent everyone being exposed to Covid, then on average we will have our lives reduced by 2 months per person. Which sounds pretty awful for someone in the last 2 years of their life, but frankly is nothing given the big gains in life expectancy in the last couple of decades (excluding US).

I'll happily debate that 2 month estimate with anyone who dares to discuss estimates of the crucial scale factors above.
But recall the CDC implied estimate of death rates per infection is 0.26% - and I haven't seen one scare monger accept a 1% number yet.

barovsky , Jul 8 2020 18:38 utc | 8
It's called CULLING! There are no jobs, it's Marx's 'reserve army of the unemployed', surplus to requirement (by capitalism). Once more, it's NOT THE VIRUS that's killing Americans, it's CAPITALISM!
_K_C_ , Jul 8 2020 18:40 utc | 9
@1 - Indeed. Hit the nail on the head. More than any previous (corrupt) administration, the Trump administration is a kleptocratic enterprise designed, in part, to enrich himself and his business cronies. They have, and will, use any event positive or negative to that end.

@Kevin (multiple) - 1) Use any search engine. USA Today is reporting that 56 Florida hospitals have hit peak ICU capacity. That's just in Florida. 2) You clearly know nothing about the American system of jails/prisons. You're lucky to get a meal that consists of more than 6oz. of week-old Frito pie (look it up if you're not American). Furthermore, masks were incredibly hard to come by and the Trump administration had, in fact, shipped a buttload of them over to China in secret while they were in short supply in the USA. And finally do you think that they'd give masks to prisoners even if they had them? LOL if so.

I'm sorry to the doubters; it's time to accept that this thing is real and that masks work in more ways than one provided they are used properly and sterilized correctly if needed. But I feel more sorry for the people who suffered and died (will die) as the result of the shoddy American political and medical systems.

Lucci , Jul 8 2020 18:41 utc | 10
So why have the absolute number of covid-19 deaths been in decline since mid-April? Where are all the stories of overloaded hospitals?

Posted by: Kevin | Jul 8 2020 18:12 utc | 4

That's your homework. Go to your local hospital and ask where Covid19 are being kept. You want to disprove something you're going to need hard evidence to back your own claim.


If masks are effective, why was it necessary to release prison inmates to prevent them from getting covid-19?

Posted by: Kevin | Jul 8 2020 18:14 utc | 5

This is dunning Kruger effect. You must have heard your assertion somewhere instead of coming up with that yourself.
Virus are spread through droplets either from your mouth or noses. Wearing masks can help to contain said droplets spread to others or into public space where many people can be at risk. The virus did not hover in the air through fine dust particles.

_K_C_ , Jul 8 2020 18:45 utc | 11
Where did anyone read that the "absolute number of COVID-19 deaths" (in the USA) is in decline? The count increases every single day.

If what they mean is why is the death rate falling, presuming it is and stays that way, then the answer is complex and still unfolding, but on a high level it's because they are finally able to test more people and many of the positive tests are the asymptomatic or light cases. Hence, we just *know about more* of the actual cases, not to mention that lockdowns, bar and beach closures, and mask mandates have also helped slow it down. For now. The fall and winter could be horrible.

vk , Jul 8 2020 18:46 utc | 12
White House officials also hope Americans will grow numb to the escalating death toll and learn to accept tens of thousands of new cases a day, according to three people familiar with the White House's thinking, who requested anonymity to reveal internal deliberations. Americans will "live with the virus being a threat," in the words of one of those people, a senior administration official.

That's also Boeing's strategy post-737 MAX. Be aware with its soon to be re-licensed planes.

Comandante , Jul 8 2020 18:47 utc | 13
US has currently raging Covid fires in Florida, Texas, Arizona. Cali and S Carolina and Louisiana are not far back. Forget about deaths for a minute. The large # of daily infections and hospitalizations will still put a major strain on US healthcare, logistics, food supply and then economy.

The hospitalizations should be a huge wake up call alone. Only 130 ICU beds in entire Arizona left available. A state of 7 million inhabitants.

It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that at the very least there will be a huge hospital bed shortage in US for months and months.

Businesses will keep closing and going out of business for then foreseable future.

Even if we get zero deaths for Covid from today on, this is still a clusterf....

Achim , Jul 8 2020 18:48 utc | 14
MofA topped my dailing reading during the Syria war and until February.

No longer, as other readers I am sick and tired of the Covid paranoia spread on this blog. The coverage shows a complete lack of political, economic and even statistical analytical skills. Almost as if there are two different authors.

Read Swiss Policy Research for a realistic, science-based assessment of this election year propaganda hoax.

karlof1 , Jul 8 2020 18:50 utc | 15
Within the Outlaw US Empire, there's been some consistently accurate reporting done by USA Today , but it's clear the Troll Brigade's talking points remain the same; and quite frankly, they are becoming very tiresome, allowing today's Global Times editorial to invoke a Chinese Proverb that:

"describes someone as quenching one's thirst with poisoned wine, and now the proverb can be used on the hysteric US government....

"while US society has become accustomed to it and even cooperated with it, which is degeneration ."

I'll repeat the citation I posted on the previous thread from a baseball player for it describes the way out via collective responsibility:

"Just like on the field, success will depend on how many players are safe at home.

"'That's going to be the biggest challenge for this game to move forward -- the off-the-field stuff and what guys do,' said Vincent, an eight-year major league veteran. 'It's just going to take one team to mess it up for everybody. I hope everybody gets that. It'll take five guys to get a whole team sick, and then if a whole team is sick, that could end the season for everybody else.'"

And COVID-19's growth is almost completely related to "community exposure." I think it's rather important for b to echo the message of the linked editorial:

"The Trump administration is leading the country to 'co-exist with the novel coronavirus.' But we must tell Americans that such inaction is terrible . People's understanding of the virus is insufficient, but it has been proven that it can spread fast and infect humans, and the death rate of COVID-19 is much higher than the common flu. If the US keeps the status quo, its number of deaths will be incalculable, and so will be the lasting of the raging virus and its long-term impact on the economy ." [My Emphasis]

I see Chicago now requires a 14-day quarantine of people arriving from the same states as does New York:

"Effective Monday, July 6, travelers from the following states are directed to quarantine upon arrival in Chicago: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah."

The new book coming out about Trump is titled correctly: Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man .

Kevin , Jul 8 2020 18:52 utc | 16
Go to the average deaths per day graph. Seems the trend is pretty clear.

https://covidusa.net/

Lucci , Jul 8 2020 18:52 utc | 17
Much as I love MofA's work I am getting rather fed up with the horror stories with no sense of scale over Covid.
What proportion have been infected to date? 5% 15% 25%. No comment from MofA.
Is there a proportion of the pop that is simply immune (like most kids seem to be)? No comment from MofA.
Assume everyone caught it how many would that kill? No estimate from MofA.

Of course it is fair to say that no scare mongers talk about these things, not governments, not the mainstream media that is terrified of challenging the Fear factor. But I have learnt to expect proper analysis from MofA.

6 months in, we are still debating Public policy and personal policy without even discussing the potential scale.

My guess is that if nothing is done to prevent everyone being exposed to Covid, then on average we will have our lives reduced by 2 months per person. Which sounds pretty awful for someone in the last 2 years of their life, but frankly is nothing given the big gains in life expectancy in the last couple of decades (excluding US).

I'll happily debate that 2 month estimate with anyone who dares to discuss estimates of the crucial scale factors above.
But recall the CDC implied estimate of death rates per infection is 0.26% - and I haven't seen one scare monger accept a 1% number yet.

Posted by: Michael Droy | Jul 8 2020 18:37 utc | 7

You don't have to fear it but you shouldn't forgoes the medical guidelines against pandemic either. Else you might contributed to catastrophic healthcare system overloading.
What's your plan other than going into hospital once you're sick ? There are no over the counter medicine that are effective against this new diseases.

Seneca , Jul 8 2020 18:54 utc | 18
It is simply not true that there are 1 Million tests in Germany per week. There is no such thing like mass testing in Germany. Only if you feel ill or in the few cases of contact tracing tests are being conducted, I personally know no one who has been tested at all. Due to the low numbers of active symptomatic cases numbers of tests should be low accordingly. Greetings from Germany !
Roberto , Jul 8 2020 18:56 utc | 19
Dear Mr. Moon of Alabama, the real issue is not the number of new cases. The real issue is the number of death. That number is decreasing.

From https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/ :

There were approximately 100,000 test-positive deaths in the United States by the end of May. The overall mortality rate since the beginning of the year was, however, in the range of the strong flu season of 2017/2018 (see chart below).

In an open letter, over 600 doctors warned US President Donald Trump of the dangers of an extended lockdown. The lockdown was itself a "mass casualty incident".

Kevin , Jul 8 2020 18:57 utc | 20
@_K_C, Why would more testing drive the number of deaths down? Is there some miracle treatment that they are keeping a secret? Consider also the generous criteria for classifying a death as resukting from covid-19.
Steve , Jul 8 2020 19:00 utc | 21
Actually, the case in Florida seems to be even more dire than what is indicated here -- at least according to a report I saw from the Independent:
The data, which comes from the state health authority, show that more than four dozen of Florida's hospitals have now hit full intensive care capacity, while more than 30 are at 90 per cent capacity. And in just the last few days, the statewide percentage of ICU beds available has dropped from 20 per cent to 17 per cent.
barovsky , Jul 8 2020 19:04 utc | 22
Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 8 2020 18:50 utc | 15

We need to look at the DEATH RATE, NOT the number of infections, or the so-called EXCESS DEATHS and the problem is that they (the US and the UK) no longer record the actual CAUSE of death, because the state doesn't give a fuck! In the UK, over half of all deaths have been in CARE HOMES, ditto the US. Again, they've been CULLED!!!! Offered no protection to their carers or to the ones they care for. This is EUGENICS or to use it's common name; FASCISM.

The rich don't give a fuck that more people are now dying from all other kinds of things, from untreated heart attacks, to starvation.

Kevin , Jul 8 2020 19:04 utc | 23
Hospitals get a significantly higher Medicare reimbursement rate for patients diagnosed with covid-19. So we are supposed to believe that the healthcare system motherfucks us every time EXCEPT when it comes to being incentivized with higher covid-19 reimbursement rates, especially at a time when revenue from other medical procedures is down?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/24/fact-check-medicare-hospitals-paid-more-covid-19-patients-coronavirus/3000638001/

Where are all the videos of overworked nurses and doctors like we saw back in April?

barovsky , Jul 8 2020 19:06 utc | 24
I might add that a lot of people are dying because their immune systems have been fucked by the foul food, air and water, not to mention the stress of living under a dying capitalism.
div> Im a working class stiff, most people in america simply cant isolate themselves cuz they need to work to pay the bill a couple weeks without pay is a disaster. What im concerned about is as a person who got laid of, federal unemployment assistance runs out at the end of july, after that ill be getting only 300$ a week from the state.which is not enough

Posted by: Bob , Jul 8 2020 19:08 utc | 25

Im a working class stiff, most people in america simply cant isolate themselves cuz they need to work to pay the bill a couple weeks without pay is a disaster. What im concerned about is as a person who got laid of, federal unemployment assistance runs out at the end of july, after that ill be getting only 300$ a week from the state.which is not enough

Posted by: Bob | Jul 8 2020 19:08 utc | 25

Passer by , Jul 8 2020 19:09 utc | 26
Good post.

The microwave generated steam decontamination method (MGS) is confirmed by many studies. I saw the study you (b) posted, before one month.

It supports up to 20 decontaminations cycles without loss in filter performance and mask fit.

I use that method for mask decontamination too. It only works for respirator masks though. Presence of metal on the respirator mask is not a problem, the steam makes sure that there are no sparks, as studies and myself found.

For surgical masks, the microwave steam decontamination method did not work for me though, and it destroyed the surgical mask. According to studies, you can use another method for up to 10 decontaminations of surgical masks - put the mask for 5 minutes over a steam flow created by boiling water. But do not touch the boiling water with the surgical mask, just steam it.

For cloth masks - wash the mask in washing machine at 60 C, for at least 30 minutes. You can put some disinfectant in the washing machine, such as commercial Heitmann solution for disinfection or Hydrogen Peroxide instead.

barovsky , Jul 8 2020 19:11 utc | 27
I quote the Chief Medical Officer for the UK, Chris Whitty:

For the vast majority (85%) the virus is NOT life threatening, most don't even know they've had it. Even most of those with co-morbities, survive, the overall death rate (not the total numbers) is around 0.1%

Zico the Musketeer , Jul 8 2020 19:11 utc | 28
I've read about shipments of masks from USA to China.
This does not make any sense. Do they even produce 1 masks? Where does those masks came from?
Passer by , Jul 8 2020 19:11 utc | 29
Posted by: Roberto | Jul 8 2020 18:56 utc | 19

Roberto, you are using old info, death rate started increasing again in the US.

https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS/USA-TRENDS/dgkvlgkrkpb/index.html

R Rose , Jul 8 2020 19:13 utc | 30
The hysteria is over the top.
The CDC in it's data reported that ending June 27/20
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html

"Nationally, levels of influenza-like illness (ILI) and COVID-19-like illness (CLI) activity remain lower than peaks seen in March and April.."

Notice they conflate the statistics of ILI and CLI- together to fudge numbers?

"Mortality attributed to COVID-19 decreased compared to last week"

Increased testing will inevitably find more cases despite b's claim to the otherwise

There have also been recent reports from Oxford
Link

that this virus has been around for some time already- as evidenced in sewage samples

"Dr Tom Jefferson, senior associate tutor at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University, and visiting professor at Britain's Newcastle University, says there is growing evidence the virus was elsewhere before it emerged in Asia"

Dr Jefferson believes that the virus may be transmitted through the sewerage system or shared toilets, not just through droplets expelled by talking, coughing and sneezing.
"There is quite a lot of evidence of huge amounts of the virus in sewage all over the place, and an increasing amount of evidence there is faecal transmission. There is a high concentration where sewage is four degrees, which is the ideal temperature for it to be stabled and presumably activated. And meat-packing plants are often at four degrees.

"These meat-packing clusters and isolated outbreaks don't fit with respiratory theory, they fit with people who haven't washed their hands properly.

"These outbreaks need to be investigated properly. You question people, and you construct hypotheses that fit the facts, not the other way around."


As for Germany their R number was up weeks ago- despite their massive fines and mandatory mask policy.
Still the mask psychosis persists

Kevin , Jul 8 2020 19:16 utc | 31
@Passerby - Your own reference shows US deaths DECLINING. Yes, some states show an increase but a DECLINE for the nation. What is your explanation?
R Rose , Jul 8 2020 19:16 utc | 32
@ 16

Yes the trend is pretty clear

@ 27

thanks for the sanity

bob sykes , Jul 8 2020 19:18 utc | 33
Corrected for population, the 1957/58 Asian flu killed over 230,000 Americans, and the 1978/69 Hong Kong flu killed about 170,000. COVID-19 is a bad epidemic, but it is only the third worst since WWII. 230,000 would be a death rate of 0.007%.

B and of none of the non-American commenters and most American commenters do not understand that the US has a real federal government with local police and health matters in the jurisdiction of the States. Within the States themselves counties and cities have a great deal of independent control. Most health and crime enforcement is at the city/county level. My sheriff has more authority over me than the state police. And my county health department has more authority than the federal government. The federal government has very little authority in local matters. The response to the coronavirus is almost entirely in the purview of the state governors, and the feds authority is mostly advisory. So look to the Governors to assign blame.

About half fo all the US cases and deaths are in the NYC metro area, so it was the Cuomo/De Blasio screw ups that mattered. They also got bad advice and faulty test gear from the CDC. Notably, public transit was not shut down anywhere, and in NY nursing homes were forced to accept elderly COVID patients. Over 40% of the deaths in America have occurred in nursing homes.

The lockdowns are not a panacea. There has been truly massive economic losses, which made take a decade to retore. Continued lockdowns will precipitate a Worl Great Depression.

Laguerre , Jul 8 2020 19:20 utc | 34
Geographical spread. The early infestation was in the north-east, and now it's less a problem there, if I understand correctly. Now it's in the south and southwest, which weren't touched before.
Passer by , Jul 8 2020 19:22 utc | 35
Posted by: Kevin | Jul 8 2020 19:16 utc | 31

In the last day (yesterday) US death rate spiked to June 4th levels (922 deaths).

Mina , Jul 8 2020 19:23 utc | 36
"The goal is to convince Americans that they can live with the virus -- that schools should reopen, professional sports should return, a vaccine is likely to arrive by the end of the year and the economy will continue to improve."

That's exactly what the Europeans are doing too.

Comandante , Jul 8 2020 19:24 utc | 37
Anyone know how us americans can purchase n95 masks from europe? They are still unavailable here and it will get worse. I get a long while of intermittent use of each so dont mind the $6 pricetag
vk , Jul 8 2020 19:25 utc | 38
@ Posted by: barovsky | Jul 8 2020 19:11 utc | 27; @ Posted by: R Rose | Jul 8 2020 19:16 utc | 32; @ Posted by: Kevin | Jul 8 2020 18:52 utc | 16; @ Posted by: Kevin | Jul 8 2020 18:12 utc | 4; @ Posted by: Roberto | Jul 8 2020 18:56 utc | 19

Your argument is irrelevant, for the simple fact that the extra risk of death is still greater than zero (i.e. a person with COVID-19 still has a greater chance of dying than an exact copy of that person without COVID-19).

The American economy is consumer-based, i.e. it can only grow as long as people keep buying things they don't need in ever greater quantities in money-terms. That makes the opportunity cost of consuming something you don't need too great even if, in absolute terms, you could argue the risk is still at the safe zone.

Even if COVID-19 mortality rate was similar to the common flu (it isn't: it's more than 10 times the common flu's mortality rate), you still have to face the fact that we're not at flu season, and that two flu seasons are deadlier than one flu season. The opportunity cost of consuming things you don't need still applies: people are not going to the restaurant at a random Sunday if that means they have a +1.5% chance of dying because of that. Keep in mind that this +1.5% chance of dying going to the restaurant piles up over the other risks (of being murdered by a robber, by being ran over by another car, by being hit by lightning etc. etc.) - it doesn't offset them.

Kevin , Jul 8 2020 19:26 utc | 39
I thought the stories of Cuomo having nursing homes being forced to accept covid-19 patients was conservatard ranting. But even the NY Times admits it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/us/nursing-homes-coronavirus.html

Kevin , Jul 8 2020 19:28 utc | 40
@Passerby - A trend of ONE DAY? Are you serious?
_K_C_ , Jul 8 2020 19:32 utc | 41
Kevin,

Then you need to be more precise/correct with your language. You said, in your original post "So why have the absolute number of covid-19 deaths been in decline since mid-April?"

Perhaps you don't know the difference between "average daily deaths" and "absolute number of deaths." The latter is increasing every day. The average number of deaths, however, is indeed *currently* in decline after a previous spike and that is due in part to all of the preventive measures that the "Troll Brigade" (as karlof1 has dubbed them) are constantly claiming don't work. Masks, closures, more testing and quarantine/isolation, etc.

I already know you're not going to read the "in part" in my previous paragraph, so I thought I'd make sure to repeat that the situation is complex and it is completely reasonable, even without evidence from other countries on those counts (which does in fact exist and has been posted ad nauseum here), to conclude that the decline in deaths per day as we speak is partly due to the measures mentioned.

Laguerre , Jul 8 2020 19:33 utc | 42
Another fact about COVID-19 that I found very interesting. It's a lot more complex than the average virus. And thus has capacities which the average flu virus doesn't.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-visual-guide-to-the-sars-cov-2-coronavirus/

The SARS-CoV-2 genome is a strand of RNA that is about 29,900 bases long -- near the limit for RNA viruses. Influenza has about 13,500 bases, and the rhinoviruses that cause common colds have about 8,000. (A base is a pair of compounds that are the building blocks of RNA and DNA.) Because the genome is so large, many mutations could occur during replication that would cripple the virus, but SARS-CoV-2 can proofread and correct copies. This quality control is common in human cells and in DNA viruses but highly unusual in RNA viruses. The long genome also has accessory genes, not fully understood, some of which may help it fend off our immune system.
Passer by , Jul 8 2020 19:35 utc | 43
Posted by: Kevin | Jul 8 2020 19:28 utc | 40

Yes, it is one day. It does not make it not true. Of course, it remains to be seen if death rate will spike further.

So we will see about that. I say US death rate will spike compared to the last month. You say it won't. Do you want to bet?

Liberty Blogger , Jul 8 2020 19:36 utc | 44
With the US now at 10% of its peak death-rate and falling, despite the known rapid spread of the virus for at least a month now, Covid-19 is barely newsworthy at this stage.

Herd immunity beckons for the US and for Sweden.

Hoarsewhisperer , Jul 8 2020 19:47 utc | 45
Good timing, b.
Vic.gov's credibility tanked last week in the wake of a fiasco involving a silly lapse of 'medical security' at a hotel being used, exclusively, to quarantine infection suspects. It turns out that the people hired to manage/supervise the inmates' adherence to best practice were casual security guard types with no relevant skills and 5 minutes of 'training' i.e. a cheap solution.
Being low on the pay-scale pecking order, these people lived in low-rent suburbs. A sufficient number of them lived in high-density, 20-storey public-housing complexes that they carried the infection into 9 such complexes. It wasn't until residents began testing positive for COVID-19 that Vic.gov realised the magnitude of this thrift-induced blunder. The residents of the apartment blocks received i hour's notice of their forced confinement.

What began as a policed lock-down of 9 apartment blocks became a lockdown of 10 Melbourne postcodes (40 to 50 Northern suburbs) on June 30, and escalated into a panic-mode lockdown of most of metro Melbourne announced pm on July 7, effective midnight on July 8. So now Melburnians are back to April restrictions - only reasons to leave your place of residence/suburb are Work, Essential shopping, Medical issues, exercise.

So everyone is feeling very pissed off and very, very perplexed. The measures imposed have a reasonable chance of working but 6 weeks of lockdown is going to expose some psychological cracks. Imo.

Anyway, I have sufficient masks to quarantine 3 masks per day for 7 days. I have yet to wear one but expect to be doing so fairly soon...

bevin , Jul 8 2020 19:48 utc | 46
Those doubting the importance of this dangerous pandemic are simply attempting to justify the preservation of neo-liberal capitalism at the expense of human lives. When 'Droy' says that the net effect will be to lower life expectancy by an average of two months he is trivialising the agonising deaths of hundreds of thousands of people due to occur in the coming months.

As b points out in the coming months the US Healthcare non-system is headed for a monstrous car crash, a catastrophic collapse in the face of hundreds of thousands of people who are going to need treatment which is likely to be unavailable. This will have a knock on effect on large numbers of others, whose needs for medical attention will go unsatisfied because there is no spare capacity and the system has already been strained beyond its limits.
Then there will be the victims of poverty inevitable in an economy in which few have savings and subsistence depends upon the labour market-with demand for labour declining, unemployment will increase and consumption go into further decline, a vicious circle leading to famine and the sort of malnutrition which undermines societies for generations to come.

And the cause is very simple: for decades accountants and politicians have preached against 'waste'. And 'waste' has come to mean any expenditure not immediately justifiable by actual demand. Thus a spare bed in an ICU is waste; a nurse on a coffee break is wasting her time; a stock of PEP held in reserve is waste; investment in virus prevention between pandemics is waste (far better to spend resources on acne or anti-wrinkle creams.
Everybody knew this pandemic was coming. Everyone knows that more health emergencies are going to arise.

But some (rhymes with scum) dispute the importance of millions of people dying. They see it is sad and unfortunate but nothing like the inconvenience that a major regulation of private property rights in order to prevent rich people from eating poor people would entail.
The last time this happened in the United States was in the 1930s. Then, finally, kicking and screaming, the capitalist class was forced, in fear of its imminent demise, into conceding the basic reforms needed to bring society through the Depression without millions more dying of starvation and hypothermia. But the opposition never gave in-those who fought the New Deal finally prevailed in the 1980s, first they re-conquered the Republican Party, then they took over the Democrats too. As a result there has been forty years of serial de-regulation and privatisation so that society is defenceless in the face of the pandemic.

Defenceless in terms of resources (not enough doctors, not enough nurses, not enough material resources) and defenceless too in terms of intellectual resources- nobody in government has any idea of what to do. The leadership of society is so thoroughly brainwashed to reject social solutions and to search, at every sign of danger, for ways to incentivise the market to solve problems, that it cannot bring itself to recognise how simple it would be to follow in China's footsteps and mobilise the enormous spare capacity in the economy into a public health campaign. (These are the idiots whose response to climate change was the creation of a market for carbon credits.)
Hoist on its own petard, the United States blunders towards its demise.
Can the federal system survive the experience of a Katrina in every county?
Can the states rights blowhards live down their failure to produce local solutions to local problems?
Can capitalism live on after its cannibalistic nature has been fully revealed?
The system is in crisis and the point is to change it, to come up with something better and to refuse to accept the repair of the most evil system of government that the world has ever seen. The first global iteration of a society organised to protect the wealthy and to kill any dissent from their victims.

Kevin , Jul 8 2020 19:50 utc | 47
@_K_C - By absolute, I mean none of those pesky numerators or denominators. If the cases are exploding, why are the deaths declining. I have yet to hear an explanation for this.

@Passerby - Death statistics are not necessarily released on the day they occurred, particularly if they occurred over a weekend or holiday. That is why the average number of deaths is smoothed.

Peter AU1 , Jul 8 2020 19:53 utc | 48
"My take is that Trump's calculation is simply wrong."

Trumps calculation is to separate US from China and take China down. Coronavirus is his ally rather than enemy.

Dr Wellington Yueh , Jul 8 2020 19:55 utc | 49
Those doubting the importance of this dangerous pandemic are simply attempting to justify the preservation of neo-liberal capitalism at the expense of human lives.

Bullshit!

I've seen quite a spectrum of very reasonable argument about this. The 'defense of capitalism' is a vicious strawman. What I see being defended is the only system currently in place and viable to get supplies to masses of people. Yeah, it sucks that Bezos gets richer, but you can't just abandon noxious structures if the alternative is anarchy, especially if your aim is to prevent death and destruction.

Passer by , Jul 8 2020 19:56 utc | 50
Posted by: Kevin | Jul 8 2020 19:50 utc | 47

Death rate lags by 20-30 days. So i will remain on record saying that US death rate from now on will spike compared to the last 30 days.

TG , Jul 8 2020 19:56 utc | 51
I agree with you about wearing masks. But think for a moment about ll the ridiculous double-talk and outright lies the our government has spread about make wearing, and I think perhaps we can understand why so much of the public is skeptical.

At first we were told point blank that masks didn't work - this was a 'little white lie' to save masks for health care professionals, the official line is now that masks do work, but what kind of message does this send about the honesty and reliability of anything we hear from the government?

Just the other day I read an "official" statement saying that private citizens shouldn't use medical grade masks, they should use home-made masks and save the masks that really work for health care professionals. Seriously. So if home-made masks aren't effective - or not as effective as medical grade ones - why are we being asked to wear them? Is this just to keep morale up? Again, this is such obvious double-talk that skepticism seems in order...

And the big problem with the mask shortage are all these "free" trade agreements that shipped all the factories making masks (and tests and reagents for making tests etc.etc.) to China. So is the government moving to bring medical manufacturing back to this country? They are not! Last I heard, they have formed a cartel of private companies, that would import masks from China and use their legal quasi-monopoly power to force hospitals etc. to bid up prices given a scarce supply. Again, our elites are not interested in increasing the supply of masks, they just want to make sure that the right people can make a quick buck profiteering from the limited supply.

And if masks are important, why the heck aren't we making better ones? Surely we can make a mask that is as protective as an N95, yet as comfortable to wear as a regular surgical mask. We could do this with only a modest research effort, but of course, nobody is even trying.

Bottom line: the real rot is that our elites - on both sides of the aisle - just do not care about the general public. Remember again how their first order of business, was to pass massive tax cuts and subsidies target exclusively to the super rich. Gotta have your priorities, right?

aquadraht , Jul 8 2020 19:59 utc | 52
@ Liberty Blogger 44 : July 7 deaths were 993, up from 500..600 peaks the weeks before, all time peak April 21 was 2749, so rather 36% than 10%. Herd immunity is far away, and different from Sweden, the USA have a broken health insurance system with tens of millions uninsured, and at least hundred million so underinsured that a hospital treatment may ruin them.

That is one of the major problems. Would the US have granted every Covid19 (and suspect) case free medical treatment, they would have some chance to control the epidemics. Too late.

Rhisiart Gwlym , Jul 8 2020 20:02 utc | 53
"There are no over the counter medicines that are effective against this new disease." - Lucci 17.

Dead wrong! There are at least two already well proven: Dr. Didier Raoult's hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin and zinc cocktail, tried and proven in his Marseilles hospital; and large-dose vitamin C, given either intravenously or by mouth if you want to do it yourself. See 'Doctoryourself.com' for more details. Take the white powder form of C if using diy: ascorbic acid or sodium ascorbate: AT LEAST 30 grams - sic! - per 24 hours, in water, stirred and sipped repeatedly, every quarter hour. Note: there is no known (genuine) LD50 for C; and no really serious bad effects. As safe as anything can be. In my 80th year I've just used this approach to see off an attack of what I believe to be covid, in three days. But I have no co-morbidities, and a strong immune system, still.

Naturally the cocktail is contested, thoroughly deceitfully, by the Big Pharma shills; and no-one ever hears about the C approach, because both these ***effective*** treatments would knock the bottom out of the slavering anticipation of huge vaccine profits amongst the gics (the gangsters-in-charge) who are treating us all like sacrificial cattle.

Kevin , Jul 8 2020 20:03 utc | 54
@Passerby - Why is there a need to bet? Why not just give your prediction of the magnitude of the spike and the specific reason for the spike. Neither you nor I have any control over what future policies will be enacted, revised definitions/classifications of coronavirus diagnosis will be used or testing technologies be employed.

I am saying that, based on the data that we have, there is a disconnect between the increasing number of cases and the indisputable decline in deaths that has not been explained. If it is because most of the vulnerable (such as in nursing homes) have either already died or are now under better protection, we should see the deaths decline or reach some low level.

Laguerre , Jul 8 2020 20:04 utc | 55
That's exactly what the Europeans are doing too.

Posted by: Mina | Jul 8 2020 19:23 utc | 36

Actually I don't agree with that. The Europeans waited until the infection and death rate descended to a low level, as opposed to US and UK.

I wouldn't say they were totally right, as someone I know in the ambulance service in France told me today that if anything the number of cases is increasing. COVID ia a very resistant virus; there'll be a lot of local new outbreaks until it's finally finished.

Passer by , Jul 8 2020 20:17 utc | 56
Posted by: Kevin | Jul 8 2020 20:03 utc | 54

>>Why not just give your prediction of the magnitude of the spike and the specific reason for the spike.

I suspect the spike will occur due to not only having more cases, but due to rising US hospitalisations as well.

https://covidtracking.com/data/us-daily

Death rate usually lags hospitalisation by 15-20 days. A rise in US hospitalisations started before 16 days. Therefore my estimate is of average death rate spiking by at least 70 % compared to before 20 days. That higher death rate period will last at least one month. It can continue further, depending on hospitalisations continuing to increase or not.

Copeland , Jul 8 2020 20:28 utc | 57
Dr. Seheult's latest lecture on MedCram has some interesting results concerning herd immunity (or lack thereof).
_K_C_ , Jul 8 2020 20:29 utc | 58
bevin makes very salient and timely observations @46 above.

I am not a very good wordsmith but I would add to his post the following:

1) Eliminating "waste" is not just about "actual demand" but also about maximizing immediate (appearance of) profit for a select few including majority shareholders, upper corporate management and psuedo-banks like Goldman and the like. As long as the few can extract the weekly, monthly, quarterly profits by cutting "waste" (including domestic jobs), they will continue to do so. There is plenty of actual demand for numerous things including ICU beds for example (or any commoditized service/good for which the market will not bear excessive profit to be made) and the owner class, the few, doesn't care. They don't respect the free market because such a thing doesn't exist. They are bailed out every time they screw up while the people/workers are left in the lurch. Hence, screw supply and demand as well as long-term profits/economic health. Only highly profitable goods/services will be produced/provided and the basic necessities are ignored.

2) The sad irony of people/workers propagandized into voting and speaking in a manner that conflicts with their own economic/health interests and favors the few is now more evident than ever; in fact just a look at some of the comments here under COVID-19 related posts is evidence enough. The "working class" has not only been divided along racial and religious lines, but a good portion of them spend a great deal of time preaching on behalf of their masters, often if not always not even realizing they're doing it.

Dedwengles , Jul 8 2020 20:31 utc | 59
such a great blog on so many topics but the covid fear-mongering & shaming of skepticism is deeply disappointing. In my location, OC (SoCal) 369 deaths of which 281 are age 65 & over in a pop. ~3.17 million. I do not think this is sufficient to destroy lives, families, jobs, futures etc & I am certainly not "simply attempting to justify the preservation of neo-liberal capitalism at the expense of human lives"
_K_C_ , Jul 8 2020 20:33 utc | 60
Kevin,

I can only go by what is written, and "absolute number of deaths" means the running total, which again is continuing to rise.

There are many unknowns regarding the death rate and it is way too early to claim victory considering the developing situation and accompanying news. It is simply a fact that numerous hospitals are at full capacity with COVID-19 patients in the USA. What happens if it keeps growing and people are unable to access intensive hospital care? Well, for one thing the death rate will begin to increase again, perhaps dramatically.

_K_C_ , Jul 8 2020 20:39 utc | 61
I should clarify my comment @ 58.

Obviously there is not normally a huge demand for ICU beds. There is, however, the need to maintain capacity of basic needs like that as well as capability and inventory of services and staples (access to clean air, water, food, etc.), which is intentionally left by the wayside to varying degrees in Western late stage capitalist economies/political systems. Waste is continually redefined and we are propagandized constantly that "the markets" constitute the real economy, when in fact we could move on just fine without them, or at least with keeping them and making them play by the same basic rules that the rest of us do.

DontBelieveEitherPr , Jul 8 2020 20:43 utc | 62
PSA: (Sorry for Screaming)

YOU CAN BUY FFP2 MASKS AT ALIEXPRESS FOR 1-1,50€!! TAKES 1-2 WEEKS TO DELIVER TO EUROPE/US!

I have bought them 3 times since the start of Covid for me and my family, no need for improvised or overpriced masks!!

Jackrabbit , Jul 8 2020 20:44 utc | 63
Another category error from b.

=
This did not need to happen.

Someone thought that it did need to happen.

=
Trump's new policy is to ignore the epidemic.

Nonsensical. Ignoring the epidemic is a wilful decision (akin to Obama's "wilful decision" to 'ignore' the growth of ISIS).

We should ask qui bono. Big Pharma, the US government (they pay for the healthcare of many older people), and the Deep State as described by Peter AU1 @Jul8 19:53 #48

Trumps calculation is to separate US from China and take China down. Coronavirus is his ally rather than enemy.

<> <> <> <> <>

Also note: herd immunity among the plebs is ultimately more likely to protect the wealthy in their gated communities more than 'at risk' populations that are susceptible (which include younger people).

Class war? Or just a series of innocent 'mistakes' and unfortunate 'ignoring'? Decide for yourself.

!!

c , Jul 8 2020 20:58 utc | 64
re cleaning masks: What is the matter with putting alcohol in a spray bottle and hitting the mask with that at night?
William Gruff , Jul 8 2020 21:01 utc | 65
We in America are so fukd, and it is raw and unfiltered stupidity that is killing us more than the virus. These people cannot perform simple arithmetic with integers, much less visualize how geometric progressions work. Even worse than that is they do not have the capacity to see beyond the end of their nose where this is going.

The US is going to get quarantined by the international community. A million international students per year will stop coming here. 80 million tourists per year will find less diseased places to visit. America will be the national version of a leper.

What I don't know is how other counties will handle the US military bases on their territories. These bases will be serious vectors for disease for other countries even after the virus has run its course in America and killed a few million there.

Boothroyd , Jul 8 2020 21:05 utc | 66
Why are COVID cases increasing while deaths are decreasing? The answer is simple. It's called Simpson's paradox and it's the result of incorrectly pooling data and arriving at a false conclusion.

Simpson's Paradox(YouTube)
https://youtu.be/ebEkn-BiW5k

Ljag , Jul 8 2020 21:06 utc | 67
N95 masks were designed for max INHALE filtration....zero on EXHALE. See the problem?
Digital Spartacus , Jul 8 2020 21:07 utc | 68
46 bevin,

A well reasoned response. Though I'm sure many here will prefer to pick it apart to suit their own personal narratives.

Jeffrey Kaye , Jul 8 2020 21:11 utc | 69
Michael at #7

If we accept your premise of a .26% infection death rate, and let's say only half the US ever gets infected ultimately, that's "only" about 455,000 deaths. No way of knowing how many will have serious health problems. And this is your own optimistic scenario. When 100,000s of thousands dead are considered minor, then you know the culture is down the sewer. IMO, the callous national non-response to US torture and mass murder abroad has prepared the US population to have exactly this attitude. The war comes home now.

Digital Spartacus , Jul 8 2020 21:20 utc | 70
William @65 and Jeffery @ 69

The desensitisation of the general public will be instrumental in how this will be spun. It is easy to deny any culpability when torture and mass murder take place in some far away country. A far different story when the ravaging is happening at home. It will be interesting to see how much harder they will lean on the "China" blame game and how their exceptionalism will carry them through. I'm sure things will be concocted to deal with the large numbers of international students who won't be showing up in September for colleges and universities in the US. Not to mention the apparent appearance of Covid in Barcelona far earlier than December in Wuhan.

sabre , Jul 8 2020 21:30 utc | 71
Thanks for the post b. I am surprised by the level of hostility in the comments... surely this, of all issues, can be approached rationally? This is MoA after all.

I work in healthcare administration in the US so have some perspective on a couple things. First: the number of "available" ICU beds is not informative. In normal times ICUs are 90-95% occupied, and administrators constantly look for ways to increase occupancy rate (because that's how they make money!). If the ICU is full and a new patient comes in, there are overflow units already set up throughout the hospital to take them in. Doubling or tripling ICU capacity is very doable, especially in the current situation when most non-covid patients are avoiding the hospital. There is a lot of space available in all US hospitals right now because all the "elective" procedures have been cancelled. This is just a fact taken out of context by journalists to sensationalize their headlines.

Second: the pandemic is very real. Those poo-pooing it in the comments are off base. Hospitals are devoting huge amounts of resources to treating patients and you really, really don't want to get infected. I'm with b 100% on that front.

However, this does NOT necessarily mean that lockdowns are the correct approach. That is an extremely complicated question. For example, if all the lockdown does is slow the progress of the disease, but the same number of people get infected in the end, then lockdowns make things worse. The same number of people will die but there will also be major economic losses- a herd immunity strategy would have the deaths happen sooner, but without the economic disruption. But this is ALSO complicated by the fact that even if the government does not declare a lockdown, many people will act "locked down" of their own accord, so there will likely be some amount of economic consequences anyway. How severe, and how does that balance against an extra 1-2 months of life for the fatalities? To make a judgment you would also need a model of how quickly herd immunity kicks in. For example, the most likely people to become infected are those who interact with many others. But if they become immune early on in the pandemic, then a 5% population infection (for example) could lead to 20% herd immunity. How much infection is needed before herd immunity overwhelms and the disease starts to die out? etc. etc.

The certainty being expressed by commenters on the right course of action for the government is out of place. These are extremely challenging calculations and different models will reach different conclusions. I think it is fair to say that Trump will pay a political price because he has not visibly taken strong action. But whether or not he is doing the right thing is far more difficult to determine. I urge everyone to be a little more aware of the complexity of this issue, and a little more conscious that you might not have the full picture.

Passer by , Jul 8 2020 21:31 utc | 72
re cleaning masks: What is the matter with putting alcohol in a spray bottle and hitting the mask with that at night?

Posted by: c | Jul 8 2020 20:58 utc | 64

Do not use alcohol to clean respirator and surgical masks. It destroys the electrostatic charge and the filtration capacity of the mask.

You can use alcohol (between 60 % and 80 % alcohol) for simple cloth masks disinfection though. Best is to use washing machine for at least 30 minutes at 60 C with some commercial disinfectant or 100 ml 30% hydrogen peroxide disinfectant.

If you want to use a spay bottle for the cloth mask put 6 % hydrogen peroxide in the bottle and store that bottle in a dark place.

==================================

Methods to clean respirator masks:

5 hours in container witn hydrogen peroxide vapor (use vaporizer using 6 % liquid hydrogen peroxide) (20 cycles)

30 minutes bath in 6 % liquid hydrogen peroxide (10 cycles)

30 minutes in the oven at 80 C with the mask put in heat resistant plastic container with some wet piece of toilet paper in it to increase humidity within the container (20 - 50 cycles)

2 minutes under microwave generated steam as described in b's article (20 cycles)

Ordinary steam - put above boiling water (5 cycles)


Methods to clean surgical masks:

5 hours in container witn hydrogen peroxide vapor (use vaporizer using 6 % liquid hydrogen peroxide) (20 cycles)

30 minutes in the oven at 80 C with the mask put in heat resistant plastic container with some wet piece of toilet paper in it to increase humidity within the container (20 - 50 cycles)

Ordinary steam - put above boiling water (10 cycles)

Do not wash respirator and surgical masks, do not use dry microwave heat, do not use bleach.

jadan , Jul 8 2020 21:32 utc | 73
bevin@46
Can the states rights blowhards live down their failure to produce local solutions to local problems?
Can capitalism live on after its cannibalistic nature has been fully revealed?

Yes to both queries on condition that the virus "gsin of function" continues to be a lowering of the death numbers. This does not impress the enemies of the New Deal who will still regard the pandemic as "creative destruction" and continue to preach the gospel of lemons into lemonade. Capitalism is sociopathic at its core, but this sociopathy can only persist if the damage isn't too severe, and this pandemic is just not nasty enough to expose it. The story the Idiot in Chief is telling himself and others is that this virus is in process of just disappearing. He got this notion from Sylvia Browne, famous psychic. More people are testing positive, but still there are few people who personally know some one dead from covid19. So we can live with it, like humanity has lived with pandemics throughout history, and the fundamental sociopathy of capitalism will persist unless..... the virus turns nastier. It is my belief that this is a bioweapon, perhaps the first humankind has experienced. It does not behave like viruses familiar to scientists. Many of those who recover never truly recover to their former levels. Those societies that currently boast of a victory over covid do not realize they are engaged in a game of whack-a-mole. Things have to get worse before the capitalist pigs will finally concede their system just doesn't work. They may never make that concession speech. Yes, I pray that Trump & Bolsonaro get really sick and that the creative destruction of this pandemic will be the elimination of these types of sociopathic individuals from positions of power & influence.

Passer by , Jul 8 2020 21:34 utc | 74
Posted by: Passer by | Jul 8 2020 21:31 utc | 72

Edit

Ordinary steam - put above boiling water for 5 minutes → Text (10 cycles)

Copeland , Jul 8 2020 21:34 utc | 75
From MedCram:
In conclusion, our study provides nationwide and regional estimates of SARS-Cov-2 dissemination in Spain, showing remarkable differences between higher and lower prevalence areas. One in three infections seems to be asymptomatic, while a substantial number of symptomatic cases remained untested. Despite the high impact of Covid-19 in Spain, prevalence estimates remain low and are clearly insufficient to provide herd immunity.

This cannot be achieved without accepting the collateral damage of many deaths in the susceptible population, and overburdening of health systems. In this situation, social distance measures and efforts to identify and isolate new cases and their contacts are imperative for future epidemic control.

Digital Spartacus , Jul 8 2020 21:35 utc | 76
Sabre @ 71

A timely post as it seems a lot of the venom displayed here is from any number of posters who don't have the same vantage point you have.

Roberto , Jul 8 2020 21:37 utc | 77
Posted by: Passer by | Jul 8 2020 19:11 utc | 29

Dear Passer by, from https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS/USA-TRENDS/dgkvlgkrkpb/index.html

"Deaths, which health experts say are a lagging indicator, continued to fall nationally to 3,447 people in the week ended July 5. A handful of states, however, have reported increases in deaths for at least two straight weeks including Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Texas and Tennessee."

hopehely , Jul 8 2020 21:38 utc | 78
Posted by: Digital Spartacus | Jul 8 2020 21:07 utc | 68
A well reasoned response. Though I'm sure many here will prefer to pick it apart to suit their own personal narratives.

You made me read bevin's post.
I am not convinced. USA is not the only place that adopted JIT/Kanban workflows and practices. They are adopted and practiced everywhere including here in Canada, in Germany and of course in Japan who invented them. Yet Canada, Germany and Japan did way better than the US and Brazil dealing with the epidemic.
So blaming capitalism and corporate cost management does not cut it - there is something else about USA and Brazil that made them such a disaster. I think it is incompetent political leadership. Both Trump and Bolsanero are idiots and incompetent clowns and they formed their administration accordingly.
Steve Naidamast , Jul 8 2020 21:39 utc | 79
This is the very type of catalyst that could begin the breakup of the United States. I believe the northeastern states already have this trend in the back of their minds...
Clueless Joe , Jul 8 2020 21:42 utc | 80
"More and more people will know someone who died of Covid-19. The economy will continue to only limp along as long as people fear to get infected."
This is why Trump's policy, and herd immunity strategy "to save the economy" are complete lunacies. The economy will tank, because a lot of people will get infected, will know people who suffered tremendously or died, and will freak out.

And the "Let's decouple US from China" strategy is just as insane. Most of the world, most other Western countries to begin with, will have far less covid cases and won't want to risk more exposure from risky countries. US people basically will be stuck in the good old USA for the next year and won't be allowed to travel abroad, while the rest of the world tries to organize between countries that managed to avoid a complete coronavirus catastrophe, which isn't exactly how you help your own economy to survive.

Heck, I tend to really dislike the USA and I still despair and lament such a stupid and unnecessary bloodbath.

Digital Spartacus , Jul 8 2020 21:45 utc | 81
hopehely @ 78

At least it made you go back and read his post. I feel you could also find many detractors to the Canadian and German responses as well. But it seems you have found something in the post to serve your own narrative. I'm not suggesting that there is something inherent in the approach of both Brazil and the US that makes them the outliers in that group of countries. It seems you're angry of having to go back and read another posters opinion though.

Kevin , Jul 8 2020 21:47 utc | 82
@_K_C - " I can only go by what is written, and "absolute number of deaths" means the running total, which again is continuing to rise."

Why wouldn't the running total of deaths continue to increase? Can someone who has died come back to life?

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!

Michael Droy , Jul 8 2020 21:52 utc | 83
Michael at #7

If we accept your premise of a .26% infection death rate, and let's say only half the US ever gets infected ultimately, that's "only" about 455,000 deaths. No way of knowing how many will have serious health problems. And this is your own optimistic scenario. When 100,000s of thousands dead are considered minor, then you know the culture is down the sewer. IMO, the callous national non-response to US torture and mass murder abroad has prepared the US population to have exactly this attitude. The war comes home now.

Posted by: Jeffrey Kaye | Jul 8 2020 21:11 utc | 69

1. Not my rate, the CDC's rate as implied by its advice to the health organisations.
2. I reckon lower and I reckon there is an immune section of the community (as shown by children who typically catch respiratory diseases very easily and spread amongst themselves in schools).
3. And I reckon we are in many places already at 20% infections rates so we are nearly halfway there.

But I am happy to argue the details with anyone willing to put up their own estimates (I recommend the effort - it can be quite cathartic).

Anyway either my guess of <250k or your number of 455k.
2.8m Americans died in 2017 So we are talking 5-16% extra deaths for one year total (but lower deaths in 2021).
Half of the deaths so far have been in nursing homes and I would expect half of the remainder to be the same. Add in the many with co-morbidities and over half of the deaths are of people who have <2 years life expectancy without covid.

Compare gun deaths in a decade - 360k many of which are of healthy young people.
Very similar numbers of traffic deaths per year.
600k cancer deaths every year (many more next year after the near closure of treatment centres this year)
2 million in prison each and every year with I'd guess half there only because crack is punishable 18X as long as cocaine.

This is a one off event - and half over already. Forget the masks and concern yourself about the next pandemic - or better still about Iran, Venezuela and Yemen.


ted01 , Jul 8 2020 21:54 utc | 84
Australia - lauded as a success story in containing Covid 19 - No masks.
New Zealand - lauded as a success story in containing Covid 19 - No masks.

Australian Federal Government -
Use of masks by the public in the community

Totally contradicts B & others.

One use masks are one use - gross stupidity to think that you can 'sterilize' a 'one use mask' multiple times & it will still maintain it's integrity.

Home made masks - as touted here previously - a fashion statement at best.


Hoarsewhisperer | Jul 8 2020 19:47 utc | 45

Gross incompetence - the 'Judicial Inquiry Into Hotel Quarantine Program' allows all the responsible parties to duck for cover. By the time any findings are made public the relevant clowns will be long gone with their massive tax payer funded payouts.

james , Jul 8 2020 22:05 utc | 85
82 posts later, lol... thanks b... you are wrong to say germany is doing 1 million tests a day.. they have only tested a little less then 6 million since they started testing, so either you worded it wrong, or you are just wrong on that...

i agree with @ 71 sabre.. i don't understand why people can't just talk this out without all the hostility... read @sabre last few sentences to get the gist of it..

@ 46 bevin.. i like your posts, but you do use the same rant on neo-liberalism as the problem here.. i am not saying neo-liberalism is a good thing, but it does diminish your position when you always use this as the backstop to why the usa or brazil has this problem with the pandemic.. might it also be that they have a couple of leaders that really downplayed the seriousness of this too? i think so... i would lay the numbers on their leadership style more then anything... as @78 hophely - some other neo-liberal countries are doing better, so clearly neo-liberalism isn't the main problem here...

@ kevin... you've made 11 or 12 posts in this thread... that is over 1/10th the posts of the thread! it is true the death rate in the usa is going down, but i would be cautious of just using this barometer in the present to make any wider prognosis on where we are headed going into the fall here... watch @ 66's Boothroyd's youtube link on just how difficult it is when using stats to come to any conclusion... and, i think it is really premature to come to many conclusions here, other then that the number of cases is definitely increasing in the usa... some of that is probably due greater testing and some is probably due that many more are infected, but unaware of it... going for herd immunity is a nice theory, but i don't know if it is going to work out the way those hoping for herd immunity wish... we'll see...

some of my own thoughts - well i agree with passer by in general and @65 william gruff in particular... i think the usa is doing itself no favours here on the international stage.... but maybe this is just how it has to unfold moving forward... it seems to me if it was a war on communism, terrorism or drugs - the usa would be down with it in a heart beat, but a war on covid - clearly it is considered irrelevant... surely the pharm industry can figure out a way to make a ton of loot off it? i heard usa gov't gave a lot of money to the top tier as a consequence of covid, so maybe it is serving a purpose after all... then there is the issue of how this pandemic disproportionately is a much bigger problem for black and hispanic people then for white people.... i wonder how that gets processed in it all? i agree with bevin - thinking this is about saving 2 months of everyone's life is a really rotten way to trivialize all the old and not so old people who have died from this because more measures weren't taken...

and about the n95 masks - @ 67 Ljag is correct.... they don't work in this situation when someone is asymptomatic...

alaff , Jul 8 2020 22:07 utc | 86
Meanwhile, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation S. Lavrov at the last meeting with the Chairman of the Chamber of Deputies of Libya A. Salekh officially announced that the activities of the Russian Embassy in Libya would resume. At the moment, the functions of ambassador will be performed by an interim attorney. Geographically, he will be located in Tunisia. It is stated that the function of the ambassador will include the representative of the Russian Federation throughout Libya.
Digital Spartacus , Jul 8 2020 22:13 utc | 87
Posted without comment,

here

uncle tungsten , Jul 8 2020 22:14 utc | 88
The USA is in a pre-revolutionary condition.
Expect to see alternative media on USA platforms closed down.
As we can see here at MoA there will be an avalanche of trolls.
The potential for a Presidential campaign via open access media will be terminated.
No third party candidates will get MSM airtime (as usual).
The economy will tank and statistics manufacturers will rise.
Mercer Media and Statistics will become the standard 'reliable' source.

The evil will continue to pollute the planet like runoff from a copper mine.

frankie p , Jul 8 2020 22:18 utc | 89
Crunch the numbers, all the numbers. The virus is doing what viruses do; it's spreading, and as it does so, it weakens. The virus has already picked all the low-hanging fruit, killing a large number of extremely old, unhealthy people who would have died in 2020 anyway. My uncle passed, and he was 86 years old, had advanced Alzheimer's disease, and was in hospice (palliative care). B's analytical competence, formidable in many areas, has completely disappeared with this issue.

US Coronavirus Cases: just over 3 million
US Coronavirus Deaths: just under 135,000
US Coronavirus Recovered: just under 1.4 million
US Coronavirus Active Cases: just over 1.6 million
*******US Coronavirus Serious/Critical Cases: 15,392 (That's less than 1%, folks!)************

US Daily New Deaths (3-day moving average):
April 17: 2,513
July 6: 302

World Deaths: 550,000
World Deaths (2017 flu season): 600,000

US CDC: "According to new estimates published today, between 291,000 and 646,000 people worldwide die from seasonal influenza-related respiratory illnesses each year"


Digital Spartacus , Jul 8 2020 22:21 utc | 90
and here
vk , Jul 8 2020 22:31 utc | 91
I don't think many people here are getting the problem, which is that a random person won't incur to itself an extra risk of dying over something it doesn't need (superfluous goods/services).

I'm not going to risk my life to go to a restaurant. I doesn't matter if that risk is an extra 10% or an extra 0.26% - it is an extra risk I don't need to take, for the simple fact going to the restaurant is a superfluous commodity. This is simple game theory, has nothing to do with ideology.

It's different when the risk is necessary and calculated: I need to drive to work, I need to cross the street to work, I need to go to the pharmacy at night in a dangerous neighborhood because my grandma needs the medicine. It's a completely different scenario when the goal is a superfluous one.

The fact is that the USA's economy is simply too highly leveraged on hyper-consumerism, i.e. over too much superfluous commodities (goods + services). Economies that are more dependent on superfluous junk are suffering more with the pandemic, for the simple fact most of them didn't need to work or consume in the first place: they are not essential, not needed. They are disposable. Western Europe is observing the same phenomenon: even countries that adopted a more laissez-faire policy over the lockdown are suffering -10% GDP falls. The EU will suffer a -8.2% fall in its GDP this year - those are projections for now, and I still think they are still optimistic.

Countries with more solid economies, more industrialized, less consumer-dependent, with more solid bases, with a people with a sense of community and purpose, are recovering faster and will see a V-shaped recovery. They suffered initially only because the rest of the world suddenly stopped importing their products - but once they begin to consume more domestically, this will be quickly mitigated, i.e. probably in just one generation's time. Those countries are: China and Vietnam (I don't have Cuba's data right now, so I won't make my judgement here).

Countries like Brazil, Turkey, Mexico et al are mere warehouses/annexes of the Western First World nations and will suffer the most. They sold their souls to the Western powers, and will pay the price accordingly. Brazil is expected to fall -10% this year (too optimistic in my opinion). Speaking about those countries is a complete waste of time; they are completely artificial nations, that shouldn't even exist.

The disaster for the Western nations is only not greater because many of those superfluous services can be delivered through the internet. If it wasn't for the technical reserve they had (still good infrastructure of internet, electricity, water, sewer, completely automated financial system, delivery system know-how from decades of experience, etc. etc.), the catastrophe would be complete.

uncle tungsten , Jul 8 2020 22:35 utc | 92
Peter AU1 #48


Trumps calculation is to separate US from China and take China down. Coronavirus is his ally rather than enemy.

Spot on, thank you. And he has no concern that the USA citizenry (NOT soldiers) are collateral damage.

But he is making serious enemies as soldiers are relatives of the needless infections and needless deaths.
That is a high risk stake.

Rob , Jul 8 2020 22:36 utc | 93
I have come to the conclusion that Trump is now actively homicidal. Everything he says or does seems designed to accelerate the spread of the virus and cause more deaths. It should go without saying that a homicidal maniac is unfit to serve as President, and he should be removed from office under the provisions of the 25th amendment to the Constitution. Of course doing so would create a massive firestorm amongst the Trump cultists, but I say "fuck them all."
juliania , Jul 8 2020 22:38 utc | 94
This might be of interest to some of the non protectors with arguments about other places or whatever: I live betwixt and between four native communities and just went to shop for groceries here in Northern New Mexico passing two of these. There are tents set up with masked officials at each entry point to the two pueblos monitoring that only the residents of each are permitted into the village. They are checking everyone. The larger community in which I reside has signs at all entry points for 'local traffic only,' but no monitoring. I also noticed for the first time a large sign on a major highway that said 'visitors must selfquarantine for x number of days' (I forget how many.)

Okay, nay sayers, why bother? And I will post Sabre's statement @ 71 first, then give my own thoughts.

"...if all the lockdown does is slow the progress of the disease, but the same number of people get infected in the end, then lockdowns make things worse. The same number of people will die but there will also be major economic losses- a herd immunity strategy would have the deaths happen sooner, but without the economic disruption..."

me:

1. It is by no means clear that 'herd immunity' is a verifiable. Were it so, I might agree.

2. However, one of the reasons for the death count diminishing could be that better treatments have become accepted and more readily available. In that case, any prolongation of time before you or I encounter the virus will be to our advantage. Already ICU protocols have changed for the better.

3. The virus itself has shown remarkable adaptation, but if we limit its ability to spread, and masks among all the other precautions do that, the strong possibility will be that we starve the beast.

4. What the pueblos are doing is to contain populations in small communities which can be closely observed. That seems the ideal relationship to have to this nasty and extremely communicable threat. If I remember correctly it was also a strategy used when ebola was raging in Africa. New Zealand, being an island country, is monitoring its borders in the same way.

Hooey on your 'economic disruption' Saber. People's lives are at stake. And what b says above is paramount -- "Protect yourself!" Because sometimes governments, for whatever reason, have lost the capacity to do that.

A reckoning will come. Meanwhile, stay safe!

uncle tungsten , Jul 8 2020 22:45 utc | 95
Digital Spartacus # 90 etc

Thank you, a good source.

Kay Fabe , Jul 8 2020 22:47 utc | 96
Yeah, they are doing more testing, and yeah, the percent of positive tests are increasing, so they say

The problem is they dont report positivity by test. At the end of May it was disclosed by CDC that they were combining antibody tests with PCR tests. This counted past and current infections together, thereby inflating cases while lowering positive percentage. Even PCR tests dont indicate a current infection as its not differentiating between live infectious particle and long dead non-infectious particles

What they are doing now I dont know. If they are still combining antibody tests, well of course, the number of those who have antibodies will increase and so will positive percentage. This is a good thing. Closer to herd immunity

They are testing many people who are healthy and young. They dont get very sick. Its just a cold to them. They dont spread it without symptoms, WHO says asymtomatic spread is rare.

Everone who gets admitted to hospital or ICU gets tested, even if they are having knee surgery or had a heart attack . If you test positive you get listed as a COVID hospitization or ICU case, even if you are not sick from COVID.

As for masks, according to this immunologist

"Those young and healthy people who currently walk around with a mask on their faces would be better off wearing a helmet instead, because the risk of something falling on their head is greater than that of getting a serious case of Covid-19."


https://medium.com/@vernunftundrichtigkeit/coronavirus-why-everyone-was-wrong-fce6db5ba809

Anyways, deaths are trending lower, getting to pre-epidemic/lockdown status. Its ovah for corona. May she rest in peace although she has made a lot of billionares richer so she will no doubt be replaced. They got a good thing going, not stopping here.

Digital Spartacus , Jul 8 2020 22:48 utc | 97
You're welcome uncle, his blog is always a must read for me.
R.A. , Jul 8 2020 22:53 utc | 98
We badly need advice about the pandemic from an expert who is in a position to speak out. One such is Dr. Sukharit Bhakdi, a retired professor of microbiology at the University of Mainz. He was interviewed by Austrian TV not long ago. I suggest all here take a look at what he had to say:

https://www.servustv.com/videos/aa-23zjmvcz51w12/

Kay Fabr , Jul 8 2020 23:00 utc | 99
On June 10 Germany was doing 425,000 tests per week with plans to double that, so they may be doing 850K per week if they have doubled it, but this sounds like a new thing and their success has nothing to do with testing (US is and had been doing more), and increased testing in healthy people leads to false positives and unintended consequences


Kevin , Jul 8 2020 23:26 utc | 100
"... i would be cautious of just using this barometer in the present to make any wider prognosis on where we are headed going into the fall here..."

But the statistics CAN be used to support fear porn?

Isn't the ultimate goal to see deaths minimized?

[Jul 06, 2020] People who don't wear masks in public close spaces are assholes and deserve everything they get

Jul 06, 2020 | www.unz.com

obwandiyag , says: June 29, 2020 at 5:06 pm GMT

People who don't wear masks are assholes and deserve everything they get.

Ask Talib about masks. He is smarter than either you or this guy.

https://medium.com/incerto/the-masks-masquerade-7de897b517b7

[Jul 06, 2020] I find it a very cruel irony that Fauci of all people is in charge of the virus non-response. Long term consequnces for people with virus pneumonia are often devastating

Jul 06, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Trailer Trash , Jul 5 2020 18:03 utc | 24

>But media - and USA health officials - have been silent about long-term effects of SARS-COV-2

I find it a very cruel irony that Fauci of all people is in charge of the virus non-response. He was a boat-anchor at NIH during the initial response to the AIDS crisis. He has been instrumental in wrecking the NIH research program for ME. For example, he kicked the ME research program out of his institute in Oct 1999:

"Dr. Anthony Fauci, NIAID Director, met with the Dr. Harold Varmus, Director of NIH, and concluded that CFS was more complex and activities should be relocated from a single NIH institute." (CFSAC minutes Sept 2003)

The NIH research program has been in limbo ever since, subject to an unworkable multi-institute something-or-other designed to make sure no one has authority or responsibility to actually do something.

Fauci will soon be working overtime together with the UK psychobabblers to discredit the personal reports of the COVID Longhaulers. They will be diagnosed with "stress" and given a course of "computerized" CBT, which will tell them to ignore symptoms and carry on, until they collapse.

When patients don't come back, doctors always assume they got better. Honest to god, doctors have said that to me. It does not occur to them that patients get too sick to go to the clinic, or they got tired of being fobbed off.

[Jul 03, 2020] Hydroxychloroquine lowers COVID-19 death rate, Henry Ford Health study finds - Detroit News

Notable quotes:
"... The study analyzed 2,541 patients hospitalized among the system's six hospitals between March 10 and May 2 and found 13% of those treated with hydroxychloroquine died while 26% of those who did not receive the drug died. ..."
"... Among all patients in the study, there was an overall in-hospital mortality rate of 18%, and many who died had underlying conditions that put them at greater risk, according to Henry Ford Health System. Globally, the mortality rate for hospitalized patients is between 10% and 30%, and it's 58% among those in the intensive care unit or on a ventilator." Detroit News ..."
"... A long "take down" of Fauci: https://www.unz.com/audio/kbarrett_ken-mccarthy-tony-fauci-is-corrupt-to-the-core/ ..."
"... This is not Fauci's first rodeo. He's been pumping hysteria for 36 years. He always gets it wrong. He was wrong about swine flu. He was wrong about bird flu. He was wrong about Zika. He was wrong about Ebola. He wildly exaggerated AIDS. And he always is wrong in the favor of pharmaceutical companies. And he's always wrong in favor of 'we've got to develop a vaccine now. We have to throw out all the rules. ..."
"... Observational studies are never the equivalent of double-blind randomized studies; but there can still provide important and fare more readily obtained early information about these connections and conditions. ..."
"... This stuff is hard. There are lots of variations in patient populations and treatment protocols. We have to consider doses, concomitant meds (such as azithromycin), patient status at time of treatment, age, and, comorbidities. ..."
"... the recently halted NIH trial was randomized, double-blinded; this was in a hospital setting. The prophylactic trial reported at the beginning of June in NEJM (author Boulware) was also randomized, double-blinded; this was in a prophylactic setting. ..."
Jul 03, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"A Henry Ford Health System study shows the controversial anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine helps lower the death rate of COVID-19 patients, the Detroit-based health system said Thursday.

Officials with the Michigan health system said the study found the drug "significantly" decreased the death rate of patients involved in the analysis.

The study analyzed 2,541 patients hospitalized among the system's six hospitals between March 10 and May 2 and found 13% of those treated with hydroxychloroquine died while 26% of those who did not receive the drug died.

Among all patients in the study, there was an overall in-hospital mortality rate of 18%, and many who died had underlying conditions that put them at greater risk, according to Henry Ford Health System. Globally, the mortality rate for hospitalized patients is between 10% and 30%, and it's 58% among those in the intensive care unit or on a ventilator." Detroit News

-----------------

No comment needed. pl

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/07/02/michigan-henry-ford-health-study-finds-hydroxychloroquine-lowers-covid-19-death-rate/5365090002/


Fred , 03 July 2020 at 11:38 AM

I agree, no comment is needed. Some charges for medical malpractice and malfeasance certainly are.

John Credulous , 03 July 2020 at 01:06 PM

Fred,

There will be no accountability: The b-stards have set the standards.

A long "take down" of Fauci: https://www.unz.com/audio/kbarrett_ken-mccarthy-tony-fauci-is-corrupt-to-the-core/

BillWade` , 03 July 2020 at 01:09 PM

Damn it, it's too cheap!

Deap , 03 July 2020 at 01:54 PM

Uncharted research: areas where anti-malarial drugs are sold widely over the counter - in malaria prone parts of the world - eg: Central America, SEA and Pacific Islands. How do their covid rates relate to these specific localities (not just generalized country numbers), where ongoing prophylactic sales of OTC anti-malaria drugs are most prevalent?

Why does the CDC travel and tourism website info still recommend taking anti-malarial drugs, when the other hand of our deep state bureaucrats are screaming these drugs will kill you?

Observational studies are never the equivalent of double-blind randomized studies; but there can still provide important and fare more readily obtained early information about these connections and conditions.

jonst , 03 July 2020 at 01:56 PM

No comment/s needed perhaps. But deliciously anticipated. Here, from the Committee, and especially from the MSM. Even if only silence. Because "silence is really violence" in this case.

John Credulous , 03 July 2020 at 02:17 PM

FWIW, Jimmie Moglia's erudition is formidable, and as a stylist, not too distracting:

https://www.yourdailyshakespeare.com/2020/04/11/the-coronavirus-and-galileo/
As for me I am reminded of the advice that Timon of Athens gave to two robbers who came to see him, "Trust not the physician, for his antidotes are poison, and he slays more than you rob."

https://www.yourdailyshakespeare.com/2020/06/08/the-world-upside-down/
And here is an example, a reported 'case-study'. A prince of Persia had melancholia and suffered from the delusion of being a cow. He would moo like a cow, crying "Kill me so that a good stew may be made of my flesh," and would never eat anything. Avicenna was persuaded to treat the case and sent a message to the patient, asking him to be happy as the butcher was coming to slaughter him. The sick man rejoiced. When Avicenna approached the prince with a knife in his hand, he asked, "Where is the cow so I may kill it."

The patient then mooed like a cow to indicate where he was. He was then laid on the ground for slaughter. When Avicenna approached the patient pretending to slaughter him, he said, "The cow is too lean and not ready to be killed. He must be fed properly and I will kill it when it becomes healthy and fat. The patient was then offered food, which he ate eagerly and gradually gained strength, got rid of his delusion, and was completely cured.

How relevant may be the Avicennian case study to the current dynamics of the pandemic I will leave it to my possible and patient readers to decide.

Ulenspiegel , 03 July 2020 at 02:20 PM

"No comment needed."


What was the difference between the Michigan study and the others, which found no positive ecffect?

How do you explain the low mortality of the control group in the Michigan study?

egl , 03 July 2020 at 02:31 PM

"Limitations to our analysis include the retrospective, non-randomized, non-blinded study design."

turcopolier , 03 July 2020 at 02:51 PM

ulenspiegel

Dr. Marc Siegel a medical correspondent for Foxnews told T. Carlson weeks ago that an emergency treatment of this drug saved the life of his 96 year old father who was at the point of death, cured him overnight in fact.

Babak makkinejad , 03 July 2020 at 03:27 PM

Utenspiegel

It is a fact that cancer drugs are not uniformly effective in all patients.

The causes must be sought in the genotypes of the patients.

The differential response as well as effectiveness are not reasons to discard a therapy.

In further news on COVID-19 Treatments I have 2 items to report:

First one:

The 3-drug mixture of Azittomycin, Naproxen, and prednisolone (oral or injectable) have been used successfully for reduction of the inflammation of respiratory system.

3 systematic trials have been undertaken and results were conclusive in expediting faster recovery.

Second one:

Clinical trials in Iran (in Masih Daneshvari hospital) – indicated 100% cure of COVID-19 in 20 patients using a combination of ReciGen and Cultera (sic?) which is an AIDS drug.

A second group of patients – 152 – had a reduction in mortality of 20% as compared to those who were only receiving Cultera (sic.?)


https://www.cinnagen.com/Product.aspx?t=2&l=1&Id=66&f=3

The results are supposed to be published in the Journal of Immunopharmacotherapy.

The dosage was: 5 times day, 12 million units.

No side effects were reported.

egl , 03 July 2020 at 03:57 PM

ulenspiegel:

This stuff is hard. There are lots of variations in patient populations and treatment protocols. We have to consider doses, concomitant meds (such as azithromycin), patient status at time of treatment, age, and, comorbidities.

A big difference: the Ford study was not randomized, not double-blinded. They used a statistical technique to try to make the groups comparable on factors believed to be relevant, but this is after fact. (It's a nice technique, I've used it myself, but it doesn't magically solve all of the difficulties of retrospective analysis.)

In contrast, the recently halted NIH trial was randomized, double-blinded; this was in a hospital setting. The prophylactic trial reported at the beginning of June in NEJM (author Boulware) was also randomized, double-blinded; this was in a prophylactic setting.

Seward , 03 July 2020 at 06:00 PM

Hydroxychloroquine is the active ingredient in the tonic portion of gin and tonics, which I've been drinking for prophylactic purposes since the pandemic began.

[Jul 02, 2020] Public Outcry Follows Gilead Decision to Charge $3000 for COVID Drug that Costs Pennies to Produce

Notable quotes:
"... Journal of Virus Eradication ..."
"... Alan MacLeod is a Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent . He has also contributed to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting , The Guardian , Salon , The Grayzone , Jacobin Magazine , Common Dreams the American Herald Tribune and The Canary . ..."
Jul 02, 2020 | www.mintpressnews.com

alifornia-based pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences has announced that a five-day course of its antiviral drug Remdesivir -- shown in tests to effectively fight COVID-19 -- will cost $3,120 to Americans with health insurance and $2,340 to those on Medicaid. Yet research published in April calculated that the drug could be produced at a profit for as little as $0.93 per day.

The study, led by Dr. Andrew Hill from the Department of Translational Medicine, University of Liverpool, U.K., and published in the Journal of Virus Eradication , found that a five-day course of lifesaving Remdesivir could be mass-produced for less than the cost of a Subway sandwich. So cheap is the drug that the saline solution and the syringe needed to administer it would be more costly. MintPress spoke with Dr. Hill, who was dismayed by the company's announcement.

We are in a health emergency. We can't have a situation right now where people are unable to access medicine because the prices are too high. Remdesivir is a drug that has had its development costs paid for, in large part, by independent donors like governments and ministries of health in China, the WHO, and the U.S. government. So why should a company be making money in the middle of a pandemic by selling a drug which has largely been developed independently of them?" he said.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=AlanRMacLeod&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1278229120711716865&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mintpressnews.com%2Fpublic-outcry-gilead-charges-3000-covid-19-drug-cost-pennies%2F269110%2F&siteScreenName=MintPressNews&theme=light&widgetsVersion=9066bb2%3A1593540614199&width=500px

News of the decision led to an explosion of public anger. "As Gilead charges $3,120 for its COVID drug, Remdesivir, remember that the drug was developed with a $70,000,000 grant from the federal government paid for by American taxpayers. Once again, Big Pharma is set to profit on the people's dime," wrote former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. "This isn't healthcare. It's extortion," appeared to be the overwhelming sentiment on social media.

Gilead itself, however, seemed not to share this sentiment. Indeed, its press release on the subject positioned its decision as a selfless and magnanimous gesture of corporate philanthropy. "We approached this with the aim of helping as many patients as possible, as quickly as possible and in the most responsible way," said its CEO, Daniel O'Day, adding that, "under normal circumstances" the company would have charged the public $12,000 per patient.

"A new low"

Remdesivir is an intravenous antiviral drug that has been used to fight other coronaviruses like SARS and MERS and has shown some effectiveness against Ebola. Although far from a miracle treatment, studies have concluded that it aids recovery, reducing the average hospital visit for COVID-19 patients from 15 days to 11 days when compared to a placebo. Like with everything coronavirus-related, there is no absolute scientific consensus. In late April, the WHO accidentally leaked a Chinese study that suggested Remdesivir may not be as effective as Gilead claims it to be. Nevertheless, the Trump administration has now bought up the entire world's stock of the drug, effectively confiscating it and shutting out every other country from the medicine.

"I've been working in medicine for 32 years and I have never seen anything like it. I've never seen a country be that brazen. We have to work together. This could be a taste of the future. They've tried to also do this with advanced orders of vaccines. Imagine if we had a 100 percent effective vaccine and it only went to Americans," Dr. Hill told MintPress .

At the moment people don't quite understand the gravity of the decision that the American government has made. This is a worldwide epidemic and we have got to remember that the clinical trials of Remdesivir were not just conducted in the United States; they were conducted around European and Chinese centers. Patients put themselves at risk to take part in an experimental drug trial, and the gratitude we get as other countries after our people were involved in these studies is to be shut out of the future supply of the drug?! It is simply ethically unacceptable. I think there are serious questions to be answered. This is a new low ground, unfortunately," he added.

https://twitter.com/leahmcelrath/status/1277821241496408071

Gilead has been under considerable public scrutiny of late. The company, which announced profits of $5.4 billion last year, has increased its value by $15 billion since the pandemic began. In December, MintPress reported that it was being sued, accused of deliberately holding back a lifesaving HIV drug to extend the profitability of their previous, inferior one. With shades of the Remdesivir announcement, the drug is sold in Australia for $8 per month, but the company charges Americans around $2,000 for the same dosage. "Gilead has a long history of profiteering," said Dr. Hill. "Its CEO is a billionaire and has been accused of tax avoidance; by keeping their intellectual property in Ireland they avoided $10 billion in taxes in 2016 and they sell drugs for between 100 and 1,000 times the cost of production. And nobody is stopping them. I think this is a taste of things to come if we don't have better controls on the pharmaceutical industry's excesses."

As of Wednesday morning, there have been 2.73 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States, the six worst days for the virus in terms of infections all occurring in the previous week.

Feature photo | A lab tech displays a package of the Remdesivir at the Eva Pharma Facility in Cairo, Egypt June 29, 2020. Amr Abdallah | Reuters

Alan MacLeod is a Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent . He has also contributed to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting , The Guardian , Salon , The Grayzone , Jacobin Magazine , Common Dreams the American Herald Tribune and The Canary .

[Jul 01, 2020] Watch Live- Dr. Fauci Testifies About US COVID-19 Response During Senate Hearing

Jul 01, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

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Fred box , 40 minutes ago

Deaths from just *Pneumonia* from Feb1st to June20/20 =*119,174* Deaths from just Covid by its self for same time period = 109,188 And for this time period 1,232,269 Deaths from all causes. The numbers Fear game,obviously is being played up large by the DemoTards and we know why! Funny how the Fake News,never speaks of this. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1113051/number-reported-deaths-from-covid-pneumonia-and-flu-us/

Arch_Stanton , 47 minutes ago

Fauci should have had his microphone taken away months ago. A testament to the power of big pharma.

razorthin , 59 minutes ago

Little Fascist Koxucker.

"Please understand the people who have built this international order reject natural law, so they do not like sovereign citizens. They do not believe people have inherent rights or sacred liberties. Most frankly find God anathema and believe in no higher authority than themselves and the heartless arithmetic they serve. So, while they have happily plundered America of blood and treasure which we were foolish enough to provide in copious quantities, they have no love or need of our nation or antiquated concepts such as those enshrined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. In their calculation, America needed to be taken down in order to realize the global project, and as you see the first glimmers of a national effort in opposition to that, a positive limited effort struggling to overcome the bureaucrats who betray us all at every opportunity, it becomes clear the Left would rather collapse America than see us oppose the new world without borders where everyone intermingles under a controlling network of agencies. No guns, no resistance, no free speech, and no problems is what they want. Only we stand in the way of the fulfillment of this Orwellian vision, and as each day's hysteria on the news reveals, the powers that be are working overtime to push the Left into revolt to topple America into a conflict that will remove us from prominence on the world scene. Should they win, our rights are gone. Should they fail, the rest of the world will have consolidated against us, save those few brave nations trying to fight themselves free of the same entanglements that brought us low. This is where we are today, and it is one hell of a dilemma for a person who cares about this country and our historic values. No matter what we choose, any path but submission and surrender only leads to greater conflict, so this makes us consider the first important question: What are we willing to fight to preserve? Individuals and families will have to answer this question in the coming months and years in a much more meaningful way than has been required in generations. The easy days are coming to an end, and while the economy is booming and we're enjoying an Indian Summer for our embattled nation, these questions will only become more pressing in the days ahead."

-- The Coming Civil War by Tom Kawczynski

nsurf9 , 1 hour ago

The nasolacrimal duct (also called the tear duct) carries tears from the lacrimal sac of the eye into the nasal cavity. This virus seems to be able aerosol its particles more readily than other viruses so as to spread its RNA/DNA in the air - as well as being normally contracted through fluid droplets.

The eyes are large wet areas, perfect for collecting dust and viruses. If you're a part of an at-risk demographic or just worried, make sure you cover you eyes. And, upon returning home, I rinse the eyes out with water along with washing my hands.

Right now, I'm using some tight-fitting fishing glasses with my n99 mask, when I go into stores or hi-density areas - but, looking for something better.

IvannaHumpalot , 1 hour ago

Rinsing your eyes wont help

yes you can get it through your eyes but that is very difficult via aerosol and unlikely

far more likely is you touch a contaminated surface after some dirty person without a facemask has been talking and breathing out their infected droplets earlier

those droplets fall to the surface and you touch it then touch your eyes, nose or mouth

or you breathe in an infective dose by not wearing a mask to reduce viral load exposure

or you walk it home on your shoes

IvannaHumpalot , 1 hour ago

Herd immunity at 80%

america has 328 million

That means 262 million must get infected for fantasy herd immunity

US infected is now at 2.7 million infected

let us be generous and say 10x havent been diagnosed but have it

so the US is at 27 million infected

27 out of 262 million

there goes the stupid herd immunity sham

Wear a facemask, avoid catching or spreading it

tranium , 1 hour ago

Dr. HOAX is spreading plandemic.

ZKnight , 1 hour ago

Does anyone even believe this sleazy little man who's corona predictions were 20x off?

He single handedly destroyed the economy and people's jobs over a false alarm all to try and get his vaccine's in.

WhiteHose , 1 hour ago

Hes been wrong on everything since Jan!

hugin-o-munin , 1 hour ago

We applaud the approval of chemical sweeteners, fluoride, GMOs, antibiotic saturated meat products and poultry, not to mention the continued use of Glyphosate on just about all food products. Eat and drink your industrial sugar and chemicals. Now we need a global vaccine schedule and license linked to passports to make sure everyone on the planet is inoculated all the time before we can allow them to buy and sell. This is all done out of pure love and care for all people.

/s

JamcaicanMeAfraid , 1 hour ago

Fauci's ego may start to encroach on the king of all egos, Barry Soreto

Peak Finance , 1 hour ago

This:

"tremendous burden" that the US health care system might face this fall if COVID-19 and the flu are circulating at the same time.

This man is truly a fool and should be arrested.

Death rates and statistics do not work that way

This coming flu season is going to be the MILDEST EVER because of Covid, as, the people that WOULD HAVE DIED this season have ALREADY PASSED

Similar to the "Demand-pull" concept in economics

Random ZH posters smarter than people in the upper reaches of government

******* Clown World

Argentumentum , 1 hour ago

They are not stupid. They are criminals.

LA_Goldbug , 1 hour ago

A waist of time listening to these jokers.

You are better off reading this article,

https://off-guardian.org/2020/06/27/covid19-pcr-tests-are-scientifically-meaningless/

Counting,

https://banned.video/watch?id=5efab695672706002f367a0a

Crash Overide , 2 hours ago

Fauci and Redfield are complete pieces of s h i t. So much misdirection and lies.

RTP , 2 hours ago

Gallo + Fauci = AIDS swindle

Fauci + Gates = COVID-19 swindle

How much longer will this poisonous dwarf ruin the future of mankind?

k3g , 2 hours ago

Question in March: Doc, you've been a Director at NIH infectious disease unit for 36 years. You're our top virologist. You're in the spotlight, your moment to shine, to show why we've paid your salary and bene's all these years, we're counting on you. First question: should we wear masks, would that help?

A: Dunno. Have to study it.

Q: Well, if we want to wear masks, how to we get them? When will the gubmint release masks from the billions it has in storage?

A: Dunno. Not sure if we have any masks. Have you tried Home Depot?

kort6776 , 2 hours ago

the government is cooking the books

https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/continuing-coverage/coronavirus/local-coronavirus-news/are-antibody-tests-included-in-the-states-reporting-yes-and-no

Cobra Commander , 2 hours ago

"Just flatten the Curve."

"2 weeks to flatten the Curve."

"Don't wear masks; unless they are N95 they are ineffective."

"Stop buying masks -- we need them for the (furloughed) hospital workers."

"Mask are now super effective against SARS-CoV-2."

"Just wear anything; homemade, cotton, surgical, wool blend, anything is now effective."

Cobra!

USAllDay , 2 hours ago

"Dr. Fauci I am curious about your income before the virus vs today"?

"How many mortgage payments have you missed"

"How many employees have you fired?

Lord Raglan , 2 hours ago

"which pharmaceutical companies do you own stock in directly or indirectly through family members?"

shankster , 2 hours ago

What about your financial ties to Bill Gates?

Son of Loki , 1 hour ago

"BJ" is what he's known outside CDC by.

Big Jackass = Fauci

Many of these people are in government --- life long -- because they could never make it in the private sector.

Geocen Trist , 2 hours ago

" Fauci attended Regis High School in Manhattan's Upper East Side " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Fauci

" Regis High School is a private Jesuit secondary school for Roman Catholic boys located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regis_High_School_(New_York_City)

" He then went to the College of the Holy Cross "

" The College of the Holy Cross, or better known simply as Holy Cross, is a private Jesuit liberal arts college in Worcester, Massachusetts. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_of_the_Holy_Cross

I wonder if Fauci is a Jesuit Freemason ? :-D

shankster , 1 hour ago

Masks are only for the plebs

enlightened01 , 2 hours ago

The government and the FED dumping TRILLIONS of dollars to all these corporations, meanwhile they can't even provide FREE MASKS for everyone. If they really wanted to help, they could have given everyone masks. That's how you could have helped prevent it. And MASKS are expensive why not subsidized it, and maybe we would have this in control and are re-opening sooner.

Macho Latte , 2 hours ago


Dr Atlas on Tucker Carlson
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6168220031001?playlist_id=5528578293001#sp=show-clips

Son of Loki , 1 hour ago

Here it is on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9AQEHOZYB4

[Jun 29, 2020] Gilead Will Charge More Than $3,000 For A Course Of COVID-19 Drug Remdesivir

Highly recommended!
Corrupt Fauci, stupid customers. IT the same neoliberal story of profiteering as a virtue all over again.
The government bought by Big Pharma, and Big Pharma out or control with questionable drugs and methods are two side of the same coin
Jun 29, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

On Monday, Gilead disclosed its pricing plan for Gilead as it prepares to begin charging for the drug at the beginning of next month (several international governments have already placed orders). Given the high demand, thanks in part due to the breathless media coverage despite the drug's still-questionable study data, Gilead apparently feels justified in charging $3,120 for a patient getting the shorter, more common, treatment course, and $5,720 for the longer course for more seriously ill patients. These are the prices for patients with commercial insurance in the US, according to Gilead's official pricing plan.

As per usual, the price charged to those on government plans will be lower, and hospitals will also receive a slight discount. Additionally, the US is the only developed country where Gilead will charge two prices, according to Gilead CEO Daniel O'Day. In much of Europe and Canada, governments negotiate drug prices directly with drugmakers (in the US, laws dictate that drug makers must "discount" their drugs for Medicare and Medicaid plans).

But according to O'Day, the drug is priced "far below the value it brings" to the health-care system.

However, we'd argue that this actually isn't true. Remdesivir was developed by Gilead to treat Ebola, but the drug was never approved by the FDA for this use, which caused Gilead to shelve the drug until COVID-19 presented another opportunity. Even before the first study had finished, the company was already pushing propaganda about the promising nature of the drug. Meanwhile, the CDC, WHO and other organizations were raising doubts about the effectiveness of steroid medications.

Months later, the only study on the steroid dexomethasone, a cheap steroid that costs less than $50 for a 100-dose regimen, has shown that dexomethasone is the only drug so far that has proven effective at lowering COVID-19 related mortality. Remdesivir, despite the fact that it has been tested in several high quality trials, has not.

So, why is the American government in partnership with Gilead still pushing this questionable, and staggeringly expensive, medication on the public?

[Jun 28, 2020] Why you shouldn't wear a face mask if you're healthy - YouTube

This is stupid interpretation of a useful experiment. The key is that masks does limits the distance to which aerosol travels What face masks actually do against coronavirus - YouTube
See also more reserved view -- it make sense to wear mask on closed or crowded spaces were you can't maintain safe distance only -- Should Healthy People Wear Masks during Covid-19 Coronavirus Pandemic
See also The Do's and Don'ts of Wearing Masks and Gloves - YouTube
Jun 28, 2020 | www.youtube.com
Nine News Perth Nine News Perth 47.1K subscribers Subscribe Healthy West Aussies are being warned against using face masks to protect themselves against coronavirus. A safety video is going viral shows how ineffective some can be. Subscribe here: https://bit.ly/2ojPZ6G More Perth News here: https://bit.ly/36dullR

[Jun 28, 2020] Cuomo incompetence is staggering indeed

Jun 28, 2020 | www.blogger.com
Anonymous ilsm said...
2slugs,

I am not an ORSA (I can talk from my BS studies, and a few electives at grad level) occasionally I used the USAF version usually A&AS contractors and/or FFRDC of you guys. I would not talk models unless they showed the 'pedigree'.

I do not know your model, nor do I know how CDC or WHO validates or accredits a model for CoV SAR-2 when there is little agreed to on CoV SAR 1 from 2003. Post Docs in Universities.......?

NY metro, my home town and of 1/2 my grandkids', is "enjoying" very low new cases and for a number of weeks has seen steeply declining hospitalizations and ICU demand. The dead for NY state is well over 1500 per million, consider that during most of the shelter in place the center of NY state cases was the NY metro area (say 12 million souls) more than half NYS population in the shelter in place regime, you may disagree but I put dead for million in NY metro closer to 2700 than NY states' 1500 in round numbers. Sweden is around 10 million.

NY metro failed at 'lock down', mass transit continued to operate, unlike Wuhan which shut it all down. "Essential" workers travelled, came home often to multigenerational homes, crowding and general breaking of the curfews denied most of the 'benefits' seen in Peoples Republic of China and Taiwan, where if one tested positive you were put in a "Covid hotel" totally out of 'circulation'.

Some ideas:

Estimates are that 20% of NY metro residents now have anti bodies, that is large number of cases with none to minimal symptoms. That is the (not so) hardest observation to explain what is happening in NY metro.

Another theory comes out of Italy is with social distancing many 'subjects' get a small exposure to the virus and the subjects develop immunity. Another theory is 50 or so percent of the population has sturdy T cell response and beats the virus. I think Italy's, along with France and Spain, turn in the pandemic is a miracle! Thanks to Pope Francis.

Son with PhD theories, his words:

"Cell paper suggesting 40-60% of people have innate immunity ranging from cellular response (lysozyme, TLR pathway, etc.) to cross-reactive T-cells. A pet theory of mine is ACE2 receptor polymorphism as a possible factor; I saw an early Chinese paper suggesting east Asians carried an ACE2 membrane domain very similar to that of bats, though have not found much follow-up to that. Like with SARS-1, there will be many years of study and still no good answers."

The above is from a dialog with his childhood friend, now an ER MD in a Massachusetts hot spot, I used to take them to Boy Scouts 30 years ago.

I disagree with my son, the recent "success" in NY metro is a miracle: NY metro changed nothing; kept the subways running but 'turned the corner' in a big way!

I pray!

You have another explanation for NY?

June 26, 2020 at 9:42 PM

[Jun 22, 2020] In North Texas where I live, the number of shoppers who have abandoned masks at the grocery stores is increasing. Half wear masks and half don't.

Jun 22, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Copeland , Jun 19 2020 23:59 utc | 56

In North Texas where I live, the number of shoppers who have abandoned masks at the grocery stores is increasing. Half wear masks and half don't. The smaller organic food stores look safer with more mask wearers. I have worked as a substitute teacher for a long while; but this year the emails from the local school district are advising staff of a new protocol that will include both virtual classrooms and real ground classes. When parents register their kids this summer, they will have the option of choosing normal classes at School, or to keep the kids home, and let them interact with teachers on the computer.

Without my school gig there is no possibility to pay rent. From a practical, mundane view the necessity to accept the risk seems hard to avoid. The school district has promised to provide masks and gloves to staff. They may be hesitant to keep teachers and substitutes who are older people, because the older folks face a greater risk from the disease. It is hard to know what to do.

I'm sure this precarious sense of the future is one which is worrying million of people.

[Jun 22, 2020] A summer spike is a particular worry in places such as Arizona and Texas, which have reported a surge in hospitalizations in recent days, weeks after state officials relaxed stay-at-home rules.

Jun 22, 2020 | www.washingtontimes.com

A summer spike is a particular worry in places such as Arizona and Texas, which have reported a surge in hospitalizations in recent days, weeks after state officials relaxed stay-at-home rules.

"It's 100 degrees in Phoenix right now, 95 degrees in Houston, [and] people are being driven indoors more, so you're having more congregate settings inside, and that could also be contributing to the spread," former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Thursday on MSNBC.



There is evidence that the coronavirus doesn't fare well in natural light, and epidemiologists have been hoping warm weather and higher humidity levels will knock virus droplets to the ground faster, akin to how other viruses behave. Being outdoors also provides the benefit of "unlimited dilution" of the virus with the wind.

But sometimes it's just too steamy outside. Experts say people should increase ventilation when they head inside, especially if they are gathering with others.

"Open your windows, bring in more fresh outdoor air. In your car, roll down your window. When you're outside, we get that benefit already," Joseph Allen, assistant professor of exposure assessment science in the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said in one of the school's daily COVID-19 briefings.

The benefits of airflow are why public officials are closing streets to give restaurants more outdoor seating, or cafes are directing customers to their patios.

Inside, scientific studies have shown businesses that open bay doors and opposing windows can sweep away other pollutants, such as diesel exhaust or byproducts from metal-working fluids.

If open windows aren't an option, the goal with air conditioning systems is to increase airflow from clean sources and to use the best filtration settings.

"Indoors, you're primarily looking at diluting the virus or any pollutant by adding air, and ideally air from outdoors is better than recirculated," said Pete Raynor, a professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

'Cooling centers'

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has an entire web page dedicated to preventing COVID-19 transmission at "cooling centers" that provide relief from another public health threat: extreme heat.

The agency urges centers to put people who exhibit COVID-19 symptoms into separate rooms. Everyone at the centers should maintain physical distancing of 6 feet or more.

The agency says that, if possible, the centers should have high ceilings and use high-efficiency filters in their HVAC systems.

Generally speaking, experts say anyone who is stuck inside should wash their hands frequently and adhere to social distancing. Wearing masks can also help slow the spread.

President Trump's reelection campaign announced Thursday that it will hold its first rally since March at the BOK Center, an indoor arena, in Tulsa on June 19.

The press announcement did not outline any social distancing measures, but the general admission request for tickets asks attendees to assume the risk of infection.

"By clicking register below, you are acknowledging that an inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present. By attending the rally, you and any guests voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19 and agree not to hold Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.; BOK Center; ASM Global; or any of their affiliates, directors, officers, employees, agents, contractors, or volunteers liable for any illness or injury," the webpage says.

Meanwhile, Vice President Mike Pence, who leads the White House coronavirus task force, caused a stir by tweeting a Wednesday photo of himself with a large group of maskless Trump campaign staffers who packed together in an indoor office building. The tweet was later deleted.

"The vice president yesterday was photographed with campaign staffers in a tight space, no social distancing, without anyone wearing a mask," said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat. "The very least the administration could do is lead by example and often cannot even manage that much."

Mr. Schumer demanded a briefing on the national COVID-19 situation from key scientists on the White House coronavirus task force, Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci, saying the U.S. needs to refocus on the issue.

"The disease is spiking in a number of states around the country. Arizona officials have warned that its hospitals could be filled by next month," he said. "Texas has gone three straight days with record numbers of hospitalizations. North Carolina, New Mexico, California, Oregon and several other states are experiencing a resurgence, or peak-levels, of COVID-19."

Experts fear the lack of social distancing is fueling cases, as business reopenings bring people into closer contact. There have also been massive protests against police brutality in the wake of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis, fueling fears of increased transmission among the densely packed crowds.

Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, said even without any spikes over the summer, there will continue to be 800 to 1,000 deaths per day in the U.S. related to COVID-19.

"Over the next three months, we will cross the 200,000 mark," he told NBC's "Today" program on Thursday. "Sometime in September, we're going to cross 200,000, and we still won't be done."

He is concerned about upticks in cases in states such as Arizona, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Florida.

"I had hoped that the fact that people are spending more time outside, that it's summer, we would not see such a big increase so fast," he said. "It's more concerning than I had hoped we would get at this point."

[Jun 22, 2020] With the lack of humanely adequate, publicly mandated sick leave in the USA it's easy to see how infectious diseases can get out of control.

Notable quotes:
"... The Elite are gambling that a lid can be placed on the unrest by police/mercenaries, surveillance, and propaganda until a for-profit treatment or vaccine becomes available. That the hundreds of thousands of Americans, Britons or Swedes are dying is of no matter to the top 10% in these nations. ..."
"... The Western Establishment is also in full blown denial. The Empire has fallen. North and South America are sick continents that will have to be quarantined from the coronavirus free nations for the foreseeable future ..."
Jun 22, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

robjira , Jun 19 2020 18:52 utc | 14

I think Thierry Meyssan says it best here . The economic portion alone of the US reaction to the latest thing we're all supposed to be freaking-out over should be sufficient to cast doubt on the entire narrative. I make no claim to being the sharpest blade in the drawer, but frankly something stinks about all this.

As to mask wearing, well I had to continue showing up to work (a grocery co-op) when everything hit the fan, and mask wearing in all sections has been required.

It's true that US culture doesn't encourage regard for others in ordinary times, hence the infrequent use of masks by those who are ill even when there isn't a pandemic in town (hence my suspicion that this SARS2, or whatever has already been going around and resulted in me being infected by those who'd continue showing up for work while still sniffling and coughing, without masks ).

Couple this with the lack of humanely adequate, publicly mandated sick leave and it's easy to see how diseases can get out of control.

So yes, I agree that mask wearing by those who are experiencing symptoms , is every bit as conducive to common health (and courtesy) as covering ones mouth when sneezing or coughing, along with frequent hand washing. Making mask wearing an overarching requirement might be pushing things, imo. I guess my reasoning behind this is the tendency to social ostracism that can result from making such societal wide requirements (full disclosure; I wear the mask when required, too). In short, yes by all means wear an effing mask if you're feeling sick, or if the allergies are particularly bad; you don't want to get anyone else sick, and it's the nice thing to do. But do not give in to panic every time someone sneezes, or your local flu season comes calling.

Most would agree that the US has been overtaken by cynical "political correctness (witness the recent laughable displays of 'solidarity' from legislators and capitalists)." There's a great line in the Tao De Jing ; "when there is an overabundance of morality, hypocrites abound." This recent trend toward hyper-morality is being exploited once again by authorities to keep the population at large divided against itself, same as "left" vs. "right" or "black" vs. "white" have been so exploited. It is this sort of division that keeps the usual scumbags happily in power over everyone else, and the future of our collective civilization can't take it much longer.
Once again, humble thanks to you b. for being here and doing what you do, and thanks for letting me blab on. Peace and health, barflies.

VietnamVet , Jun 19 2020 23:05 utc | 42

The only way to fight the coronavirus pandemic is with a functional national government implementing public health measures of universal testing, contact tracing and isolation of the infected. Where corporate neoliberalism is in control, the USA, UK and Sweden, a conscious decision was made not to give power back to the national governments to tax, regulate and use these old fashion methods to defeat the virus. These nations are following their amoral aristocratic ideology and are allowing their citizens to die in order to keep the rich in the money.

The Elite are gambling that a lid can be placed on the unrest by police/mercenaries, surveillance, and propaganda until a for-profit treatment or vaccine becomes available. That the hundreds of thousands of Americans, Britons or Swedes are dying is of no matter to the top 10% in these nations.

The Western Establishment is also in full blown denial. The Empire has fallen. North and South America are sick continents that will have to be quarantined from the coronavirus free nations for the foreseeable future .

[Jun 21, 2020] The Corruption of Science. The Hydroxychloroquine Lancet Study Scandal. Who Was Behind It Anthony Fauci's Intent To Block HCQ

Jun 21, 2020 | www.globalresearch.ca

The Corruption of Science. The Hydroxychloroquine Lancet Study Scandal. Who Was Behind It? Anthony Fauci's Intent To Block HCQ on Behalf of Big Pharma By Prof Michel Chossudovsky Global Research, June 10, 2020 Global Research Region: USA Theme: Media Disinformation , Science and Medicine

The Guardian has revealed the scandal behind the hydroxychloroquine study which was intent on blocking HCQ as a cure for COVID-19. "Dozens of scientific papers co-authored by the chief executive of the US tech company behind the Lancet hydroxychloroquine study scandal are now being audited, including one that a scientific integrity expert claims contains images that appear to have been digitally manipulated. The audit follows a Guardian investigation that found the company, Surgisphere , used suspect data in major scientific studies that were published and then retracted by world-leading medical journals, including the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine. .

According to The Lancet:

several concerns were raised with respect to the veracity of the data and analyses conducted by Surgisphere Corporation and its founder and our co-author, Sapan Desai, in our publication. We launched an independent third-party peer review of Surgisphere As such, our reviewers were not able to conduct an independent and private peer review and therefore notified us of their withdrawal from the peer-review process

The study was allegedly based on data analysis of 96,032 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 between Dec 20, 2019, and April 14, 2020 from 671 hospitals Worldwide. The database, according to the Guardian could not be verified. It was false.

"I am truly Sorry"

Surgishpere CEO Dr. Sapan Desai was not in charge of the study. The lead author was Harvard Medical School professor Mandeep Mehra:

"I did not do enough to ensure that the data source was appropriate for this use. For that, and for all the disruptions – both directly and indirectly – I am truly sorry."

CEO Dr. Sapan Desai took the blame. Who was behind him?

The Surgisphere Scientific Scam. Who was behind it? Who "commissioned" this Report?

Was the pharmaceutical industry and vaccine lobby group behind this initiative? The Lancet acknowledges that the study received funding from the William Harvey Distinguished Chair in Advanced Cardiovascular Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital which is held by Dr. Mandeep Mehra. In this regard, it is worth noting that Brigham Health has a major contract with Big Pharma's Gilead Sciences Inc , related to the development of the Remdesivir drug for the treatment of COVID-19. The Gilead-Brigham Health project was initiated in March 2020 .

Was the Surgisphere study intended to provide a justification to block the use of HCQ, as recommended by Dr. Anthony Fauci, advisor to president Trump? Upon reading the study (prior to its retraction), "Dr Fauci, grinned as he told CNN that "the data shows hydroxychloroquine is not an effective treatment "Referring to the Surgisphere report: "The scientific data is really quite evident now about the lack of efficacy for it [HCQ]," said Dr. Fauci. (quoted by CNN ).

Here is the CNN's authoritative assessment of Surgisphere's report (prior to The Lancet's Retraction):

"Seriously ill Covid-19 patients who were treated with hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine were more likely to die or develop dangerous irregular heart rhythms, according to a large observational study [by Surgisphere] published Friday [May 22, 2020] in the medical journal The Lancet .

And Did CNN "retract" its earlier endorsement of this "fake scientific study"?

Dr. Anthony Fauci who is the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) , has from the very outset led the campaign against hydroxychloroquine (largely on behalf of Big Pharma) invoking similar "scientific arguments" against HCQ, saying categorically there was no cure to COVID-19, and the only solution was the vaccine.

According to the Spectator:

The campaign to destroy hydroxychloroquine has been waged relentlessly, both by competitor pharmaceutical companies and those who want to destroy the US economy to advance their political agenda. It is shocking that it has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of taxpayer dollars. But although the corruption of science for political and/ or financial gain has become a defining characteristic of our age, it is not a new story.

The publication of the Surgisphere study had an immediate impact: According to the Guardian , "Surgisphere data led to global trials of hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19 being halted in May, because it appeared to show the drug increased deaths in Covid-19 patients".

"Higher Risks of Death" if you take HCQ, according to the study. In the days following the fake Surgisphere Lancet report on May 22, several countries including Belgium, France, Italy, acted to halt the use of hydroxychloroquine. The study had concluded patients taking the anti-malaria drug had a higher risk of death than those who were not taking the medication

It is worth noting that prior to the conduct of the Surgisphere study, Dr. Fauci stated categorically that the use of HCQ had not been studied in relation to the coronavirus. "No proven drug": "Not Enough Known" . Nonsensical and false statements.

What Fauci failed to mention is that Chloroquine had been "studied" and tested fifteen years ago by the CDC as a drug to be used against coronavirus infections. Chloroquine was used in 2002 and tested against SARS-1 coronavirus in a study under the auspices of the CDC published in 2005 in the peer reviewed Virology Journal. The main conclusion of the article was that: Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread. It was used in the SARS-1 outbreak in 2002. It had the endorsement of the CDC.

The main author Dr. Martin J. Vincent together with several of his colleagues were affiliated with the Special Pathogens Branch of the Atlanta based CDC together with co-authors from a Montreal based partner research institution. The main conclusions of this study are that Chloroquine is a tested drug and can be used for SARS-corona virus infections.

Dr. Anthony Fauci has not put forth a treatment which could be applied against COVID-19. What he is saying is that there is no treatment. And then he endorses the fake scientific study by Surgisphere which was subsequently retracted by The Lancet. Lancet: the article was retracted

Dr. Anthony Fauci has been deliberately blocking a drug which was endorsed by the CDC 15 years ago for treatment of SARS-1 Coronavirus. More recently, it has been used extensively in a number of countries in relation to the Coronavirus or SARS-COV-2 (COVID-19) outbreak. Whose interests is he serving?

*

[Jun 20, 2020] Do BLM Protests Prove No More Pandemic

Notable quotes:
"... In other words, the period of decrease from Jun 08 to Jun 12 that you are referring to, in this sense, was kind of an anomaly. June trend in the USA is a slight increase, not decrease due to the factors we do not know about. ..."
Jun 20, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

It has become a widespread meme that the many protests over the murder of George Floyd and other racially based police brutality will show that it is fine to end all shutdowns related to the pandemic and end all rules about social distancing and wearing face masks. Here we are reaching two weeks since these protests with thousands of people involved, supposedly all violating those rules, and we are not seeing a surge of Covid-19 cases coming out of the locations where these big protests have happened.

Well, it turns out, that while the reports are scattered, apparently at many of the protests many people wear face masks, not only that, there is apparently a lot of trying to keep some distance from each other as well, although based on the performance of nations in East Asia, it is pretty clear that the wearing of face masks is the most useful. Among other cities with large protests where this has been observed is Philadelphia. But in many places there has been much urging of this.

It is a mere anecdote, but I can report that I attended one such protest, admittedly in peaceful Harrisonburg, VA where I live where we have a black mayor and a black police chief. But I attended a peaceful protest with over 1000 people. Almost everybody was wearing a mask, and most people were keeping distance from each other. There has been a lot of this.

So, this meme widely spouted with great arrogance by many observers is just misleading. It is quite likely we shall see no spike of cases following most of these protests, although possibly in some locations. But that does not mean this will hold for places where reopenings coincide with lots of people imitating our president and not wearing face masks or maintaining social distancing. And indeed, we are seeing surges of cases in many such states, with the vast majority of those being where we have seen such attitudes and policies.

Barkley Rosser

likbez , June 20, 2020 11:24 am

There are several factors in play here:

  1. Protests were conducted in the open air, which greatly diminished the chances of getting infected. Infections predominantly occur in closed spaces.
  2. Most protesters are young and with the exception of a tiny percent of young women are not morbidly obese :-)
  3. Summer is the time when most coronavirus epidemics subside.
  4. Many protestors are wearing masks to make face detection more difficult.
  5. Most protesters are reluctant to undergo any tests. Especially looters :-) So we might see family clusters but much later.

Anne note about 33K new positive tests means little as number of daily cases is a very unreliable metric. Many cases are reported with the delay of up to three days, which can create accidental bumps.

Five or 20 days averages are better metrics.

BTW in no way, they are equal to cases of infections; they are at least 20% higher as many people are tested several times, and the reliability of the test itself is only around 80%.

The general level of incompetence and fearmongering of the USA MSM is such that a positive test is viewed as the case of infection, and the population now views them as equivalent. This is incorrect.

BTW the 20 days average for June is around 23K a day, and is about the same as in May, so from this point of view we can't talk about increases in new cases but only about the plateau reached.

This is also true because the quality of data (especially for deaths) is very low (the error margin should be assumed to be +-10% at least ).

likbez , June 20, 2020 3:17 pm

@rjs June 20, 2020 12:54 pm

Likbez, your 5 and 20 day averages are rising too new daily cases bottomed June 7 thru 9 at around 19,000 a day and have been rising since

Yes, you are right.

The increase actually started from May 30, and ended the period of decrease from May 5 to May 29, so I would not attribute the increase from Jun 13 to protests

As Bert Schlitz mentioned the number of participants in them was too small to make a statistically significant difference for sample of the size of the USA population.

20 days increase for the period Jun 1-Jun 19 is just 4%, 5 days – 15%. So only 5-days average increase might be statistically significant.

Even so, what factors are in play is unclear and attributing them to BLM protests IMHO is pseudo-science.

In other words, the period of decrease from Jun 08 to Jun 12 that you are referring to, in this sense, was kind of an anomaly. June trend in the USA is a slight increase, not decrease due to the factors we do not know about.

BTW you can get artificial increase by just increasing the scope of testing and/or the lowering the quality of the mass used tests (not all tests are created equal)

If you test all the population of the USA with the average quality tests and we assume the false positive rate is 20% you will get 330*0.2=66 million of "infected" people.

If you lower the quality to 30% you will get 100 million of "infected" which are completely fake.

[Jun 20, 2020] Over one third of Covid=related deaths occurred in urban areas of 5 cities having 6% of the population (NYC, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Philadelphia). 40% of covid deaths occurred in long term care facilities for the elderly .

Jun 20, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Kay Fabe , Jun 19 2020 23:24 utc | 45

Why the focus on cases?. Most cases are simply mild flu. Deaths are in decline and most hospitals , especially outside of urban areas are near empty. Unfortunately tracking hospitalizations and ICU usage seems hard to do with my Google skills.

So long as they do more testing case counts will rise. These tests have false positives so many cases are false positives. Hard to calculate how many when we don't know the tests specificity (self validated by mfr) or the disease prevalence

33% of Covid deaths occurred in urban areas of 5 cities having 6% of the countries population (NYC, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Philadelphia). 40% of covid deaths occurred in long term care facilities for the elderly .

According to CDC DATA Only 5 states had 10% or more excess deaths and 37 states had no more than 5% excess deaths

40% of these excess deaths were in nursing homes, and as many as 25% excess deaths in areas like NYC were attributed to the lockdowns themselves (stress induced heart attacks/strokes, delayed or denial of health care, suicides, etc)

Curiously deaths among infants nationwide declined up to 40% by June (150 fewer deaths per week from the normal 400 per week) possibly due to fewer vaccinations when they may cause more harm in the first year of life

Anyways, one should expect an uptick in cases as those coming out of lockdown now get more exposure (with suppressed immune systems due to lack of sun exposure and low Vit D) and states ramp up testing. The goal should not be to eliminate cases but to keep the HC SYSTEM operating and its far from being overloaded. Its Best people get exposed in summer before the anticipated 2nd wave. That way there will be fewer folks to infect as they will be partially immunized. Many people indeed are naturally immune and don't even produce antibodies to clear the virus (relying on innate and cellular defenses), so antibody tests drastically underestimate community exposure.

[Jun 20, 2020] Coronavirus - The US Has Given Up

Notable quotes:
"... I stopped going to movies years ago when all that coming out were mind-numbing ear-shattering fit-inducing spectacles aimed at teenage boys with no redeeming values (the movies or the boys). ..."
Jun 20, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Nagual , Jun 19 2020 18:29 utc | 9
The theater chain AMC plans to reopen :
AMC will not mandate that all guests wear masks, although employees will be required to do so.
...
"We did not want to be drawn into a political controversy," said Aron. "We thought it might be counterproductive if we forced mask wearing on those people who believe strongly that it is not necessary. We think that the vast majority of AMC guests will be wearing masks.

The primary function of a mask is not to protect the person who wears it, but to protect the other persons who are around.

Theaters are closed rooms in which people sit together for a longer time in often somewhat sticky air. Like churches they are prime location for potential super-spreader events. One infected person who does not wear a mask in a theater can infect many other attendants, even if they do wear masks.

If AMC does not make mask wearing mandatory and consequently checks that the rule is followed throughout the show one can only recommend not to visit their theaters. From a marketing perspective AMC's policy is self defeating. AMC will end up with empty theaters.

Posted by b at 17:41 UTC | Comments (96)

Famous Mikey , Jun 19 2020 18:24 utc | 8

Your contention that "The primary function of a mask is not to protect the person who wears it, but to protect the other persons who are around" is illogical. You're saying that an infected person wearing a face mask cannot spread the coronavirus into the air, however, that implies that the face mask can filter the virus out of the air if it is exhaled but can't filter out the virus if one is inhaling through the mask.

I'm not aware of face masks having this magical one-way filtering property. They either filter out the virus or they don't. Face masks should be worn by people who are coughing or sneezing.

The American Medical Association (AMA) has stated that masks should only be worn by sick people who are coughing and sneezing and not by those who are well.

For those who are sick and coughing and sneezing, the mask helps to contain the macro- and microscopic fluid droplets ejected, all of which may contain infectious micro-organisms.

I have my doubts about the efficiency and effectiveness of using masks. In fact, I haven't even ruled out the chances that this virus was made in the laboratory. However, as long as we don't have really serious studies, reliable information and scientific consensus (if there ever will be), it is best to do what we can and what is within our reach to protect ourselves and others (empathy). I really doubt that these cheap masks that are sold around here protect a lot. But the little that can protect everyone is already valid. I've been willing all along to protect myself and everyone around me. I followed the booklet, the safest protocols .... But now I want answers. I need to work, go out on the street, get some sun ..... kiss a girl ....

I am tired of scientism, politics, left versus right, geopolitics, conspiracy theories ...... When will everyone converge on the same side? is that even possible? I know that there are good people fighting for simple and humble people like me, but I see very little of these people being heard or involved in really important positions that could make a difference.

Anyway, peace for everyone! We are different, we have different cultures, we believe in different things, but we don't need to kill ourselves because of that. Keep up the good work and the high-level discussions that I see here. Learning a lot by reading this blog and the comments.

Big hug (from Brazil) to everyone and thanks for everything.

Trisha , Jun 19 2020 18:43 utc | 12

I stopped going to movies years ago when all that coming out were mind-numbing ear-shattering fit-inducing spectacles aimed at teenage boys with no redeeming values (the movies or the boys).

Don't be an idiot. Wear a mask in public. It's proven to reduce transmission, and if everybody did so, the virus would quickly die out when R0 went less than 1. As it did in South Korea.

Jackrabbit , Jun 19 2020 22:54 utc | 41
AMC Theatres reverses course and will require customers to wear masks
"This announcement prompted an intense and immediate outcry from our customers, and it is clear from this response that we did not go far enough on the usage of masks," Aron said in a statement on Friday. "At AMC Theatres, we think it is absolutely crucial that we listen to our guests. Accordingly, and with the full support of our scientific advisors, we are reversing course and are changing our guest mask policy."

. . .

AMC said that it will also sell masks for $1 at its box offices.

!!
blues , Jun 19 2020 21:34 utc | 31
My solution to the covid disaster is the 'Joyce shemagh' (or just 'Joyce scarf'). The 'shemagh' is a pure cotton scarf, worn to cope with a variety of environmental challenges, including dust storms. I ordered mine on eBay. You wear this around tour face and fasten it in the back with a fat rubber band. It's folded about four times, forming almost a blanket. You wear it damp, almost on the verge of wet. The active ingredients are plain water and (hopefully unscented) dish detergent. The detergent (or soap) will bring water molecules into direct contact with the virus's waxy lipid envelope, causing it to fall apart (actually unravel) and thus 'die'. I use about 8% by volume of the dish soap. But before I add in the dish soap, I mix enough fructose type sugar into the water, enough to make it a little bit 'thick'.

Fructose is one of the super-hydrophilic sugars, meaning it holds on to water and causes it to be very slow to dry out. (And the water contact is what actually destroys the virus.) Well, that's what I wear, and it's far, far more comfortable that the typical mask. (I should warn people that even though my doctor approves of this shemagh mask, there are people who will insist that it will poison you, or cause you to contract pneumonia (water being very dangerous. So don't let on what you are doing.) You are probably protecting both yourself and those around you. If the virus contacts the damp soapy shemagh, it dies.

The covid 19 virus is rather unique in several ways. It can survive extreme cold, and extreme heat, almost to the boiling point of water at room temperature. Yet, soapy water simply unravels its envelope.

Careless thinkers wonder why the masks are far more effective in preventing sick people from spreading the virus that they are at protecting the uninfected. The answer is really not very complex. A sick individual will, simply by normally breathing, fill his/her mask with 100,000,000 virus particles. The mask of an uninfected individual in the same room will only screen out perhaps a dozen virus particles.

donten , Jun 19 2020 22:21 utc | 36
California has just made masks mandatory...So I will be safe from the OC "libertarians" for a while.

[Jun 20, 2020] Are masks helpful in cinama and theaters?

Jun 20, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Kay Fabe , Jun 19 2020 23:42 utc | 52

"The primary function of a mask is not to protect the person who wears it, but to protect the other persons who are around.

Theaters are closed rooms in which people sit together for a longer time in often somewhat sticky air. Like churches they are prime location for potential super-spreader events. One infected person who does not wear a mask in a theater can infect many other attendants, even if they do wear masks."

I am a bit more understanding of mandatory mask wearing on public transportation or retail outlets. People don't have many choices to travel or shop so I go along with it.

However, going to a movie theater is a choice. I am a big believer in Freedom of Choice. If you choose to attend a theater knowing in advance masks are not mandatory, thats your choice. For a healthy person under 55 the risk of death or hospitalization from this virus is not any greater than flu. Those are facts from CDC. If you want to protect your eyes from viruses wear goggles.

I personally cant wear a mask for long periods because i feel oxygen deprived. Real or imaginary I cant say, but I saw one study with surgeons where prolonged wearing of surgical
Masks significantly reduced lung oxygen levels. Some medical conditions make mask wearing dangerous. Oxygen is necessary to clear infection in the lungs and nasal passages so I am not confident prolonged mask wearing might not increase the risk of infection or worsen an existing infection. Sadly there are few useful studies. I guess not enough of a profit motive to fund them.


Christian J. Chuba , Jun 20 2020 0:09 utc | 60

Kay Fabe, "I am a bit more understanding of mandatory mask wearing on public transportation or retail outlets...Masks significantly reduced lung oxygen levels."

Masks just need to stop droplets can be cloth based, they don't have to be super impermeable but still only you can say what you consider comfortable. A movie is about 2 - 3 hrs of non-strenuous activity, I don't see how it is so different from wearing it on an airplane, or long bus / train trip.

I heard a doctor make an interesting claim that contrary to popular belief, the air on a passenger jet is very pure, highly filtered and blows downward and therefore very safe. It makes me wonder about the air system in a theater, if it is good then AMC should lead with that.

Richard Steven Hack , Jun 20 2020 0:11 utc | 61
...Of course, if someone directly coughs in your face, then presumably you get hit with a full load. That's why we maintain distance. But even the, the primary route will be through the nose and mouth. It's also likely that a far bigger load goes through the nose and mouth than the eyes, and it is speculated that the likelihood of infection depends on the viral load.

In any event, I wear glasses, which likely provides a fair amount of protection from random airborne virus particles.

Richard Steven Hack , Jun 20 2020 0:46 utc | 68
...For the most part, however, the vast majority of persons who caught it appear to have gotten it directly from being near an infectious person for at least ten minutes, inhaling their breathing/talking/singing/yelling air, with a much smaller percentage getting it from touching an infected surface (estimated at only ten percent of cases.) So getting it from food is likely an even more distant probability.

That said, as I've said before, getting this thing is a crapshoot. It's a matter of greater or lesser probabilities. As they say, "to play the odds, you have to know the odds." So I take steps that would minimize my risk, but in the end there's only so much you can do. I assume some people have caught it by wildly improbable methods.

It reminds me of the Marty Feldman skit decades ago. He goes to visit an insurance agent and proceeds to drive the agent crazy by asking if the insurance being offered would protect me from insanely unlikely events, such as "being struck by a meteorite whilst sunbathing at the beach" or "falling into a pit filled with hedgehogs whilst playing cricket." Eventually he asks if he is protected against an enraged insurance agent, whereupon the agent says, "No!" and proceeds to strangle him.

[Jun 19, 2020] Fauci farginatly states that Americans Don't Believe Science And They Don't Believe Authority

Jun 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

y_arrow


Dumpster Elite , 1 hour ago

Does he mean "scientists", such as Bill Gates?

We_The_People , 1 hour ago

That's not entirely true, we just do not believe in fraudulent agenda driven traitors like you!

Fauci's estimates were so off that the only 2 conclusions can be formed, gross negligence or intentional deception, either way he has zero credibility left!

Locker up , 1 hour ago

I remember when the pandemic started Fauci said "Masks don't protect you and the front line health workers need the masks for their protection". I think that statement caused him to lose all credibility with the public. Fauci still sounds like he's drowning in mucus. They should get a healthy honest scientist to talk to the public.

MsCreant , 1 hour ago

This guy should just step down.

He is now saying masks are good. They were not good when there was a shortage of them.

If he can't see the logic of why he is not trusted, he is incompetent. lay_arrow

Dumpster Elite , 1 hour ago

"How DARE you serfs and peasants question the authority and wisdom of your masters!!! INSOLENCE!!!!"

Max UK , 1 hour ago

Yeah Fauci, nobody has done as much to destroy trust actually, as YOU!

NumberNone , 1 hour ago

There are 57 genders...is that the science we don't believe in? Asking for a friend.

Lt. Frank Drebin , 1 hour ago

What a jerk. This dude has Napoleon syndrome, i.e. only he is right, everyone else is stupid.

Tarzan , 38 minutes ago

Fauci TEST ified that, although they are TEST ing more, there has been more positive TEST s then before they were TEST ing more, and We're all crazy science deniers for recognizing his inconsistent TEST imony.

Fauci is playing with fire.

gas·light

/ˈɡaslīt/

Learn to pronounce

verb

gerund or present participle: gaslighting

  1. manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity.

RU4Au , 11 minutes ago

Hey Fauxi, You're right. I don't believe in your kind of 'science' or your kind of 'authority'.

[Jun 19, 2020] Medical charlatan ands sleazy politican Fauci tells us that Americans Don't Believe Science And They Don't Believe Authority by Steve Watson

Highly recommended!
Fauci clearly is a charlatan, a researcher who long ago became a politician and now cheats like Pompeo. His mask wearng fiacto characterize him as a person who is unable to admin that he was wrong. and admin the he lied in order to cover the shortage of masks for medical personnel and complete unpreparedness of the country to the epidemic.
He also look like a boy who cried "wolf,wolf" way to many time, when no wolf was around.
This guy did absolutely nothing to understand and prepare for the epidemic from January to Late March and then pushed for excessive measures like total quarantine. he should be fired for incompetence. He is implicitly guilty for Ciumo idiotism in NY (horror hospital beds are running out we need million of ventilators) and similar idiotism in NJ and other parts of the country, which unnecessary closed businesses where wearing masks would suffice.
This charlatan never admitted his role in promotion of "gain of function" experiments and financing them in Wuhan biolab.
Jun 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the polarising director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, slammed everyday Americans for refusing to go along with 'authority' on medical matters, and accused people of 'amazing denial' when it comes to 'truth'.

Speaking on a podcast called Learning Curve , produced by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Fauci charged that "unfortunately, there is a combination of an anti-science bias that people are -- for reasons that sometimes are, you know, inconceivable and not understandable -- they just don't believe science and they don't believe authority."

"So when they see someone up in the White House, which has an air of authority to it, who's talking about science, that there are some people who just don't believe that -- and that's unfortunate because, you know, science is truth, " Fauci asserted.

"It's amazing sometimes the denial there is, it's the same thing that gets people who are anti-vaxxers , who don't want people to get vaccinated, even though the data clearly indicate the safety of vaccines," Fauci proclaimed, adding "That's really a problem."

https://open.spotify.com/embed-podcast/episode/2wIL0rfSosidScjE5ykR8U

Perhaps the real reason Americans don't trust Fauci is that he's consistently flip flopped and contradicted himself on 'the truth' for months.

The man also exudes authoritarianism , and clearly has a problem with anyone who questions his superiority .

Fauci also has a long history of being the front man for a network of powerful Big Pharma and Big Medicine interests, pushing vaccines and medicines in a clear conflict of interest.

* * *

Following Fauci's blame-scaping the anti-science bias of (implicitly ignorant) Americans, Thiel Capital MD Eric Weinstein unleashed a barrage of uncomfortable truths on Twitter

How dare this man.

Do you want to know why they are learning to hate scientists for real Dr Fauci?

Because your group lies about science & your ilk drove the truth telling scientists out of their rightful places inside the institutions calling bullshit on your lying about masks. pic.twitter.com/VJLTGT0GOe

-- Eric Weinstein (@EricRWeinstein) June 18, 2020

Scientists like me who don't go along with cowards & crowds cannot disrupt your group's lies because we are outside. Imagine if I was tweeting from the National Science Foundation or MIT. It would be a national news story about how your cabal lies and degrades faith in science: https://t.co/leYsCerG3o

-- Eric Weinstein (@EricRWeinstein) June 18, 2020

Weinstein went on:

"But you prattle on. We will one day find out later that you suspected all along that the Wuhan BS-L 4 virology lab might well be involved, but that you didn't say so for this or that political reason.

Because you aren't a scientist. You play one. You are an MD turned actor.

Even when I agree with the conclusions of your institutional pseudo science cabal, you cheat to get to our shared conclusions on vaccines, viruses, climate, etc.

So you want people to believe in science again? Ok. Call-yourself-out. Admit that your crowd **lied** about our masks.

And not to put too fine a point on it: your group is sitting in chairs reserved for people who don't do what your cabal just did.

You just don't have what it takes sir. I'm sorry. But science isn't acting. It's not a beauty pagent. It's not politics.

Science requires courage ."

y_arrow 1

Whoa Dammit , 2 minutes ago

Like the other many things that Mr.Fauci has gotten wrong, he fails to recognize the truth that Americans don't believe him

Boing_Snap , 6 minutes ago

People don't believe Fauci, never been in the real world, vaccine patent holder,

TruthHunter , 6 minutes ago

Fauci, you're not a scientist. You're a politician...stop whining when you're treated like one

JoePorkChop , 6 minutes ago

Are scientists and authority some incorruptible special breed? A very skeptical eye towards any power structure is very neccesary, always.

artytom , 6 minutes ago

Good man Weinstein.

HowardBeale , 7 minutes ago

Is he phucking joking? Fauci has no idea what Fauci will say tomorrow...

SuperareDolo , 8 minutes ago

I don't know if it would surprise Fauci to know that the majority of epidemiologists are among those he says, "Don't believe in science, or authority."

Combining those two terms is very telling. Science is skeptical empiricism, not belief. It's kind of self-contradictory to believe in conclusions, since he's not talking about belief in the validity of skeptical empiricism. He's talking about his authority, which he wants people to believe in, because he's a scientist. That's technocracy, and nobody should accept that.

diogi23 , 9 minutes ago

Fauci is the John Bolton of science. Why does Trump keep him around??

aelfheld , 6 minutes ago

Science is a process, not 'revealed wisdom'.

I d----d sure don't put much faith in scientists who try to speak ex cathedra .

ze_vodka , 11 minutes ago

I require evidence based reasoning to be presented for Science...

and

I require that those who seek to be called an "Authority" demonstrate the ability to lead well with kindness and humility.

So...

I firmly reject arbitrary Totalitarianism... which is exactly what Fauci espouses and proclaims.

Demystified , 12 minutes ago

Fauci is a medical MEATBALL, his credibility is in the toilet. A Flush is needed urgently.

ze_vodka , 11 minutes ago

I require evidence based reasoning to be presented for Science...

and

I require that those who seek to be called an "Authority" demonstrate the ability to lead well with kindness and humility.

So...

I firmly reject arbitrary Totalitarianism... which is exactly what Fauci espouses and proclaims.

Demystified , 12 minutes ago

Fauci is a medical MEATBALL, his credibility is in the toilet. A Flush is needed urgently.

YouThePeople , 13 minutes ago

Fauxi is a corrupted paid stooge...and a bad actor.

Slayer666 , 14 minutes ago

Old School Americans aren't very fond of blindly following authority. They/We have a rebellious streak. That's why the globalists/NWO want to import a new, more docile population. But if America falls, don't expect the rest of the world to remain the same. Yeah I know a lot of people would welcome that, but don't be too sure that what comes into that power vacuum wouldn't be way worse.

hugin-o-munin , 6 minutes ago

There is a big difference in allowing the US economy to fail and having the US fail. Two different things. In fact I think the best remedy to the current hyper corrupt system is to let the dollar implode. That removes these fvckers' power in a clean sweep move and then something more genuine and honest can take its place.

Distant_Star , 15 minutes ago

What ********. I believe in Newton's laws of motion. I believe in the laws of thermodynamics and many other scientific rules. I believe in the periodic table. I believe in Avogadro's number and Boyle's Law.

I don't believe in the "China model" that Fauchi, the corrupt WHO, the inept CDC with their flawed Chinese test kits and the progressive politicians worshipped from day 1. I don't believe it was necessary to lock down whole populations. I don't believe in the political jihad against hydroxychloriquine because Trump said it might have value, mounds of anecdotal evidence supported its use, and many physicians endorse it.

I don't subscribe to the globalist horesehit from the Gates Foundation with his push for undeveloped vaccines and quantum dots, and statements that, "we have to vaccinate 6 billion people." I have contempt for craven people who demand that everyone else be locked down for their benefit, and whine about how "We can never go back to the way it was. Boo-hoo."

I question the ever changing, often contradictory narrative on this virus. I heap scorn on their wildly inaccurate models that caused this economic and social disaster. I call horse**** on the "scientists" and progressive authoritarians who joyfully locked down populations and businesses when it was not necessary. These same fools then remained totally silent when thugs, demonstrators, looters, arsonists, anarchists and mobs filled the street for a "higher cause." I condemn those such as the "hero" Andrew Cuomo who put infected people into nursing homes where old and vulnerable people died by the thousands for no reason. I guess that makes me and millions of others science "deniers." On the other hand, maybe ordinary people know a ship of floundering fools when they see one, and express genuine concern. You don't need scientific method to see a disaster in motion. Screw Fauchi.

theboxseat , 12 minutes ago

I believe in:

Fool me once shame on you...

Darn who can remember Dubya's version of this

LA_Goldbug , 11 minutes ago

He's busy looking for WMD with Colon Powell in Iraq. He'll be back in 50 yrs. because it is there and he will not stop looking.

ken , 9 minutes ago

Lies, just remember the lies, and that stupid look on his face while he tells them.

hugin-o-munin , 5 minutes ago

“There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.”

Rocbottom , 15 minutes ago

SCIENCE doesn’t say jack ****. SCIENTISTS do. And this “scientist” is a PROPAGANDIST not a doctor. THAT IS WHY no one believes what he says. He’s a paid liar.

SteveNYC , 18 minutes ago

Joke of the day "American don't believe authority"

Tony, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT? When you've been lied to, on a massive scale since 2001, additional lies of which were put on steroids starting in 2016 - you'd be a FOOL to believe "authority" or "EXPERTS" like you pal.

It's over.

k3g , 11 minutes ago

Lives Matter.

hugin-o-munin , 10 minutes ago

You must be a racist. :)

ken , 3 minutes ago

...not so much according to the Georgia Guidestones, the BMGF, U.S. Foreign Policy, and the sacrificial babies used in blackmail to force it, by Israel.

sun tzu , 21 minutes ago

What science told the states in the northeast to send thousands of infected patients into nursing homes?

Trezrek500 , 22 minutes ago

Science isn't about blind ideology.

B52Minot , 23 minutes ago

Faucci is nothing but a spoiled brat....and now he has a tantrum because Americans could care less about what he says....why?? he wonders....Because Faucci has shown us the dark side of science....how it can ruin you if you make the wrong decision about its true validity. If we knew that the original estimate of deaths from COVID was a fraud Trump would never had declared an emergency and agreed with a shut down....This entire COVID response has been one big disaster....and a fraud with Faucci out there thinking he runs the place...

Time after time HE HAS BEEN WRONG..and his trust in the WHO and CHINA too has been corrupted if not a fraud too...SO WHY IS HE STILL TRYING TO TELL US WHAT TO DO....Because he thinks he is some sort of expert yet so flawed it oozes out of every pore...and NO ONE should listen to him on anything. Just another crying kid having a tantrum....GO HOME and retire Faucci...you really are worthless...and shut the hell up.

sun tzu , 24 minutes ago

Science is the truth, but scientists can and do lie.

BAMCIS , 24 minutes ago

Science has a PR problem. Mainly due to it only being accountable to itself and the fact that for all it lofty aspirations, Science has not been able to achieve escape volatility from the bounds of corruption that only Big Money can impose.

Plus Americans are culturally hard wired to view Science as an enemy. Luke, a dumb hick farmer who used his faith and tenacity to destroy the crown jewel of the evil technocrats, namely the Death Star. In most (if not all) James Bond movies the villains are mad scientists or industrialists using science for "evil". In "The Hunger Games", Katniss Everdean is again a bumpkin who wages war against the fancy people with their shiny tech in their decadent cities. Its the Urban/Rural dichotomy. Same as it ever was.

bh2 , 27 minutes ago

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." -- Feynman

vampirekiller , 29 minutes ago

No one believes a queertard that attempted to attribute a 100% preventable queer disease confined to the queer population to the majority heterosexual population. No one believes a queertard when current empirical data refutes his fearmongering.

Lux , 29 minutes ago

I'm still wondering why Fauci is even alive. Then again, the entire Pentagon is populated by traitors with offshore bank accounts, so..

smacker , 33 minutes ago

Someone needs to tell Fauci the reason why people don't believe the science is because it keeps changing and contradicts itself.

There is no centre of competence on this virus and conflicting advice, including from him.

Voice-of-Reason , 35 minutes ago

Science originally said we didn't need masks and now we do. The problem I have with Mr Fauci's form of science is that it is too easily manipulated by politics.

adr , 38 minutes ago

Hey Fauchole, is this science?

Upwards of 60% of people have natural immunity to Covid due to antibodies produced from four or more common coronaviruses.

I reject your "science" and replace it with real research.

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)30610-3

Rest Easy , 38 minutes ago

Well, yeah Dr. Fausti. We certainly did believe you. We didn't want to. But we are playing along. You know like at work. And like living like free citizens in a supposedly free country. By obliging you with shut-ins and shutdowns. And you terrorizing and bankrupting millions. Yeah I think we played along. And had faith in government and science. Cuz you said so. And would jail or punish those who did not. Take kids away. Send swat. Stuff like that. Had bills to pay. Those bills just keep on coming. And the nerve of those people wanting to like pay them! On time!

Government is only effective with the consent of the governed. You should know that. You should also say something about how that was shown to be very selective enforcement. Cuz riots or something. Do or don't matter? Confusing. They apparently can live of a billion dollars from bank of America and starkbucks and Wal-Mart. Or just not pay their bills at all. Or work. At a job. Where you have to show up on time, wear a mask and not burn **** down. Stuff like that.

You are throwing a tantrum. Because everyone, not quite everyone. Still doesn't obey you. Enough. To willingly line up for your vaccine. When it is ready. Of course. Seeing a little scary times ahead for your authority. Who do you answer to Dr. Fausti? Are they getting a little hot under your collar? Cuz science, right? Is what you most believe in. Not like something else. And as long as we are here. Why do you work for Trump? Or more to the point. Why does he employ you? Very confusing. Since he wants to maga. Supposedly.

Hal n back , 41 minutes ago

I wonder how he treats his subordinates who have different views

R2U2 , 40 minutes ago

Webster’s Dictionary, 1828:

JES'UITISM, noun

1. Cunning, deceit; hypocrisy; prevarication; deceptive practices to effect a purpose

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/jesuitism

"Two cankers are biting the very entrails of the United States today: the Romish and the Mormon priests. Both are quietly at work to form a people of the most abject, ignorant and fanatical slaves, who will recognize no other authority but their supreme pontiffs. Both are aiming at the destruction of our schools, to raise themselves upon our ruins. Both shelter themselves under our grand and holy principles of liberty of conscience, to destroy that very liberty of conscience, and bind the world before their heavy and ignominious yoke.

The Mormon and the Jesuit priests are equally the uncompromising enemies of our constitution and our laws; but the more dangerous of the two is the Jesuit—the Romish priest, for he knows better how to conceal his hatred under the mask of friendship and public good; he is better trained to commit the most cruel and diabolical deeds for the glory of God.”
--Abraham Lincoln, 1864; "Fifty Years in the Church of Rome,” Charles Chiniquy, 1888.

The CIA is roughly half Mormon and half Roman Catholic.

Stan Smith , 43 minutes ago

The reason people don't trust institutions is because they fail us time and time again.

All why sucking up resources for research (good) and making sure people inside the system are taken care of (less good).

The more Fauci talks the more he sounds like Al Gore. Not a good thing.

Lying about masks was bad. But lying about HC + Zinc is worse, at least in my mind.

To be fair to Fauci, that industry isnt the only one filled with dishonest schiesters.

They are everywhere.

Institutions aren't trusted because they've earned the distrust over decades. It's well earned.

Sid Davis , 46 minutes ago

Fauci is a complete fraud.

He graduated from medical school and then spent 2 years working in hospitals. That is the extent of his medical experience. For the last 50 years he has been a bureaucrat. He obviously has a conflict of interest because of his ties to the Gates Foundation, Big Pharma, and the Wuhan Lab where this mess started.

This guy belongs at the end of a rope, not at the top of the response team to this scamdemic.

He is a sociopathic conman, and not even very good at that.

Stillontheroad , 50 minutes ago

Hey Fucci. How much money to you stand to gain from all your patents, all granted when you worked for the Federal Government but because you had friends in Congress a law was passed giving you the proceeds from those patents when in the real world said patents belong to the USA

Voice-of-Reason , 52 minutes ago

Mr. Fauci,

We believe science. We just don't believe governmental controlled shutdowns are the answer to this pandemic and that it ultimately does more damage to the economy than it protects people from Covid19. And yes, we do not believe authority because they lie constantly, are corrupt and generally are incompetent.

Krink26 , 53 minutes ago

When authorities weaponized everything including science, for political gain, people will not trust your authority.

VideoEng_NC , 53 minutes ago

"Speaking on a podcast..."

This is the level of media Fauci seems to be relegated to plus his ever-welcoming friends for interviews with the MSM. Would appear Hungarian Pengos here on ZH was correct on his 05/21 post regarding the ulterior motives behind the announcement of Pence staffers getting the Wuhan virus making Fauci self isolate...for good. He doesn't even get to bake tree cookies.

Longdriver , 1 hour ago

Fauci's true colors are being shown now. He's getting testy because he is watching his future personal profits go up in smoke in controlled vaccines.

DoctorFix , 1 hour ago

"Dont believe science"? Sure, Dr. Falsey! I believe in the "science" you represent. The science of lies and criminal deception. The science of propaganda and manipulation. The kind of sciences that you wholeheartedly embrace.

k3g , 1 hour ago

Fauci's turn came, and he proved himself to be incompetent, a bureaucrat, a fraud.

**** you Tony. You flat out suck.

What is The Hedge , 1 hour ago

What Fauci is really saying is that Americans are no longer accepting the false narratives promoted by those in charge. Maybe there's hope.

Lumberjack , 1 hour ago

Mr. Fauci;

I’m your age and have a pretty strong background in engineering, science and some other practical skills.

Over the last 30 years science has been bastardized by politicization and liberalism has finally reached the point of teaching kids 2+3= anything they want.

Political science is based on fraud and bull$hit and now the real deal is as contaminated as Fukushima.

Your comment about “authotity” screams of idiocracy. Try watering your crops with gatorade and fertilizing with MDMA.

I know and knew real Phd’s who were real scientists and that’s when science was based on theory, tests, duplication and verification.

That is no longer the case. It’s idiots like you, book smart field stupid ( I’m being kind with book smart), The only thing you a$$wipes are looking for is 10 minutes of fame, a bunch of money and molesting your interns and students with big boobs that need a passing grade.

When as usual your astrological prognotications are bad (which are 99% of the time), you find convenient parties to blame.

It’s time to put real science into both science and leadership.

I have high hopes that this will happen sooner rather than later.

Kid’s take note and see how many times they claimed eggs are bad for you and then they said eggs are good for you. That goes for many other items and issues too.

Yesireebob, You screwed the pooch Mr. Fauci and I’m calling PETA right now.

Lj

NotAGenius , 1 hour ago

Why the hell does ZH give Fauci the incredibly dishonest cruel idiot any venue. He's a liar and is the cause of the destruction of the USA by telling Trump we'd have a million covid-19 deaths unless it was shut down and everyone stayed home. So Trump wiped out the country and all of our lives on Fauci's b.s. That is what Fauci is, at best. Do not give him any public platform to lie even more yet to the cowardly stupid clueless Americans. Fauci does not deserve any recognition or platform for lies anywhere in the USA. But he's given the stage because the government apparently supports his lies. They are all guilty of treason and mass destruction of civilization. I want both executed at best, or at least humiliated with public avoidance.

brian91145 , 1 hour ago

he is owned by the Rockefllers and Gates. That's a fact

radical-extremist , 1 hour ago

Scientists that can never bring themselves to say "I don't know." , are not scientists...they're blathering charlatans pumping their brand and feeding their egos. Fauci is much like Paul Krugman. He speaks with such confidence and certainty about everything, that surely he must be right. And when proven wrong will do it again with the opposing view, ignoring the fact he ever said it to begin with...as if there's no internet.

SurfingUSA , 1 hour ago

Yes true scientists are extremely humble and cautious, bec. they know how much they don't know.

FragNasty , 1 hour ago

Hee hee, greatings to all.

Science is meant to be based on evidence rather than faith. Maybe Fauci himself doesn't believe in science with his inclination to the contrary. "Americans don't believe ..." The man is a maniac! Maybe he is accidentally confessing to the state of "science" as a counterpart to religion in it's role as an ideological control mechanism within the state of politics today, more precisely the breakdown of such a control mechanism.

Often is man's best wisdom to be silent , 1 hour ago

Marionettes can easily be transformed into hanged persons. The ropes are already there.

Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

BaNNeD oN THe RuN , 1 hour ago

He is right...

Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.

~ Isaac Asimov

But he is also one of the reasons that the anti-intellectual movement can maintain momentum. Too many of the "authoritative voices" in positions of power are total charlatans.

Itchy and Scratchy , 1 hour ago

This yap flappin’ freak show in on the board of Gates controlled WHO & various other big pharma boards! His crooked snoot is buried so far into the cash flow trough it ain’t even funny! Embezzlement poster child!

Handful of Dust , 1 hour ago

"Fauci the Fraud" will go down in history who will not remember him kindly.

Totally_Disillusioned , 1 hour ago

Fauci doesn't seem to understand WE DON'T BELIEVE HIM ANY LONGER!

SuperareDolo , 6 minutes ago

You never should have believed him. He was behind the attempt to steal credit for the discovery of HIV by his underling, Gallo. There's a long story there.

Yog Soggoth , 1 hour ago

I believe Fauci gave the Wuhan lab $3.7 million.

We_The_People , 1 hour ago

That’s not entirely true, we just believe fraudulent agenda driven traitors like you!

Fauci’s estimates were so off that the only 2 conclusions can be formed, gross negligence or intentional deception, either way he has zero credibility left!

[Jun 19, 2020] I Warned About the COVID and Now I Feel Like a Fool

Notable quotes:
"... Anthony DiMauro is a freelance writer based in New York City. His work has appeared in ..."
"... , Real Clear Media, and elsewhere. You can follow him on Twitter @AnthonyMDiMauro. ..."
Jun 15, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

We do still need to worry about the coronavirus's spread. But how can we when the experts have completely forsaken our trust? Dr. Anthony Fauci (L), director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases speaks next to Response coordinator for White House Coronavirus Task Force Deborah Birx, during a meeting with US President Donald Trump and Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards D-LA in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC on April 29, 2020. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Since the pandemic began, I've been described as a so-called "COVID warrior," which makes some sense. After all, I've defended the shutdowns of large gatherings. I've insisted that it's wise to temporarily close churches and postpone funerals and other ceremonies. I've argued that extreme caution is necessary -- that to do anything else would be to blatantly and selfishly ignore the scientific information at our disposal. I've held the opinion that, although it has caused irrevocable harm to the economy and caused millions of people to suffer, business owners who close up shop for fear of spreading contagion are in the right.

Now I feel like a fool.

By no means am I a coronavirus denier -- more than 100,000 and counting have died from the COVID. But with conflicting reports about everything from wearing masks to the spread of the virus through surfaces coming out of the World Health Organization and the CDC almost weekly, my head is spinning. Nothing seems to make sense anymore.

For fear of spreading the virus, health experts have consistently recommended shutting down and avoiding public spaces, including schools , playgrounds , public pools , and public transportation . They've also advocated for limiting large gatherings and closing anything that might draw crowds. It's advice that's been repeated for months -- to the point that those ignoring it have been reviled and accused of experimenting with " human sacrifice ."

That's because asymptomatic carriers of the virus, though they may feel all right themselves, can become mass spreaders of the deadly contagion, especially in large groups. This is why Michigan residents protesting their state's lockdown in Lansing were deserving of shame -- they likely caused mass immiseration and sickness, right?

Wrong. Turns out, health officials didn't really believe any of that.

Just last week, the WHO announced that it's extremely rare for asymptomatic spreading of the coronavirus to occur. If you feel fine, then you're probably not a grave threat to anyone, especially if you're wearing a mask and gloves. Then the WHO backtracked on that statement, ultimately arriving at the completely unhelpful determination that " this is a major unknown ." Health experts simply don't know to what extent the disease is transmitted by asymptomatic carriers -- yet they still feel confident that the risks of the coronavirus shouldn't impact our protesting of police brutality.

One rightly wonders how, within a span of weeks, we went from shaming people for being out in the streets to shaming those who won't join the crowd .

What's more, contact with infected animals and surfaces is unlikely to cause COVID-19 to spread, and chlorine kills the virus upon contact, so clean pools are also safe. But of course, many schools, playgrounds, pools, and businesses were forced to close.

Livelihoods have been destroyed, children are paying a high price through a loss of time and key social-educational development, and mental health across the country is on the decline .

And now some journalists from prominent publications -- the same ones that have been demanding oh-so-extreme caution -- are performing breathtaking gymnastics in an effort to backtrack, explaining that there's no evidence of outdoor coronavirus spread. Now, it's "prolonged indoor close contact" that we have to worry about.

They may be right. Maybe protesters really shouldn't worry (though they probably should ). But that doesn't excuse what seems to be a disgusting hypocrisy that trampled on the livelihoods of more than 30 million Americans. Understandably, many are outraged and have lost all faith in the experts.

Health advice can't shift with politics -- COVID-19, cancer, and the flu don't know party lines. The virus is either unmanageable or manageable. That's it.

Now, with Trump aiming to restart his so-called "MAGA rallies," we'll inevitably have -- and already have had -- another round of tut-tutting from the media about how horribly irresponsible it is to gather in crowds. But who can possibly blame those who shrug these warnings off? MAGA rallies very well could spread COVID-19, but in the event they do, the George Floyd protests will be equally culpable. Expert credibility has been lost.

Maybe we should, as many of my more classically liberal friends have been saying all along, allow people to make their own choices, take their own risks, open their own businesses back up, hold their own protests against injustice.

Whatever the case, given the whiplash the public has experienced over these past few weeks, we certainly won't be running to health experts as readily as before. Certainly, social distancing practices have helped flatten the curve, but living your life based on the inconsistent messaging of the WHO and the CDC is a recipe for disaster. If a second wave does appear, it will be cautious individuals and community innovation that provides the solutions -- not those who have done nothing to earn our trust.

Anthony DiMauro is a freelance writer based in New York City. His work has appeared in The National Interest , Real Clear Media, and elsewhere. You can follow him on Twitter @AnthonyMDiMauro.

[Jun 18, 2020] Most Coronavirus Tests Cost About $100. Why Did One Cost $2,315? U.S. health care prices are unregulated, opaque and unpredictable

Notable quotes:
"... "We've seen a small number of laboratories that are charging egregious prices for Covid-19 tests," said Angie Meoli, a senior vice president at Aetna, one of the insurers required to cover testing costs. ..."
"... The second outcome is huge price variation, as each doctor's office and hospital sets its own charges for care. One 2012 study found that hospitals in California charge between $1,529 and $182,955 for uncomplicated appendectomies. ..."
"... "It's not unheard-of that one hospital can charge 100 times the price of another for the same thing," said Dr. Renee Hsia, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and an author of the appendectomy study. "There is no other market I can think of where that happens except health care." ..."
"... But American patients will eventually bear the costs of these expensive tests in the form of higher insurance premiums. In some cases, they are paying for additional tests, for flu and other respiratory diseases, that doctors tack onto coronavirus orders. Those charges are not exempt from co-payments and can fall into a patient's deductible. ..."
"... Those kinds of bills could make patients wary of seeking care or testing in the future, which could enable the further spread of coronavirus. In an April poll, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that most Americans were worried they wouldn't be able to afford coronavirus testing or treatment if they needed it . ..."
Jun 18, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

anne ,

June 16, 2020 11:05 am

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/16/upshot/coronavirus-test-cost-varies-widely.html

June 16, 2020

Most Coronavirus Tests Cost About $100. Why Did One Cost $2,315?
U.S. health care prices are unregulated, opaque and unpredictable. When Congress required insurers to cover Covid-19 testing, a few providers decided to take advantage.
By Sarah Kliff

In a one-story brick building in suburban Dallas, between a dentist office and a family medicine clinic, is a medical laboratory that has run some of the most expensive coronavirus tests in America.

Insurers have paid Gibson Diagnostic Labs as much as $2,315 for individual coronavirus tests. In a couple of cases, the price rose as high as $6,946 when the lab said it mistakenly charged patients three times the base rate.

The company has no special or different technology from, say, major diagnostic labs that charge $100. It is one of a small number of medical labs, hospitals and emergency rooms taking advantage of the way Congress has designed compensation for coronavirus tests and treatment.

"We've seen a small number of laboratories that are charging egregious prices for Covid-19 tests," said Angie Meoli, a senior vice president at Aetna, one of the insurers required to cover testing costs.

How can a simple coronavirus test cost $100 in one lab and 2,200 percent more in another? It comes back to a fundamental fact about the American health care system: The government does not regulate health care prices.

This tends to have two major outcomes that health policy experts have seen before, and are seeing again with coronavirus testing.

The first is high prices over all. Most medical care in the United States costs double or triple what it would in a peer country. An appendectomy, for example, costs $3,050 in Britain and $6,710 in New Zealand, two countries that regulate health prices. In the United States, the average price is $13,020.

The second outcome is huge price variation, as each doctor's office and hospital sets its own charges for care. One 2012 study found that hospitals in California charge between $1,529 and $182,955 for uncomplicated appendectomies.

"It's not unheard-of that one hospital can charge 100 times the price of another for the same thing," said Dr. Renee Hsia, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and an author of the appendectomy study. "There is no other market I can think of where that happens except health care."

There is little evidence that higher prices correlate with better care. What's different about the more expensive providers is that they've set higher prices for their services.

Patients are, in the short run, somewhat protected from big coronavirus testing bills. The federal government set aside $1 billion to pick up the tab for uninsured Americans who get tested. For the insured, federal laws require that health plans cover the full costs of coronavirus testing without applying a deductible or co-payment.

But American patients will eventually bear the costs of these expensive tests in the form of higher insurance premiums. In some cases, they are paying for additional tests, for flu and other respiratory diseases, that doctors tack onto coronavirus orders. Those charges are not exempt from co-payments and can fall into a patient's deductible.

Those kinds of bills could make patients wary of seeking care or testing in the future, which could enable the further spread of coronavirus. In an April poll, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that most Americans were worried they wouldn't be able to afford coronavirus testing or treatment if they needed it .

[Jun 17, 2020] Saagar Enjeti- Dems, media CAUGHT covering up coronavirus outbreak data from protests - YouTube

Jun 17, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Dan McFarland , 13 hours ago

CNN has tested negative for journalism and positive for severe TDS.

Herby Radmann , 13 hours ago

DeFund Corporate Media... We need to call this out much more... And prioritize it on our list of things needing attention/change!..

Knapweed , 12 hours ago

"The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it."― George Orwell

Person Of Interest , 12 hours ago

The media's job is to mislead, confuse and divide.

Ash87 , 12 hours ago

Absolutely nothing about how the US has responded to the Corona Virus could be mistaken for being based on data. I mean getting into the "spike" people are talking about, in Alabama where I live this is no spike, this is a continuation of the trend we've been seeing since March. Cases never significantly declined, and instead we've just seen steady growth in deaths, active cases, and new cases. The increases we've seen have followed 2 weeks after what was basically the final wave to reopening (Which, really isn't, but public perception was that life could go back to normal based on statements from the state), almost perfectly. I am sure we'll see trends continue as protesters who were exposed start getting sick. It will just compound with the day to day effect that can easily be directed at the miscommunication of what the threat is to the public. Make no mistake, Saagar is right to be annoyed but there is Nothing here that has been handled remotely well. Nobody communicated this well, nobody planned well, nobody reopened well. Front to back, top to bottom this has been an embarrassing failure for the US.

C. C. , 12 hours ago

We seriously have news analysts stating public health officials "can't just make stuff up." This is deep.

Patty Johnson , 11 hours ago

It seems likely that both are true. The protests AND the lifting of stay-at-home orders are contributing to the rise in cases.

Tyler Hackner , 13 hours ago

The media establishment is gonna pay the price for its misinformation and lack of data

richard tavilla , 12 hours ago

Here is how they trick you .true example ,Arizona had a 1600 spike they didn't mention that only out of all those people one was hospitalized

mrfrosty3 , 13 hours ago

Glenn Greenwald's video on the intercept about this was excellent. The medical and public health establishment need to be neutral, people aren't going to trust them again.

Paul Moulton , 12 hours ago (edited)

The truth is covering up the truth is the job of the MSM. Update: A person on twitter mentioned that the question asked is more general in nature. "Did you attend an event where they were likely to be exposed" . Now this seems entirely reasonable as it gets higher quality results. If this is indeed the case, then this is fake news. Somebody with an agenda planted the seed and it grew here.

Jack Bradford , 12 hours ago

Common sense tells you that nurses doctors and dentists wear masks for a reason you dont need a Fake Media to tell you anything.

Michael Teresko , 9 hours ago

People KNOW that our leaders are liers, at a time when all we want and need is honesty. We can do better. Lets vote EVERY SINGLE INCUMBENT OUT and start fresh.

Kelly Cook , 11 hours ago

I told others at the time we were told wearing masks wasn't necessary that that makes no logical or empirical sense. Persons more educated than me believed it.

smu72 , 12 hours ago

Totally agree with Saagar here. But I don't regret staying home. I think quarantine kept cases down. And now, 2-3 months later, we know more and have more information.

Joseph Ehlers , 13 hours ago

"Never put passion before principle, even if win, you lose." - Mr Miyagi

Chris Nelson , 12 hours ago

It is a great indicator of where we are at as a country, when a pandemic marches on, and all our leaders can do is try to manipulate numbers for political gain. Dem's and Republicans have taken dysfunctional to 11!

Jack Bradford , 12 hours ago

Well thats your billionaire Fake media for you.

Luckyleft13 , 10 hours ago

Dave Chappelle pointed out in his latest standup that those we depend upon for information lie to us. CNN, Fox News and the like are all meant to polarize the citizens. Obviously it has been working!

[Jun 17, 2020] Fauci admitted that US government lied to people about efficiently of wearing masks as individual protection

He admitted that their initial recommendation were dictated by lack of masks. The sheer dishonesty of Fauci is staggering. He should go.
Jun 17, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Ash87 , 12 hours ago

Absolutely nothing about how the US has responded to the Corona Virus could be mistaken for being based on data. I mean getting into the "spike" people are talking about, in Alabama where I live this is no spike, this is a continuation of the trend we've been seeing since March. Cases never significantly declined, and instead we've just seen steady growth in deaths, active cases, and new cases.

The increases we've seen have followed 2 weeks after what was basically the final wave to reopening (Which, really isn't, but public perception was that life could go back to normal based on statements from the state), almost perfectly. I am sure we'll see trends continue as protesters who were exposed start getting sick. It will just compound with the day to day effect that can easily be directed at the miscommunication of what the threat is to the public.

Make no mistake, Saagar is right to be annoyed but there is Nothing here that has been handled remotely well. Nobody communicated this well, nobody planned well, nobody reopened well. Front to back, top to bottom this has been an embarrassing failure for the US.

Tyler Hackner , 13 hours ago

The media establishment is gonna pay the price for its misinformation and lack of data

mrfrosty3 , 13 hours ago

Glenn Greenwald's video on the intercept about this was excellent. The medical and public health establishment need to be neutral, people aren't going to trust them again.

Jack Bradford , 12 hours ago

Common sense tells you that nurses doctors and dentists wear masks for a reason you dont need a Fake Media to tell you anything.

Luckyleft13 , 10 hours ago

Dave Chappelle pointed out in his latest standup that those we depend upon for information lie to us. CNN, Fox News and the like are all meant to polarize the citizens. Obviously it has been working!

cptbacon35 , 11 hours ago

I had this discussion with my best friend in March. I was questioning how is it the masks can be useless for those trying to prevent infections, but was efficient for those that had infection. Yet medical workers were using surgical masks while working around covid patients. It was easy to conclude that it was to prevent panic buying. Even if the MSM was truthful (I do not condone them lying), IMO people would have still bought out all of the masks. Just as they did with all the toilet paper and hand sanitizer.

[Jun 16, 2020] The COVID-19 Pandemic Has Caused Bicycle Shortage

People are buying bikes like previous they hunted for toilet paper
Jun 16, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Bikes at large U.S. retailers like Wal-Mart and Target have been missing from shelves for weeks. Independent shops are also doing "brisk business" and are selling out of bikes, according to AP . In fact, over the last two months, bike sales have seen their biggest spike since the oil crisis of the 1970s.

[Jun 15, 2020] Ending Emergency Unemployment Insurance Supplements

Jun 15, 2020 | angrybearblog.com
  1. anne , June 14, 2020 4:47 pm

    https://cepr.net/ending-emergency-unemployment-insurance-supplements/

    June 10, 2020

    Ending Emergency Unemployment Insurance Supplements
    By DEAN BAKER

    The Republicans have been working hard to ensure that the $600 weekly supplement to unemployment insurance benefits, which was put in place as part of the pandemic rescue package, is not extended beyond the current July 31 cutoff. They argue that we need people to return to work.

    They do have a point. The supplement is equivalent to pay of $15 an hour for someone working a 40-hour week, and this is in addition to a regular benefit that is typically equal to 40 to 50 percent of workers' pay. The supplement translates into an even larger hourly pay rate for workers putting in shorter workweeks, which was the case for most laid off workers in the restaurant and retail sectors.

    It is hard for employers in traditionally low paying sectors to match these pay rates. Even those of us who are big proponents of higher minimum wages would not advocate a jump to more than $20 an hour at a point when businesses are crippled by the pandemic.

    However, there is also the point that we don't want workers to have to expose themselves to the coronavirus. That was the reason for the generous supplement. We wanted to make sure that workers, who in many cases were legally prevented from working, did not suffer as a result.

    There is an obvious solution here. Suppose we reduce or end the supplement in areas where the pandemic is under control.

    This would not be determined by some Trumpian declaration that the pandemic is over, but by solid data. The obvious metric would be positive test rates. Suppose that the supplement was reduced or eliminated in states or counties where the positive test rate is less than 5 percent. (This may not be the right rate.) This would mean that workers going back to work would face relatively little risk of contracting the virus. It would also give states incentive to conduct vigorous testing programs, as well as other control measures, in order to get their positive rates down.

    Our unemployment insurance system is badly broken and it would be desirable to have more generous benefits, and also to focus more on work sharing, as other countries have done. We can recognize this point and still agree that an arbitrary supplement to all benefits is not the right long-term fix even if it was very good policy in the pandemic.

[Jun 14, 2020] COVID-19 Low-Wage Essential Workers Get Less Protection Less Information Consortiumnews

Notable quotes:
"... This article is republished from ..."
"... under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article . ..."
Jun 14, 2020 | consortiumnews.com

L ow-wage essential workers are more likely to face dangerous working conditions and food insecurity than high-wage workers, even more so during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Our research provides some of the first data on the safety of essential workers during the pandemic.

Our findings suggest that Covid-19 is not the " great equalizer ," as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo once called it. In fact, inequality is getting worse .

We found that across income levels, roughly two-thirds of essential workers were unable to practice social distancing . Low-wage essential workers include grocery clerks, home health aides and delivery drivers, while high-wage workers include nurses, doctors and managers.

However, low-wage workers were two to three times more likely than high-wage workers – workers earning over $40/hour – to lack other forms of protections, including access to masks, hand sanitizer, training on how to prevent Covid-19 transmission or regular hand-washing opportunities.

L ow Wages, High Rates of Infection

In our study, we surveyed over 1,600 essential workers in western Massachusetts, a hot spot for Covid-19 , who were at work between April 17 and April 24, 2020. We wanted to learn about the experiences at work and at home of those who stayed on the job.

At the close of April, Massachusetts had the third-highest Covid-19 case count of all states .

We reached essential workers through targeted Facebook advertisements, a method that allows researchers to engage with emerging or hard-to-reach groups of people .

Although they do essential jobs, many essential workers are low-wage, earning under $20 an hour. While there are several ways to define low-wage, this is the definition we used in our study.

Infection risks & Food Insecurity

Not surprisingly, low-wage workers reported feeling less safe at work than high-wage workers. While 44 percent of high-wage workers reported not feeling safe, this percentage increased by 10 points to 54 percent for low wage workers.

Low wages were also a key indicator of food security. One in three low-wage respondents reported that they were unable to provide for themselves or their family in mid-April.

One of our survey respondents wrote, "We are risking infecting our family by working, and they don't give us anything extra in our paychecks to be able to buy more food. What we earn is for paying rent, electricity, insurance, and the rest is barely enough to buy food."

Others wrote that unemployment checks would be higher than they are paid as essential workers.

Over the past few months, Covid-19 has exposed and exacerbated inequities, including the safety of low-wage workers. From our perspective, safety is not just an issue for essential workers' health. It fundamentally impacts our ability to reopen and stay open.

Jasmine Kerrissey is assistant professor of sociology and labor studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Clare Hammonds is professor of practice and graduate program director at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

Aaron , June 13, 2020 at 13:53

And not only do the higher paid have better ppe, they don't even need ppe in most cases, because they're working AT HOME, that's the best advantage of all that they enjoy. And if you narrowed it down to under 15$, the inequality would be even greater. Something that makes me lose faith in people is when I grocery shop and half of the customers don't wear ppe, stupid for themselves, but the equivalent of giving the middle finger to store employees. While our government and business leaders have failed us, our own citizens are failing to be cautious also, it drives me crazy, the pandemic here is so much worse than it has to be, so much is and has been preventable, but it'll never get better until everybody is on the same page. After all these months of information about how the respiratory virus spreads available to anybody, those who still go out regularly w/o ppe I can only assume are puppets of conservative media, or just really, really dumb, and perhaps both.

[Jun 13, 2020] Robots are coming: More Drone Deliveries Being Tested in America

Jun 13, 2020 | tech.slashdot.org

Long-time Slashdot reader necro81 writes:

For several years, Zipline has deployed autonomous, fixed-wing airplane drones for medical supply deliveries in Rwanda . Now they have received permission to test their aircraft in the U.S., ferrying COVID-19 supplies from a depot to a hospital in North Carolina .

The practical benefit is small: the cargo is modest amounts of PPE that could have been delivered by truck in about 20 minutes. But this is a big deal, because it required a waiver from the FAA for the planes to operate fully autonomously and beyond visual line-of-sight -- just launch and forget. It is happening in proximity to an airport no less.

The article notes it's America's "first drone delivery operation to be approved to fly in airspace where all air traffic is actively managed by the FAA."

But meanwhile, another headline this week at the Washington Post tells us that Google-backed drones "will drop library books so kids in Virginia can do their summer reading." Wing, a company owned by Google parent Alphabet, started delivering household goods and meals [and prescriptions] from Walgreens and local restaurants to a limited area of the southwest Virginia town that covers several thousand homes last October. The company has seen a jump in demand during the pandemic as people are increasingly staying home and avoiding crowded spaces like grocery stores, said Keith Heyde, head of Virginia operations for Wing. The company reached a high of 1,000 deliveries globally in a single week this spring, he said.

And they're not the only companies experimenting with drone deliveries, according to Forbes: UPS and CVS have also paired up with a focus on medical products. The two companies are partnering to use drones to deliver prescriptions to residents of The Villages in Florida, one of the country's biggest retirement communities. The deliveries come from a CVS store about a half mile away and mark the first paid residential deliveries by UPS's drone unit Flight Forward. The drones drop the prescriptions to a central location, where a Flight Forward employee will ferry them by golf cart to homes.

Chennai, India, and Surabaya, Indonesia have tried using drones to spray disinfectant in crowded cities. But Forbes reports that around the world, "the biggest use case has been the deployment of drones to enforce social distancing and monitor crowds." Although at least one Paris prefect complains that there's still one problem with the drones. "Sometimes they are attacked by birds, which mistake them for rivals."

[Jun 13, 2020] How the Lockdowns Emerged

Jun 13, 2020 | www.serendipity.li

... ... ...

The origin of this panic seems to have been a report from CNN on January 26 of an alleged statement by China's health minister Ma Xiaowei that people who are (supposedly) infected by the virus can infect others without themselves showing any symptoms of illness. If that were true then you could be infected just by walking down the street -- clearly a reason to panic. Ma didn't explain why he thought the virus can be spread before someone has symptoms, but that didn't stop Dr. William Schaffner, a longtime adviser to the CDC, from taking this claim seriously -- in effect endorsing it. Other CDC officials took up the theme. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases picked up the ball and ran with it. Dr. Fauci is quoted as saying, "the Chinese did not tell U.S. health authorities that the virus could spread before someone is symptomatic", thus implicitly suggesting that indeed that was the case. This was denied by epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm, who stated, "I know of no evidence in 17 years of working with coronaviruses ... where anyone has been found to be infectious during their incubation period." On January 30 the New England Journal of Medicine published a letter from 16 German doctors claiming that a symptomless Chinese woman (arriving from China) had infected a German man in Munich, but when they got around to actually asking her, she said that while in Munich she had in fact shown symptoms, which worsened on her return to China. Thanks to CNN, Dr. Fauci,and the German doctors, the rumor of symptomless transition morphed into "fact" among government officials and the general public. From then on the MSM issued increasingly alarming reports of deaths due to this (allegedly) new illness, ignoring the fact that people were (as usual) dying of the (not reported) seasonal flu.

John Nolte: Dr. Fauci Is Either a Liar or a Fraud And for a devastating exposé of the 36-year career of this vile quack doctor see the final article in William Engdahl's Covid article compilation here .

In February, as Italy began reporting infections, Prof. Neil Ferguson, Head of the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College London, dusted off a computer program he had written 15 years ago implementing a model for infectious disease spreading. Using data available from Italy he concluded (following his history of vastly over-estimating deaths in previous epidemics) that 510,000 people (2.5 million in the U.S.) could die if the U.K. government didn't abandon its strategy at that time of allowing the disease to spread. On February 23 in Italy the first lockdowns and compulsory "social distancing" began. Early in March Britain also imposed lockdowns, later extended to the entire U.K., despite the fact that Prof. Ferguson had revised his death toll estimate from 510,000 down to 20,000.

The term "lockdown" normally means keeping prisoners locked down in their cells, typically following a riot. It was also used in the MSM following the Boston Marathon Bombing in 2013 (likely a false flag) to confine people to their homes until given permission to come out -- a trial run?

On March 7 one Dr. James Lawler (U. of University Medical Center) misinformed the world (to the delight of the MSM) that about 96 million Americans could become infected with coronavirus, of whom about half a million would die. On March 11 the WHO, after much delay, declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. On March 15 New York mayor Bill de Blasio declared (with no evidence) that the virus can spread rapidly through "close interactions," and issued an order (which was soon after repeated by governors of many other states) to close restaurants, bars and cafes. On March 16 most European countries imposed lockdowns and border closures. On March 20 New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (along with governors of many other states) shut down all "non-essential businesses", thereby depriving millions of people of their jobs and their livelihoods, leading to bankruptcies and suicides. By March 30 approximately 265 million Americans were under indefinite lockdown and martial law in all but name.

In late April a 'revised' version of the computer code written by Ferguson to predict 510,000 deaths in the U.K. was released to the GitHub code repository. It was examined by an anonymous ex-Google software engineer, who found numerous flaws and bugs, in particular that, from the same input data the program would produce very different outputs. This makes it useless for scientific purposes, and also worse than useless as a basis for political decisions (and consequently as a justification for government orders). Further details at Computer model that locked down the world turns out to be sh*tcode.

A comment (by Frito) on Zero Hedge about Ferguson's shoddy code:
The thing that really has me pissed off, is that my government [the U.K.] (and many others around the world), jumped in and spent hundreds of billions of dollars and suspended the civil liberties of millions of people indefinitely and destroyed the livelihoods of countless small business people based on just one unverified source [that is, Ferguson]. There was ZERO due diligence done. The first thing that should have been done was to require the production of the full source code for the simulation software (as it was run, not this "cleaned up" stuff), and all input data so that it could be verified. If they didn't want to provide it, then the simulation results should have been discarded.

Ferguson's "scientific" advice was bogus, and Boris Johnson was criminally negligent in accepting it and ordering the lockdown of the entire U.K. But will they ever see jail time for wrecking the U.K. economy and ruining the lives of millions of people? No way.

[Jun 13, 2020] CDC Reiterates Mask Recommendations as Virus Continues to Spread - Bloomberg

Admitting their own blunder: Better late then never
Jun 13, 2020 | www.bloomberg.com

Masks "are strongly encouraged in settings where individuals might raise their voice," the CDC guidance said.

The agency also recommended limiting attendance to allow for distancing.

[Jun 12, 2020] The Elevator Arises As The Latest Logjam In Getting Back To Work

Jun 12, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

dbk , June 11, 2020 at 9:05 am

This is one of the critical issues involving office workers' return to on-site operations imho.

Another: Pre-boarding crowding, especially if a limit on no. of passengers per trip is imposed.

Another: Office buildings whose windows don't open.

So to recap, office workers will be faced with the following sources of possible infection: (a) public transportation (most use the subway); (b) waiting in crowds for the elevator; (c) the elevator; (d) the office itself.

One of my children works in NYC on the 15th floor of a 20-floor building. The organization has approx. 200 employees. There are three elevators serving these 20 floors, one of which is permanently out of service, leaving two (one or the other of which is also out of order on any given day).

Assuming about 200 people working on each floor, that's 4,000 people to get up (and down) daily. With 5 persons per trip, that's 800 trips – 400 per elevator, assuming both are in service (infrequent).

Just for one floor, an elevator would require 40 trips (40 x 5 = 200); assuming 3 min. per trip, that's 120 minutes total, i.e. 2 hours to get a single floor of employees up in (relatively) safe conditions if only one elevator is functional, and an hour if both are.

And that's before an employee has even started their workday in an open-plan office space without outside ventilation.

jcmcdonal , June 11, 2020 at 9:32 am

My wife's work, at 18 floors, had an estimated 3.5 hours to get everyone into the building following all procedures, and then another 3.5 to get everyone out. It's just not feasible. She is wfh through 2020, and likely until we totally give up on protections.

Dogwood , June 11, 2020 at 10:29 am

This article gives good reasons for the success of Paris and Japan public transit in avoiding becoming superspreader sites – maybe worth noting in a discussion around riding elevators:

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2020/06/coronavirus-risk-transit-france-japan-trains-subway-buses/612841/

RODGER MALCOLM MITCHELL , June 11, 2020 at 10:58 am

The article completely misses the point. The primary transmission of the virus is not by touching surfaces. It's by inhaling droplets. COVID-19 could be stopped in its tracks if everyone simply wore a mask.

It needn't even be an N-95. Those cheap surgical masks that are in boxes outside hospital rooms will catch saliva and prevent it from being transmitted.

The illustration shows a person, not wearing a mask!

Repeat this slogan until it sinks in: MY MASK PROTECTS YOU. YOUR MASK PROTECTS ME. WEAR A MASK.

Then you won't have to walk up and down 40 flights of stairs or try social distancing in an elevator box.

If everyone wore a mask, COVID-19 would disappear within 14 days. See: https://mythfighter.com/2020/05/05/surprisingly-simple-way-to-open-america-and-avoid-a-depression/

[Jun 12, 2020] How A German City Proved That Wearing Masks Works

The mask problem in the USA has a much simpler origin: the USA simply don't have the means to give masks for everyone anymore. It is heavily deindustrialized.
The CDC actually advised against wearing masks until April 6, even though there were studies showing that some types of home-made masks were 70% effective against molecules the size of Corona. N95 were found to be 95% effective.
Jun 11, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Coronavirus - How A German City Proved That Wearing Masks Works Blue Dotterel , Jun 11 2020 19:09 utc | 1

A new study shows that mandatory mask wearing is the most effective measure during the Covid-19 epidemic.

On March 23 we started to urge everyone to wear masks during the Covid-19 pandemic:

Wearing a mask helps with protecting oneself but even more importantly helps to protect others. One might be carrying and spreading the disease without knowing it. We all release fine droplets when we speak, sneeze or cough. Masks prevent one's droplets from spreading out.

There was and still is a lot of cultural resistance in 'western' societies to wearing masks even as it seem obvious that masks help to prevent infections. But while there was evidence that masks work in certain situation there was no scientific research that showed the effects general mask wearing would have on the growth of the epidemic. We did not know how much general mask wearing would 'flatten the curve'.

We now have a sound answer. There is now a study that compares a city which ordered everyone to wear masks with a similar city that had no 'mask-up' order during the same period of the epidemic.

On April 6 the German city of Jena with a population of 110,000 people ordered everyone to wear a mask in all public settings. The announcement of the order was made a week earlier and was followed by a local awareness campaign - "Jena wears mask!"

No other city in Germany did this at the time. The states of Germany only ordered mandatory mask wearing between April 22 and 26.

For 20 days Jena was different than the rest of the country but experienced the same epidemic. That made it possible to test the effect the mask order had on the number of new cases in Jena.

To be able to make a one to one comparison with Jena researchers from the University of Mainz constructed a 'synthetic city' of the same size and demographic characteristics as Jena from the weighted data of six other German cities (selected from a bigger pool). They then compared the Covid-19 case data from Jena with the case data from the synthetic city.

At the beginning of the pandemic in Germany the synthetic city and Jena had similar developments. But ten days after the announcement of the order and four days after its mandatory implementation the case numbers in Jena dropped away from those of the comparison city.


bigger

The people in Jena started to wear masks before other German cities did so. It nearly immediately paid off.

At the time of the announcement of the mask campaign Jena and the synthetic control city each had 93 cases. On April 6 Jena had 142 registered cases compared to 143 cases in the synthetic control city. On April 26 Jena counted 158 cases and the synthetic control city had 205 cases. It shows a significant reduction in the growth of the epidemic.

The authors conclude:

We believe that the reduction in the growth rates of infections by 40% to 60% is our best estimate of the effects of face masks.
...
We should also stress that 40 to 60% might still be a lower bound. The daily growth rates in the number of infections when face masks were introduced was around 2 to 3%. These are very low growth rates compared to the early days of the epidemic in Germany, where daily growth rates also lay above 50%. One might therefore conjecture that the effects might have been even greater if masks had been introduced earlier.

Japan and South Korea both brought the epidemic under control without ordering harsh lockdowns. The people there all wore masks from very early on even without being ordered to do so. The two countries also did extensive testing and contact tracing for each new case. Together these measures were enough to stop the outbreak.

Why didn't we copy them?

It was 'western' arrogance that prevented our societies from learning from China and other Asian societies. We should have used the time China had given us . The economic and human price for not having done so is very high. No doubt the masks help in preventing the spread when used properly, as well as gloves and distancing, but I wouldn't put too much faith in any studies.

The lockdown approaches themselves may have done more, but even those vary in method from one state to the next. Additionally, closing of borders to potential carriers from other countries seems important, as well as the virulence of the particular strain. Then there seems to be a massive divergence in counting and testing for the virus and recording virus deaths.

There are a lot of variables to control for an reliable study. And I seriously doubt any study has done so, particularly given the politicization of the crisis and the venal opportunism of Big Pharma and its bought and paid for medical journals.


Trailer Trash , Jun 11 2020 19:16 utc | 2

Western arrogance, sure, but is that the most important factor?

Since US peons live in a democracy, let's review the meeting minutes and memos and emails of our dear leaders to see what their thinking was. Oh wait. There are no meeting minutes. Everything is secret and opaque so as to not worry the pretty little heads of peons.

Guess we are once again reduced to speculation and gossip. Let the rumors begin.

vk , Jun 11 2020 19:34 utc | 3
I don't think the mask problem has anything to do with Western arrogance. Not at all.

The mask problem has a much simpler origin: the Western nations simply don't have the means to give masks for everyone anymore. It is heavily deindustrialized.

Had they had mask manufacturing sectors at home, you bet your soul the Western governments would be buying them at inflated prices (to enrich the local capitalist) and enforce their use with an enthusiasm never seen before. A cultural shift towards daily mask use would sprout overnight and no westerner would complain.

I know this because we have countless examples in History. The substitution of alcoholic beverages for tea in industrial England. The creation of the leisure and entertainment industries during the rise of Fordism. The invention of the concepts of infancy and adolescence. Etc. etc. etc.

We observed the lack of masks crisis in the West immediately. The USA begun to intercept ships loaded with masks (and ventilators) from China in Malaysia. Spain and France begun to resort to Aliexpress test kits to have the quantity necessary and lost the money with subpar masks and kits. Healthcare workers are without adequate PPE in the UK, USA and probably many other Western countries (at least, I've never seen any Western doctor or nurse with nearly the equipment of their Chinese counterparts).

The West's problem is called deindustrialization. Culture is always fixable - survival generally being the best teacher. But lack of resources cannot be solved just with sheer will.

Skeletor , Jun 11 2020 19:45 utc | 4
Why didn't we copy them?

Because everything is politics all the time.

Ergo amongst other things, your royal "we" also believed they could pin the deaths and economic pain on Trump alone and then ride that all the way to an election victory on November 3.

And now it has backfired/not gone as planned.

If journalists are worried about Covid-19 all over again, why don't they ask their beloved Fauci why he didn't tell the rioters and looters to wear a face mask or "social distance" during last week when they were all outside running amok and spreading Covid-19?

But he suddenly pops up this week and the fear mongering starts again... and the feeble fall in line again lol

Anyway. Maybe Dr Fauci will give a press conference next week dressed in Kente clothing....

I swear 2020 is like we are living in a simulation lol

JohnH , Jun 11 2020 19:59 utc | 5
The CDC actually advised against wearing masks until April 6, even though there were studies showing that some types of home-made masks were 70% effective against molecules the size of Corona. N95 were found to be 95% effective.

What stupidity!!! Who in his right mind would counsel against using a 75% effective mask, when it was the only readily available option?!?

It's like counseling against wearing condoms because they're not 100% effective.

The sheer incompetence boggles the mind.

Lubo , Jun 11 2020 20:17 utc | 6
Check this: https://youtu.be/yWsyNB95ljY
Leser , Jun 11 2020 20:26 utc | 7
The virus has peaked in Germany a long time ago and in fact before the lockdown. By now, herd immunity is reached, achieved by about half, or more, of the population not being susceptible to this type of coronavirus. A fair amount, perhaps 60%, never were due to background immunity from prior conoravirus infections, others have built it since, most of those without realising as symptoms or rare and if occurring, mostly mild. The authorities can find as many "cases" as they want, at any day they want, by adjusting testing activity. It's the most easily manipulated number. Seeing our host trust precisely that number (and base a story on it) from a government that has been persistently lying about this winter's flu, and has broken the constitution multiple times to ram through the measures, is surprising.

Deaths from delayed surgeries and medical treatments are estimated up to 125,000 - in Germany alone, suicides are already spiking. Abuse of children and women at home is at alarming levels, doctors report injuries so severe as usually seen in car crashs.

The measures are nothing short of carefully planned (Event 201), premeditated mass murder.

What about masks? Here a snapshot of the science on it:

On the effectiveness of masks
Regardless of the comparatively low lethality of Covid19 in the general population (see above), there is still no scientific evidence for the effectiveness of masks in healthy and asymptomatic people in everyday life.

A cross-country study by the University of East Anglia came to the conclusion that a mask requirement was of no benefit and could even increase the risk of infection.

Two US professors and experts in respiratory and infection protection from the University of Illinois explain in an essay that respiratory masks have no effect in everyday life, neither as self-protection nor to protect third parties (so-called source control). The widespread use of masks didn't prevent the outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan, either.

A study from April 2020 in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine came to the conclusion that neither fabric masks nor surgical masks can prevent the spread of the Covid19 virus by coughing.

An article in the New England Journal of Medicine from May 2020 also comes to the conclusion that respiratory masks offer little or no protection in everyday life. The call for a mask requirement is described as an "irrational fear reflex".

A May 2020 meta-study on pandemic influenza published by the U.S. CDC also found that respirators had no effect.

The WHO moreover declared in June that truly "asymptomatic transmission" is in fact "very rare", as data from numerous countries showed. Some of the few confirmed cases were due to direct body contact, i.e. shaking hands or kissing.

In Austria, the mask requirement in retail and catering will be lifted again from mid-June. A mask requirement was never introduced in Sweden because it "does not offer additional protection for the population", as the health authority explained.

Richard Steven Hack , Jun 11 2020 20:30 utc | 8
And we must remember what Nassim Taleb pointed out...even if your mask is only 30% effective, if the person you're interacting with also has a mask which is only 30% effective, the multiplicative properties of probability means the actual probability of neither of you getting infected is much greater than 30%.

I ordered my first batch of ten masks from Aliexpress on April 4, followed by an order of five more (expensive ones at $7 each) from LA Police Gear on April 6 and five more from LAPG on April 14. So I have enough masks to rotate them daily for two weeks. So I don't have to worry about washing them or whatever, per the advice of the guy who invented the filter who said leaving a mask unused for at least 4-5 days should be sufficient to to enable any collected virus particles to die.

As for the study, I'm not sure it is reliable, given the possible factors surrounding entire cities. A "simulated city" just might not be accurate enough, especially when referring to relatively low numbers of cases per city. It would be more persuasive if there was a country that wore masks and one that didn't. But then we've already seen that: the US versus any Asian country.

In my observations, most people are wearing masks, but they seem to be doing so rather haphazardly. A lot of people wear them for a bit, then let them hang around their necks when they get tired of the heat buildup inside the mask. I had to stop yesterday during a supply run when my nose started running and I had to shift the mask off partly in order to deal with that. That made me concerned coming close to my nose with a tissue, not knowing whether there might be any virus particles on the plastic gloves covering my hands. Normally I don't touch my face when out of my room, and once back in the room I immediately wash my hands, remove the mask, then apply hand sanitizer. Interrupting that process did not make me happy.

A lot of people, especially blacks and the homeless, aren't wearing masks at all. The homeless obviously have little ability to acquire them (at least manufactured ones), and a certain number of lower-class blacks are seemingly oblivious to the risk, despite blacks being hit harder than whites by the virus.

Some Really Depressing Covid-19 Death Data
If they had died at the same rate as White Americans, at least 14,000 Black Americans would still be alive

And it's not likely to get much better in the summer:

Get Ready for a Long, Hot, Coronavirus Summer
Cases surge in several states as the coronavirus digs in for the long haul


In fact, the nationwide decline in "the curve" of daily new cases, from a peak of 35,000 in early April to around 20,000 in recent weeks, has been obfuscated by the fact that four states with 40% of the nationwide case total -- New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Illinois -- experienced significant declines.

"That is hiding the fact that the majority of other states are either increasing their numbers or fluctuating in fits and starts around a peak," says Mark Cameron, PhD, an immunologist and medical researcher in the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. "Our victory lap has started too quickly."

The nationwide curve was flattened thanks to stay-at-home orders and other preventive measures, Cameron says. But rather than continuing to bend the curve down, as many other countries have done, ours is on a "disappointing plateau," he says, a "slow burn" that's putting seeds of the virus in every nook and cranny of the country.

That means the current wave of infections could be far from over, Cameron says. It might simply persist at current daily case levels, or even possibly swell this summer and then, if it recedes at all, roar back as a larger wave this fall.

Leser , Jun 11 2020 20:32 utc | 9
..but: Despite this evidence, a group called "masks4all", which was founded by a "young leader" of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Davos, is advocating worldwide mask requirements. Several governments and the WHO appear to be responding to this campaign.

While for medical purposes it's a waste of time and resources (might even lead to additional health problems), the masks are more likely to have a psychological or political function ("muzzle" or "visible sign of obedience") and that wearing them frequently.

Richard Steven Hack , Jun 11 2020 20:33 utc | 10
Posted by: Leser | Jun 11 2020 20:26 utc | 7 The WHO moreover declared in June that truly "asymptomatic transmission" is in fact "very rare"

And a couple days later, they walked that back, after scientists everywhere were stunned by the stupid statement.

Anyone who thinks masks don't help is an idiot or has an agenda.

It's amazing how some people cherry pick their information.

Richard Steven Hack , Jun 11 2020 20:39 utc | 11
This is appropriate given Leser at 7

Confessions of a Reformed Coronavirus Skeptic
Humans like easy answers -- even if those answers contradict the facts


A few days ago, I was talking to someone for work, and they started ranting about how the "whole coronavirus thing" is a conspiracy. How it's blown out of proportion and isn't any worse than the seasonal flu. I inwardly rolled my eyes. Later that day, I mocked him while talking to my wife.

But not so long ago, I was that guy. Sure, he's got to have his fact-resistance turned up to a nine or ten to still be in denial at this point. But it would be hypocritical of me to get too self-congratulatory.

Noirette , Jun 11 2020 20:43 utc | 12
The WHO did not recommend the wearing of masks. Which was why for ex. Switz. did not at the start.

March 31. CNN.

WHO stands by recommendation to not wear masks if you are not sick or not caring for someone who is sick.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/30/world/coronavirus-who-masks-recommendation-trnd/index.html

April 7. Business Insider.

WHO says there is no need for healthy people to wear face masks, days after the CDC told all Americans to cover their faces.

https://www.businessinsider.com/who-no-need-for-healthy-people-to-wear-face-masks-2020-4?r=US&IR=T

May 28. Fox news.

WHO guidance: Healthy people should wear masks only when 'taking care of' coronavirus patients.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/who-guidance-healthy-people-wear-masks-around-coronavirus-patients

(MSM actually reflects advice not too badly; plus, it is what the public saw.)

April 6. WHO publishes 'interim guidance.' PDF.

excerpt.

"Studies of human coronaviruses provide evidence that the use of a medical mask can prevent the spread of infectious droplets from an infected person to someone else and potential contamination of the environment by these droplets. There is limited evidence that wearing a medical mask by healthy individuals in the households or among contacts of a sick patient, or among attendees of mass gatherings may be beneficial as a preventive measure. However, there is currently no evidence that wearing a mask (whether medical or other types) by healthy persons in the wider community setting, including universal community masking, can prevent them from infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19. .. Medical masks should be reserved for health care workers. .The use of medical masks in the community may create a false sense of security "

https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/331693/WHO-2019-nCov-IPC_Masks-2020.3-eng.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

for June I could not find any extra proper doc from WHO. see for ex.

https://bit.ly/37jK2cr -- WHO doc 5 june that only refers to previous doc.


Noirette , Jun 11 2020 20:47 utc | 13
the above is for info about WHO, I am not expressing a personal opinion.
poor moa , Jun 11 2020 20:47 utc | 14
"synthetic control city": total bullshit. So many arbitrary parameters you can get any result you like. Why not do a real comparison?

And: Japan had no "extensive testing and contact tracing" at all. In fact Japan had the LEAST testing of all industrial countries. No testing, no panic, no problems.

Wuhan is using way more masks than Japan (also due to air pollution). How did that stop the outbreak?? Not at all.

MoA has been consistently wrong with every aspect of this pandemic. Even worse, it totally failed to recognize the huge political dimension.

Richard Steven Hack , Jun 11 2020 20:48 utc | 15
Don't Ask What Caused the Spike in Cases -- Ask What the U.S. Will Do About Them
We likely won't know for certain where new cases are coming from. How the U.S. responds to those cases is what really matters.

Many states do not have the contact tracing capacity needed to reopen safely. At the beginning of May, NPR created a map of states whose contact tracing forces met the need estimated by public health officials, and the vast majority did not meet them. Some states are working to increase their contact tracing capacity, but some experts interviewed by STAT news cautioned that it's not enough.

Bottom line: The US botched the initial response by being too slow, and it is not botching the re-opening. We can assume it will botch the second wave. Trump has already said there will be no lockdown even for a second wave (not that it matters what he says now.)

It's like the old line: "Cheer up, things could be worse. So I cheered up, and sure enough, things got worse." Well, I didn't bother "cheering up" in the first place. My procedures to deal with this remain in place and will remain in place until there is 1) a vaccine, or 2) an effective treatment that prevents death and severe long-term effects of infection.

karlof1 , Jun 11 2020 20:48 utc | 16
Thanks b! The study proves the obvious, IMO. The behavior exhibited by those inhabiting Western nations proves the degree with which they care for themselves, their families, and their neighbors in the most damning manner. Clearly collectivist societies will perform better than individualist societies, all other things being equal.

Trailer Trash @2--

I beg to differ as there're two very good timelines documenting TrumpCo actions in the run up to the outbreak that proves beyond reasonable doubt that the policy employed was a Treasonous Do Nothing Policy that runs totally against the rationale for the Constitution and the government it established--the very instrument Trump swore to obey and uphold. I've incorporated both into the essay I'm currently writing. This one compiled by Raw Story is the more detailed of the two as this example shows:

"On February 1, 2018, the Washington Post reported that 'CDC to cut by 80 percent efforts to prevent global disease outbreak' (6): 'The global health section of the CDC was so drastically cut in 2018 that much of its staff was laid off (7) and the number of countries it was working in was reduced from 49 to merely 10. (8) Meanwhile, throughout 2018, the U.S. Agency for International Development and its director, Mark Green, came repeatedly under fire from both the White House and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. (9) And though Congress has so far managed to block Trump administration plans to cut the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps by 40 percent (10), the disease-fighting cadres have steadily eroded as retiring officers go unreplaced.'"

And as you see from the date, that was just the beginning of the dismantling of what was erected to "provide for the common defence."

Richard Steven Hack , Jun 11 2020 20:52 utc | 17
Posted by: poor moa | Jun 11 2020 20:47 utc | 14 Wuhan is using way more masks than Japan (also due to air pollution). How did that stop the outbreak?? Not at all.

When the outbreak started, Wuhan hospitals were not using KN95 - they were using surgical masks. Thousands of medical personnel were infected.

When the Chinese government brought in scores of thousands of additional medical personnel, they wore KN95 masks. None were infected.

Take your troll shit elsewhere.

poor moa , Jun 11 2020 20:55 utc | 18
Actually, the "study" you cite (it's not published anyway) refutes itself right away. They say all German cities introduced masks between April 20 and 29. Then why did cases not drop to zero as they claim for Jena? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Germany
Richard Steven Hack , Jun 11 2020 20:59 utc | 19
Arizona Could Be In Trouble. Here's What We Can Learn
Reopening without contact tracing is irresponsible

Cases in Arizona are up 240% in last two weeks and hospitalizations are up 77% this past month, 31% this week alone. The positive rate for Covid-19 testing is increasing. That's not a great combination.

The largest hospital system in the state has been ringing the alarm. That they are running short of ICU capacity. Loudly.

Meanwhile, other states and Puerto Rico have had their largest number of daily cases since this started, according to the Washington Post.

Yet we still have idiots proclaiming their bullshit here. b is going to have to do a lot of "cleansing" today.

Richard Steven Hack , Jun 11 2020 21:04 utc | 20
And repeating the facts about the latest WHO message disaster...before more trolls show up to spread bullshit.

What the WHO Really Meant Regarding Asymptomatic Spread
Clearing up major coronavirus confusion


Maria Van Kerkhove, PhD, the World Health Organization's technical lead for the coronavirus response and head of the emerging diseases and zoonoses unit, clarified that when she said asymptomatic spread was "very rare" on Monday, that she was answering a question asked in a presser, and not sharing an official WHO policy or statement.

She added that some modeling groups have estimated that 40% of transmission may be due to asymptomatic spread, but that is a mathematical modeling estimate and a definitive answer is still unknown, in part because data from contact tracing studies remains limited.

It's important to note that asymptomatic people who never exhibit signs of Covid-19 are different from pre-symptomatic people who initially don't have symptoms but develop them later. It's difficult, from a research standpoint, to tease these two groups apart.

poor moa , Jun 11 2020 21:06 utc | 21
It looks like they don't even control for the number of tests. Total junk.
uncle tungsten , Jun 11 2020 21:10 utc | 22
Masks are fine. They build confidence when people are threatened with an awful death and where 'experts' give conficting advice. They are personaly empowering. Wear one now.

The WHO is not looking good.
The Lancet and NEJM are trashed.
The China response was a brilliant example to the world.
The mask is a mighty useful response.
Sunlight is wonderful.

poor moa , Jun 11 2020 21:13 utc | 23
Alright, on page 28 in annex C they compare the effect of masks in other German cities, and found no effect. In some cities infections got even worse after introducing masks. It is clear Jena is a special case, perhaps they stopped testing or people stopped interacting or whatever.

The study is another fraud, and Moa once again fell for it. What a shame. I'm sure he didn't even read until page 28.

I hope you won't delete my comments, everybody should decide for themselves if this study has any merit.

poor moa , Jun 11 2020 21:18 utc | 24
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jun 11 2020 20:52 utc | 17

Total bullshit. We're talking about standard face masks for the community here.

Read my other comments, the study is junk. You have been bamboozled.

poor moa , Jun 11 2020 21:27 utc | 25
The WHO stated the obvious: the vast majority of people remain asymptomatic, and asymptomatic people don't spread the virus (which is why children don't spread the virus). Pre-symptomatic is possible if you get really close, but this is true for common cold as well.

So what paranoid folks like you really need to show is if mandatory mask is any better than masks only for sick people or sick people simply staying home. Hint: it isn't.

poor moa , Jun 11 2020 21:32 utc | 26
Quote from the "study": "In addition to Jena, we test for treatment effects in Nordhausen, Rottweil, Main-Kinzig-Kreis, and Wolfsburg (compare Figure 1). --- As the figure shows, the result is 2:1:1. Rottweil and Wolfsburg display a positive effect of mandatory mask wearing, just as Jena. The results in Nordhausen are very small or unclear. In the region of Main-Kinzig, it even seems to be the case that masks increased the number of cases relative to the synthetic control group. " (page 28)

So obviously, masks aren't important at all. Other factors are at play.

Ghost Ship , Jun 11 2020 21:35 utc | 27
I blame it on the communists - Jena is in what was formerly East Germany and the inhabitants of Jena are still oppressed by their communist upbringing. Communism in Jena must be rooted out and the German citizens of Jena must be free to die from COVID-19 just like the freedom-loving morons in the good old U S of A, y'all. Yee haw. USA! USA! USA! Would you go all the way for the U.S.A?

[Jun 11, 2020] If journalists are worried about Covid-19 all over again, why don't they ask their beloved Fauci why he didn't tell the rioters and looters to wear a face mask or "social distance" during last week when they were all outside running amok and spreading Covid-19?

Jun 11, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Skeletor , Jun 11 2020 19:45 utc | 4

If journalists are worried about Covid-19 all over again, why don't they ask their beloved Fauci why he didn't tell the rioters and looters to wear a face mask or "social distance" during last week when they were all outside running amok and spreading Covid-19?

But he suddenly pops up this week and the fear mongering starts again... and the feeble fall in line again lol

Anyway. Maybe Dr Fauci will give a press conference next week dressed in Kente clothing....

I swear 2020 is like we are living in a simulation lol

[Jun 11, 2020] Judicial Watch files lawsuit seeking Dr. Fauci, WHO records - YouTube

Jun 11, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Sean Mclaughlin , 2 weeks ago

He intentionally broke the moratorium on the gain of function research studies and then paid 3.7 million to china's virology lab in Wuhan to continue it. Where did this pandemic start from again? He is guilty and should be thrown into a pit.

Truth Seeker , 3 weeks ago (edited)

Fauci is the same man who predicted that Trump will face a virus pandemic. Did he know something we did not know?

Kenton Turner , 3 weeks ago

And Dr. Faucci is still lieing when he says that he didn't realize that it was so transmittable early on because he was heavily invested in the Wuhan Lab for a long time before the outbreak! And heavily invested in the WHO at the same time!

Mrs Smith , 3 weeks ago

The management of this virus has been a clusterfart from the get-go.

Armida Ruiz-Martinez , 3 weeks ago

The only issue that I see is that Dr. Fauci wasn't lied too by the W.H.O. He was in full know of what was going on and because of his role in the research in China, he went along with the the guidelines the W.H.O. Its all a cover up and Dr. Fauci needs to be investigated as well.

Bobby S , 2 weeks ago

Fauci has been playing both sides. He needs to be investigated to find out what he's been up to.

Trapper Bill , 2 weeks ago

Fauci suffers from little man syndrome we gave him a little too much authority and he abused it.

damason444 , 2 weeks ago

There is a sealed indictment sitting on the Resolute Desk with Fauci's name on it involving treason and a life sentence to Gitmo.

Covid_is _a_hoax , 2 weeks ago

"Beware the bearers of false gifts and their broken promises. Much pain but still time. There is good out there. We oppose deception."

Tony Lassman , 2 weeks ago

He was told in USA to stop developing covid 19 in the USA So.... he paid to send the unfinished virus to China And they finished the job. Research & let me know if this isn't the truth . If it is true find out why he did & then before you cut off his head for treason inject him with vaccines he developed & leave for 1 year & watch results

Bailey , 3 weeks ago

Fauci is entirely too elderly (and out of experience) to be making judgement calls for the entire country. One man alone should not be making decisions as he is doing.

Gabriel Afonso , 1 month ago

79 years old....I thought he was younger....wow

Scott Collom , 2 weeks ago

Fauci knew exactly what he was doing.Hes not a victim,hes a criminal.

chazIII7III , 2 weeks ago

I never trusted Faucci. He's a snake in the grass.

Tex Assholdem , 3 weeks ago

Dr. Fauci is a sneaky liar. Why are people acting like he cares about us over his own wallet? He doesn't.

Tebayane Rose , 2 weeks ago

He has patent on virus and invested 3.7 million. Very old globalist

[Jun 11, 2020] This Creep Fauci Said in May, or five months since epidemic started, that People Should Not Be Wearing Masks and instead they should sit unemployed at home

Notable quotes:
"... The purpose of the mask is that if the wearer has the virus and is a carrier, the mask protects others from that carrier. The person infected wearing a mask coughs, splutters, sneezes into the mask which captures most of virus and reduces its spread to other people. ..."
Jun 11, 2020 | realclimatescience.com

Posted on May 11, 2020 by tonyheller

https://www.youtube.com/embed/LScHAvufgfM?feature=oembed

  1. richard verney says: May 11, 2020 at 12:40 am

    The thing about masks is not that it protects the wearer, of course, it does not protect the wearer, especially with the extra fiddling that Fauci alludes to.

    The purpose of the mask is that if the wearer has the virus and is a carrier, the mask protects others from that carrier. The person infected wearing a mask coughs, splutters, sneezes into the mask which captures most of virus and reduces its spread to other people.

    Hospital staff have traditionally worn masks to protect patients, who may have a poor immune system, from any illness that the doctor/nurse may be carrying.

    All of this has been known for decades. Reply

    • tonyheller says: May 11, 2020 at 1:04 am

      I have done lots of travelling over the past few months, and have not seen one person coughing or sneezing. Fauci said very clearly that people should not be wearing masks. If someone thinks they are infected with a virus, they should not being going out in public. Reply

  2. Charles Straw says: May 11, 2020 at 3:31 am

    Because I completely blocked out mainstream media when the quarantine started, this is actually the first time I've heard Fauci speak he reminds me of Mel Brooks or of some bad actor in a bad sit-com he doesn't seem that smart is he smart?

    Big news in CA is that "Grinning" Gavin Newsom is on the verge of being sued by the PROFESSIONAL BEAUTY FEDERATION OF CA a coalition of tens of thousands of nail salons who feel that Newsom is treating them unfairly on top of that, 80% of CA nail salons are operated by Vietnamese immigrants, who are among the most patriotic individuals in America the groundswell against Newsom is finally palpable

    nail salon lawsuit
    https://bit.ly/2AhyRVc

    thank you

[Jun 10, 2020] Coronavirus vaccine developers are chasing outbreaks before they disappear Washpost - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Jun 10, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"Coronavirus vaccine developers are chasing outbreaks before they disappear" Washpost

"The top teams rushing to develop coronavirus vaccines are alerting governments, health officials and shareholders that they may have a big problem : The outbreaks in their countries may be getting too small to quickly determine whether vaccines work

A leader of the Oxford University group, one of the furthest ahead with human trials, admits the reality is paradoxical, even "bizarre," but said the declining numbers of new infections this summer could be one of the big hurdles vaccine developers face in the global race to beat down the virus.

Even as new cases are growing worldwide, transmission rates are falling in Britain, China and many of the hardest-hit regions in the United States -- the three countries that have experimental vaccines ready to move into large-scale human testing in June, July and August." Washpost

---------------

Well, pilgrims it would seem that the Post staff does not see the irony in their own writing, or perhaps they do. There have been scattered evidences of rationality there lately. Even as Democrat governors and mayors across the country drag their feet on the re-opening of the American economy, infection rates are falling. In the Faucibirxist view of things everything depends on vaccine development (or herd immunity post holocaust). But, alas there just aren't enough new, vibrant infections to make development of the vaccines convenient. What will happen to the flow of government money to these projects if this phenomenon becomes general knowledge. Someone at the Post should be disciplined for this indiscretion. pl

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/coronavirus-vaccine-trials-astrazeneca-moderna/2020/06/09/48f28fea-a414-11ea-898e-b21b9a83f792_story.html


Fred , 10 June 2020 at 09:34 AM

"What will happen to the flow of government money to these projects if this phenomenon becomes general knowledge."

Well Fauci is almost 80 so I think he's set for life. I hear the left wants lots of redevelopment funds and jobs programs, with the attendant opportunities for graft that comes with them, for thier cities which we are all assured had neither rioting nor looting.

Jim , 10 June 2020 at 11:50 AM
Thank you Col. Lang for all the posts on novel coronavirus.

For shining light on this, this utter failure by the medical community and their various and sundry enablers in government and in business.

On these liars and charlatans and killers and criminals.

The video below is about an hour long. It is a nurse, who worked in NYC hospital, the alleged epi center of epi centers.

She basically says, without saying directly, but points to the fact that doctors were murdering patients there, it seems.

She paints a picture of doctors not as scientists but as zealots, as neo neanderthals, as craven monsters, who care not about life, the elderly, the sick, the least among us.

As Nurse Ratchets

Towards the end of video, she recounts her last day at this hospital, discussing a patient she had nursed for many days, and who was doing fine, making progress, . . . and how she was removed from his bed on direct orders, sent to the ER where she was not assigned, and 20 minutes later, the man she was caring for is dead.

These sorts of stories abound; this rage is not going away anytime soon. This is the rage, and what caused it, that our "lords and masters" who censor us and tell us black is white, and want to destroy our country. . . this is the rage they don't want to see expressed and exposed. Will they get their way?

http://edwardcurtin.com/the-undercover-epicenter-nurse-watch-weep-and-rage/


-30-

Laura Wilson , 10 June 2020 at 01:04 PM
Well...they can always test their vaccines in the USA. We seem not to be faring as well and can help out. (I believe this is a glass half-full moment.)
Walter Lang , 10 June 2020 at 01:27 PM
Laura Wilson

Still hysteric. if you are not over 65 and not in compromised health the disease is rarely fatal.

optimax , 10 June 2020 at 01:32 PM
Trump needs to stop the $600 a week federal bonus to the unemployed. My neighbor told me about how his daughter-in-law worked one day a week as a barmaid before the virus shut the bar down and made a little over a hundred a week. Oregon unemployment pays her 150 a week and with the added 600 she now makes over 7 times what she did working. How many protesters and rioters are just as flush getting paid to party in the street? Most i'd say. That makes these government funded protests a powerful voice and recruitment tool for the Democratic Party.

Ending the federal subsidy to the unemployed would reduce, if not stop, the demonstrations and mau-mauing of the country.

Fred , 10 June 2020 at 03:17 PM
optimax,

Absolutely. There were howls of protests before Minneapolis when Georgia, Florida and Texas started tellling people that if they recieved a recall to work notice from an employer and refused to go they would be considered a voluntary quit and no longer eligable for unemployment insurance payments. They'll howl again when they figure out this is all taxable income.

LA Sox Fan , 10 June 2020 at 03:21 PM
Take everything the WaPo claims with a grain of salt. There is no real worry over lower covid infections. What made Covid decrease was the lockdowns. Remove the lockdowns and covid infection rates will climb, as we are seeing in the already reopened states.

Then when fall rolls around, and people are stuck indoors again, rates will skyrocket. There will be plenty of test subjects for a vaccine.

rho , 10 June 2020 at 09:29 PM
With the spread rate of the coronavirus, any outbreak of the infection will peter out once the total immunity rate of the population approaches 65-70 percent.

In Bergamo (Italy), 57 percent a population sample have tested positive for coronavirus antibodies, which means that they must have had the infection before and are now most likely immune.

If you are a Karen, then don't listen to me, but take it from the German government's very own propaganda outlet, Deutsche Welle:

"Out of nearly 10,000 Bergamo residents who had their blood tested between April 23 and June 3, 57% had antibodies, indicating they had come into contact with the virus and developed an immune response.

Health authorities said the sample size was 'sufficiently broad' to be a reliable indicator of the presence of SARS-CoV-2 among Bergamo province's population."

https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-tests-show-half-of-people-in-italys-bergamo-have-antibodies/a-53739727

Nobody in Bergamo will need a coronavirus vaccine once its development is finished - whenever that may happen, if at all.

[Jun 08, 2020] Strange coinsidences

Jun 08, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

jef , Jun 7 2020 14:09 utc | 1

So we had two major pandemic exercises last year projecting almost exactly what did happen with the corona virus. First was Crimson Contagion Jan thru Aug 2019

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimson_Contagion

Then Event 201 the international war gaming of a global pandemic almost exactly like what happened which took place only months before the real pandemic on October 2019

https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/

So why is it ok for TPTB to act like it wasn't happening or it was a complete supprise "no one could have known" and were completely unprepared?

Mark2 , Jun 7 2020 14:20 utc | 2

Jef @ 1
A week before the Skripal poisoning at Salisbury U.K. 'they had a chemical warfare exercise a few miles up the road on Salisbury Plain.

[Jun 06, 2020] Will we see a second wave of coronavirus epidemic in the USA in late June?

"Black lives matter" should understand that obese people of color have been particularly hit hard by the Coronavirus. The number of obese females in the protests is considerable.
One mitigating factor is that the protests were being held outdoors, where the virus could have a tougher time transmitting between individuals.
Jun 06, 2020 | nationalinterest.org
Thousands of protesters, many without protective masks, have gathered and marched in close proximity to each other. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease , is chiefly transmitted via respiratory droplets that are spread when people talk, cough or sneeze.

"Crowded protests, like any large gathering of people in a close space, can help facilitate the spread of COVID-19, which is why it's so important participants wear masks, eye protection and bring hand gel," Saskia Popescu, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at George Mason University's Schar School of Policy and Government, wrote in an email to The Washington Post .

[Jun 06, 2020] Floyd protests are 'perfect recipe' for Covid-19 surge, says top US infectious diseases expert Fauci

Another prediction from Fauci. This "Black Lives Matter" vs coronavirus puzzle will unfold in 14 days from now. In any case quarantine was send into the dust bin.
Some protesters might pay the price for Dem Party sponsored protests
Jun 06, 2020 | www.rt.com

Fauci, who sits on the White House Coronavirus Task Force, says he finds the protests across the nation "very concerning" and a "perfect recipe" for a surge in Covid-19 cases.

[Jun 06, 2020] 'Professor Lockdown' Ferguson, UK's Covid-19 czar, admits crippling restrictions MADE NO DIFFERENCE – where's the outrage by Jason O'Toole

Notable quotes:
"... The British scientist known as Professor Lockdown has undermined the draconian policy he unleashed on the world by confessing that Britain hasn't fared any better in tackling the disease than the laid-back Scandis. Professor Neil Ferguson probably woke up this morning breathing a massive sigh of relief because he hadn't been ripped to shreds again in the British newspapers for this second time in just under a month – this time over his startling admission that there has been no significant difference in the levels of Covid-19 suppression when comparing the UK and Sweden. ..."
"... In other words, in the type of roundabout waffling way you'd expect from a bumbling boffin, the scientist – dubbed 'Professor Lockdown' after he cajoled Boris Johnson into bringing the British economy to a screeching halt – reckons Sweden has essentially coped very well without being forced into any draconian lockdown, thank you very much. ..."
"... At the moment, the biggest accusation they could face is needlessly making a hames (for those of you who aren't Irish, this means a 'big mess') of the economy. Even Sweden's state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell has since said that, while he regrets not implanting stricter measures to stop the spread of Covid-19, he "still would not have gone as far as other European countries did." ..."
"... He might've been dubbed "Dr Strangelove" after that embarrassing slip up – but now he just comes across as a nutty professor after his latest confession. These strong words might just come back to haunt BoJo when he next goes before the electorate. With a crippled economy thanks to the draconian measures, he's going to find the next election will be all about his mishandling of Covid-19, and specifically, "the economy, stupid." ..."
Jun 04, 2020 | www.rt.com

The British scientist known as Professor Lockdown has undermined the draconian policy he unleashed on the world by confessing that Britain hasn't fared any better in tackling the disease than the laid-back Scandis. Professor Neil Ferguson probably woke up this morning breathing a massive sigh of relief because he hadn't been ripped to shreds again in the British newspapers for this second time in just under a month – this time over his startling admission that there has been no significant difference in the levels of Covid-19 suppression when comparing the UK and Sweden.

During his evidence to the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee on Tuesday, he said:

"They [Swedish scientists] came to a different policy conclusion based really on quite similar science. I don't agree with it but scientifically they're not far from scientists in any part of the world."

Also on rt.com 'Very destructive' SECOND wave of Covid-19 may come as countries lift restrictions, WHO warns

He then acknowledged that the Swedish authorities had "got a long way to the same effect" without a full lockdown.

In other words, in the type of roundabout waffling way you'd expect from a bumbling boffin, the scientist – dubbed 'Professor Lockdown' after he cajoled Boris Johnson into bringing the British economy to a screeching halt – reckons Sweden has essentially coped very well without being forced into any draconian lockdown, thank you very much.

So where was the indignation about how his recommendations f**ked up the economy and made people prisoners in their own homes? It certainly wasn't to be seen splashed across any British front pages. Indeed, it was hard enough to find much, if any, coverage of this very significant news story on Wednesday.

Read more Is public opinion on Covid-19 being shaped by facts – or 'terrorized' by propaganda?

It was buried inside the Daily Telegraph on page seven, running across a third of a page or less, with a very accurate subheading stating in clear black and white: "Professor admits radical Scandinavian policy worked as well as British policy of shutting down."

The evidence from the two countries' differing approaches has left the professor with little escape route. UK (full lockdown/businesses shut down): 579 Covid-19 deaths per million of population. Sweden (softer restrictions/businesses kept open): 442 deaths per million.

But why make such a startling confession now, when he could have wriggled away by saying it's too early to assess the data as the disease is still running its course? The cynic in me wonders if Dr Ferguson's matter-of-fact admission that a full lockdown probably didn't make a blind bit of difference was fueled by ulterior motives. Seeing as his own reputation is already in tatters, was it a warped act of revenge against Boris Johnson for being forced to fall on his sword after being caught breaking lockdown with his married lover?

Or here's one for conspiracy theorists: instead of wanting to throw BoJo under the bus, could it have been a case of wanting to hide something else that's about to come down the track? With America now burning in the wake of the atrocious murder of George Floyd, the confession at this juncture reminds me somewhat of how a British government spin doctor sent out a memo only 30 minutes after the second plane hit the Twin Towers on 9/11 with the cynical recommendation that "it's now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury."

Also on rt.com I've signed death certificates during Covid-19. Here's why you can't trust any of the statistics on the number of victims

At the moment, the biggest accusation they could face is needlessly making a hames (for those of you who aren't Irish, this means a 'big mess') of the economy. Even Sweden's state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell has since said that, while he regrets not implanting stricter measures to stop the spread of Covid-19, he "still would not have gone as far as other European countries did."

But the Swede being plagued with self-doubt sounds much more like someone racked with guilt about "what ifs?" like an Oskar Schindler type of character who was pictured crying at the end of the Spielberg film because he was convinced he could've done better.

According to Aric Dromi, CEO of the Sweden-based Tempus Motu Think Tank, both the UK and Sweden's response to Covid-19 is "ego driven and lacking in strategy." He told me:

"Differences in the social structure between the UK and Sweden should have made a bigger impact between the numbers infected. The Swedish economy, for example, far from being protected by remaining open, has still been badly damaged as it relies heavily on exports, despite the lack of a lockdown. For both countries, it represents a human sacrifice on the altar of economics, and it is wholly unacceptable."

Also on rt.com BoJo government blasted again as new lockdown 'SEX BAN' prompts orgy of scorn and mockery

It all reminds me of when John Cleese in the 'Gourmet Night' episode of 'Fawlty Towers' told guests that there were only three different types of duck on the menu that night – with orange, with cherries or "surprise," which turned out to be "duck without oranges or cherries." And if you don't like duck? As Basil Fawlty quipped , "Ah, well, if you don't like duck, uhhh, you're rather stuck."

At the end of the day, it might still be too early to fully know which was the right way to go, which begs the question: Why did Prof. Ferguson jump the gun and heap such fulsome praise – no pun intended here – on the Swedish model? Whatever way you spin it here, he has, once again, " undermined " the lockdown just like he did " after violating quarantine he designed to meet married lover."

He might've been dubbed "Dr Strangelove" after that embarrassing slip up – but now he just comes across as a nutty professor after his latest confession. These strong words might just come back to haunt BoJo when he next goes before the electorate. With a crippled economy thanks to the draconian measures, he's going to find the next election will be all about his mishandling of Covid-19, and specifically, "the economy, stupid."

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

Jason O'Toole has worked as a senior feature writer for the Irish Daily Mail, a columnist with the Irish Sunday Mirror and senior editor of Hot Press magazine. He's also the author of several best-selling books.

[Jun 04, 2020] I think the illusion the CDC. was the "world's premier health agency" comes from the fact that the USA has, by far, the largest and most powerful pharmaceutical sector in the world

CDC consist of overpaid idiots. On 20 January, the first confirmed case in South Korea was identified as a 35-year-old Chinese woman. The first South Korean national to be infected occurred three days later was a 55-year-old man who worked in Wuhan and returned for a checkup with flu symptoms. The two infection reports were publicly released on 24 January. [1] At this point team of CDC researchers should already be in South Korea. But nothing was done.
Jun 04, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
vk , Jun 3 2020 22:43 utc | 55
The C.D.C. waited 'its entire existence for this moment'. What went wrong?

Propaganda never stops:

The technology was old, the data poor, the bureaucracy slow, the guidance confusing, the administration not in agreement. The coronavirus shook the world's premier health agency , creating a loss of confidence and hampering the U.S. response to the crisis

"World's premier health agency"?

I think the illusion the C.D.C. was the "world's premier health agency" comes from the fact that the USA has, by far, the largest and most powerful pharmaceutical sector in the world (which Americans call "Big Pharma"). If you have the biggest pharma, you will have the most sheer volume of human trials and new drug patents. This, by osmosis, puts your country's C.D.C. at the forefront of most drug regulation - which the rest of the world's C.D.C.s will simply copy and paste for obvious reasons (i.e. they won't do the same work twice). That doesn't mean your C.D.C. is "the premier". For instance, it could simply be the most corrupt, the C.D.C. which is at the right place, the right time. An example for this is the USA's airplane equivalent to the C.D.C., which sold itself off to Boeing, resulting in the 737 MAX fiasco.

[Jun 02, 2020] Unnatural end of social distancing: Where do this week's riots leave 'social distancing'?

Jun 02, 2020 | www.rt.com

We were told for months we'd never gather in public again 'because Covid-19.'

...Media, politicians and celebrities who spent the past three months lecturing Americans about the importance of staying home and keeping at least six feet away from all other humans lest they catch or spread the deadly coronavirus have suddenly pivoted on a dime – seemingly as one – to cheering on those Americans defying their advice to pour into the streets and join nationwide protests...

[Jun 02, 2020] Nobel Prize Winner Lockdowns Are A Huge Mistake by Michael Levitt

Jun 01, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Edward Peter Stringham via The American Institute for Economic research,

Michael Levitt is Professor of computer science and structural biology at Stanford Medical School and winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

He has been a close observer of the pandemic and the response from the outset through its movement to Europe, the U.K., and the U.S.. Last month, speaking to the Unherd podcast and youtube channel, he offered some compelling thoughts and observers, and a striking conclusion.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/bl-sZdfLcEk

Below is a transcript of the parts I found most relevant.

Q: So you noticed that the curve was less of an exponential curve than we might have feared, in those early days?

A: In some ways there was never any exponential growth from the minute I looked at it, there were never any two days that had exactly the same growth rate -- and they were getting slow of course you could have non exponential growth where every single day they're getting more than exponential -- but the growth was always sub-exponential. So that's the first step.

Q: [In the UK] we talk endlessly about the R-rate -- the reproduction rate -- and apparently that began very high, maybe as high as 3, and [we've now] got it down below 1 in the UK. Intuitively, if there's a high reproduction rate, you should see that exponential curve just going up and up.

A: Well no, wait, okay. The R-0, which is very popular, is in some ways a faulty number. Let me explain why. The rate of growth doesn't depend on R-0. It depends on R-0 and the time you are infectious. So if you are twice as long infectious and have half the R-0 you'll get exactly the same growth rate. This is sort of intuitive, but it's not explained, and therefore it seems to me that I would say at the present time R-0 became important because of a lot of movies -- it was very popular -- talked about R-0.

Epidemiologists talk about R-0 but, looking at all the mathematics, you have to specify the time infectious at the same time to have any meaning. The other problem is that R-0 decreases -- we don't know why R-0 decreases. It could be social distancing, it could be prior immunity, it could be hidden cases.

Q: You've been observing the shapes of these curves and how the R-0 number tends to come down and the curve tends to flatten in some kind of natural way regardless of intervention. Is that what you are observing?

A: We don't know. I think the big test is going to be Sweden. Sweden is practicing a level of social distancing that is keeping children in schools, keeping people at work. They are obviously having more deaths in countries like Israel or Austria that are practicing very very strict social distancing but I think it is not a crazy policy. The reason I felt that social distancing was unimportant is practicing very very strict social distancing, but I think it is not a crazy policy.

The reason I felt that social distancing was unimportant is that I had two examples in China to start with and then we had the additional examples. The first one was South Korea (yeah), and Iran, and Italy. The beginning of all the epidemics showing a slowing down, and it was very hard for me to believe that those three countries could practice social-distancing as well as China. China was amazing, especially outside Hubei, in that they had no additional outbreaks. People left Hubei, they were very carefully tracked, had to wear face masks all the time, had to take their temperatures all the time, and there were no further outbreaks.

So this did not happen in either in South Korea or in Italy or in Iran. Now, two months later something else suggests that social distancing might not be important, and that is that the total number of deaths we're seeing in New York City, in parts of England, in parts of France, in northern Italy -- all seem to stop at about the same direction of the population so are they all practicing equally good social distancing? I don't think so.

The problem I think is outbreaks occurring in different regions. I think social distancing that stops people moving from London to Manchester is probably a really good idea. My feeling is that in London, and in New York City, all the people who got infected, all got infected before anybody noticed. There's no way that the infection grew so quickly in New York City without the infection spreading very quickly. So one of the key things is to stop people, who know that they're sick, from infecting the others. Here again, China has three very, very important advantages that are not high-tech that don't involve security tracking of telephones.

What they involve is, number one, the tradition in China for years, of wearing a face mask when you're sick. As soon as the coronavirus started everybody wore a face mask. It doesn't have to be a hygienic face mask it just has to be a face covering to stop you spraying saliva, micro droplets of saliva on somebody you talk to. The second thing in China is that because they were so scared of the SARS epidemic in most airports, stations where you pay tolls et cetera, there are thermometers. Infrared thermometers that that measure your temperature. So having your temperature measured at every single store entrance -- either with a handheld thermometer or with something mounted on the wall -- is something completely standard in China. And the third thing is that almost all payments in China are made not using a credit card, so in some senses it is very much easier there to practice social distancing. Of course, in addition they know where people are.

Q: What's your view of the lockdown policy that so many European countries and states in America have introduced?

A: I think it is a huge mistake. I think we need smart lockdowns. If we were to do this again, we would probably insist on face masks, hand sanitizers, and some kind of payment that did not involve touching right from the very beginning. This would slow down new outbreaks and I think that for example they found as I understand, that children, even if they're infected, never infect adults, so why do we not have children at school? Why do we not have people working? England, France, Italy, Sweden, Belgium, Holland, are all reaching levels of saturation that are going to be very, very close to herd immunity -- So that's a good thing. I think the policy of herd immunity is the right policy. I think Britain was on exactly the right track -- before they were fed wrong numbers and they made a huge mistake.

I see the standout winners as Germany and Sweden. They didn't practice too much lock down, they got enough people sick to get some herd immunity. The standout losers are countries like Austria, Australia, Israel that actually had very very strict lockdowns but didn't have many cases. So they have damaged their economies, caused massive social damage, damaged the educational year of their children, but not obtained any herd immunity.

I think in many ways the European countries are fine. They didn't need to have lockdown but they have all reached a high enough level of infection not to have to worry about further future attacks of coronavirus. The United States seems to be heading that way, they're certainly that way in New York City but they still have a long way to go

Q: What you're saying is that, you believe success -- as we are currently measuring it which is as few cases as possible and as small a spread of the virus as possible -- is actually failure?

A: I think if you really control your epidemic, for example, California, it's now had lockdowns for six weeks, and wants another four weeks, they have so far less than a hundred deaths, that means they don't have more (let's say a hundred thousand) in people, that is not enough to give them significant herd immunity. They didn't need to do all that lock down.

The lockdown is particularly hurtful in countries that don't have good social infrastructure, countries like the United States and Israel . Many, many people have been really really hurt -- especially young people. You know I think that everybody panicked -- they were fed incorrect numbers by epidemiologists and you know this I think led to led to a situation.

There is no doubt in my mind that when we come to look back on this, the damage done by lockdowns will exceed any saving of lives by a huge factor. One very easy way to see this is, and again I am getting into a sensitive territory here, but economists have a very simple way of looking at death. They don't count people. They come to the conclusion that if you're 20 and you die that's a greater loss than if you're 85 and you die. It's a hard issue, but in some ways are we valuing the potential future life of the 20 year old? Are we valuing the loss of more senior persons by what's called daily disability-adjusted life years. Basically if somebody is in their 80s, has Alzheimer's disease, and then dies from pneumonia (perhaps due to corona) that is less of a loss than if a 15 year old is riding his motorcycle bike and gets run over. This is an important way of looking at death.

It's also you know, right now, the number of excess deaths is around 130,000 up to yesterday, [May 1st]. This is for all of Europe, for a population of around 330 million people. So an excess of 100,000 for this whole year, is actually not that much. In some of the worst flu epidemics we get to those kinds of numbers -- sometimes it's a bit more, sometimes a little bit less.

Now, I'm not saying flu is like coronavirus, I'm just simply saying that the burden of death of flu is like coronavirus. Especially when we correct for the fact that people who die from coronavirus are older on average than people who died from flu . Flu kills young people, it kills two or three times more people under 65 than does coronavirus. If we put those facts into the situation we find that the burden of death from coronavirus and Phillip Shaw will, in Europe, where we have good numbers in less than that of a very flu.

Another factor which has not been considered are all the cancer patients who aren't being treated, or all the heart cardiology patients who aren't being treated. I've got estimates of tens of thousands of people who are basically going to be dying because of lack of that treatment -- and generally again the age group who die of cancer are younger than the age group who die of coronavirus.

There's one very easy way to sort of summarize coronavirus. I put an article in the medium by the pretty famous British statistician Sir David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge [University] and he had said that the numbers coming from Ferguson suggested that we had to lose about one year of people. It turns out that I immediately wrote an article in the same medium and replied to him, saying that in fact the answer was actually one month, not one year. So basically my feeling is, and it's being supported by the numbers, is that the amount of excess death you need to reach saturation, I'm not going to call it herd immunity, where the virus by itself stops, is on the order of four weeks of excess. Now to give you some idea in the European area where there is good monitoring, by a website called EuroMoMo , run out of Denmark, which covers about 300 million people. Every week in Europe in that area there's around 50,000 natural deaths. So in four weeks there will be about 200,000 extra deaths in that year -- and it looks like coronavirus in Europe where it's no doubt that it's the most severely hit area in the world -- we'll probably reach around 200,000 or 4 weeks worth.

Q: So what happens if what you're saying is there's a sort of statistical observation which is around four weeks of excess death and then the pandemic seems to peter out, or begin to flatten out. What does that mean policy-wise for these European countries then?

A: If we could protect the old people perfectly, then the death rates would be very, very low. So for example in Europe there were about 140,000 excess deaths in the last nine weeks. The number of those excess deaths who are younger than 65 is about 10%. So basically 13,000 of 130,000 deaths are actually under 65 years old and if we had simply been able to protect elderly people then the death rate would have been much much less . But the key thing is to have as much infection for as little possible death and also do whatever you can to keep the hospitals full but not overflowing. It's a difficult calculation and the trouble is that in Sweden there's no political concerns.

The trouble is is that in Israel and I know as well in the United States, everything is political and therefore nobody could say something like this. They would say, " Ah, but you are not valuing death -- the thing that should have been done is for the media to stress to people that everyday somebody dies. These people are essentially in the same age band, and they die from Corona and other comorbidities, other diseases.

I've become a huge fan of Twitter. I'd never used twitter before and for me Twitter is the best discussion forum I had seen since I was a student at the Cambridge Laboratory of Natural Biology. Which is a 26 Nobel Prize winning lab. The best lab in the world. The Twitter discussion is phenomenal and I'm getting documents from Italy showing that many of the Covid deaths were either dead before they were tested or else they had up to three other conditions. There is nothing wrong with this, people die for all sorts of reasons, but the news should be stressing this and maybe they should be counting it as a 0.1 Covid death.

Countries seem to be racing to have as many Covid deaths as they could, and this is a huge mistake. In the flu season no one cares about these people. I mean, the total number of Covid deaths in Europe will be very similar to a severe flu season, and you know, this is serious. Flu is a serious disease. Maybe we should just shut down the economy during the flu season. I mean people should have been made to understand it. Unfortunately I think in Britain they started out wanting to go for herd immunity without too much lockdown, there was then a scary paper -- which is likely to be retracted -- which influenced Italy as well where basically it was claimed they were -- [Interviewer interrupts]

Q: I know you had some specific queries about Neil Ferguson's paper; we had him on the show last week . So, what did you think he got wrong in those models and predictions?

A: His work was on modelling, and around the 10th of February he had his first paper (that I saw) and in there he was getting a case fatality ratio of around 15%, whereas all my observations were saying that it was around three or four percent. So I was suspicious: I looked at the paper very carefully and in a footnote to a table it said "assuming exponential growth for six days at fifteen percent a day." Now, I had looked at China, and never, ever seen exponential growth that wasn't decaying rapidly so I was suspicious. My numbers were 10% of the numbers that Ferguson had obtained. I pointed this out, in a reply in the medium -- which was out there, it's clear nobody has ever seen it but it's there, and I didn't hide it it just didn't get any likes and this said that it was much more like one month than one year and have an exchange with Spiegelhalta and Ferguson, where I tried to show my case.

But all I was doing was just simple proportionality using exactly the same profile of -- different ages have different death rates, so there's a profile saying that people over 80 have a certain fraction of the disk [deaths] people between 17 and 80 have a different fraction -- just using that data and simply saying we want the number of deaths that occurred on the Diamond Princess to be the same number that we found which was 7 or 8. If you do that, and then you apply that proportionality to Britain and the USA, you find that for Britain the half a million drops to about 50,000 and in the United States the two million drops to 200,000. Essentially a year dropping to a month.

Q: And so the the argument that is made here is that whether you believe the infection fatality rate is point three percent or whether you believe it's point eight percent there is still a big chunk of the population, the majority population who hasn't had been exposed to the disease or hasn't had it and therefore if we just let it rip there will be many many tens possibly even further hundreds according to Professor Ferguson of thousands of deaths and that's why it's politically totally not an option to be at do anything other than follow this ultra cautious approach.What do you say to that?

A: The World Health Organization, and epidemiologists in general, can only go wrong if they give [politicians] a number smaller. If I said it's going to be 1 billion deaths from coronavirus and it's, "oh, you guys have done what I've said and there's only gonna be a hundred thousands," that is considered good policy. They overestimated bird flu by a factor of a hundred, or ten thousand in The Guardian . The Guardian wrote about this. Ebola was overestimated by a factor of 100 I think. They see their role as scaring people into doing something. I can understand that and there's something to be said for it. I f you could practice lock down with zero economic costs, and zero social costs -- let's do it. But the trouble is that those costs are huge, we're gonna have fatalities from hospitals being closed down, additional children in trauma, businesses damaged -- maybe less so in the UK because of the compensation policy -- but certainly massive economic damage in the USA and in Israel, and in other countries. So you need to balance both of these things.

That is what I don't think is responsible. I n my work if I say a number is too small and I'm wrong or a number is too big and I'm wrong, both of those errors are the same. If I'm 10 percent too high or 10 percent too low that is okay. It seems that being a factor of a thousand too high is perfectly okay in epidemiology, but being a factor of three too low, is too low.

Q: I'm trying to think about what this means for the UK and for these countries that are trying to work out what to do next.Is your view then having looked at the numbers that if we had not implemented lockdown we would have seen a fall off anyway is that a fair summary?

A: We could have had smart lockdown. Sweden, for example, doesn't allow gatherings of more than 50 people. I think a football game would be a really bad idea right now, because people shout and therefore spray saliva on everyone around them, and they could infect a lot of people. But you know Sweden is doing fine, their deaths again are very localized to nursing homes, like they are in England -- it's the same profile.

I think that you know again it's Sweden so all the evidence suggests that. So my contradiction is the following: Britain, if they had done nothing would have had reported deaths. Now remember there's a difference of reported death, my numbers are all reported. This would have four weeks of additional reported death when the numbers actually came in from what were the real axis death. My guess is they would be less than that so it would not have been double. It wasn't in the month but maybe one and three quarters or so on. So that is my feeling -- we're seeing this in Europe we will know the answer in three or four weeks time. We will know for all of Europe exactly what the excess death of coronavirus was, right now it's a hundred and thirty seven thousand.

Q: Do you find when you've been making these points -- in the media that you received a lot of backlash? Do you think there's a lot of political pressure, as an academic and as an academic you know they're one of your colleagues in Stanford dr. Ioannidis has also put out studies that seem to become skeptical and has received a lot of political blowback.

A: I went on CNN once when he was CNN Vicky Anderson out of London. I appeared on Fox News a couple of times basically said this is all just common sense because I appeared on Fox News CNN wouldn't have me anymore. So basically I have had very clear of things. I had one article in the Los Angeles Times which did great but since I was not saying things that were too extreme none of the East Coast newspapers wanted me, they quoted me, but they wouldn't have me. What's disconcerting is, a few of my academic colleagues -- even relatives -- were very upset with me. Because in my earlier writing I published a report, the medium report from the 22nd of March but on the 13th or 14th of March I distributed a 19 page report,and three academics got very upset with me. I think they were totally panicked, and they felt that if anyone thought this was true they wouldn't lock down as tightly as they should, I'm in fact friends with all the people again, there are no hard feelings.

Q: Let me leave you with one final question: what's your prognosis, what do you think is now gonna happen with this what happens next?

A: There will be a reckoning. Maybe countries will start to see that they need governments that are not necessarily great in rhetoric, but actually thinking and doing. I often go back and think about what Socrates said 2,400 years ago: use your common sense instead of listening to the rhetoric of leaders. We have become very influenced by [rhetoric] that. I think this is another foul-up on the part of the baby boomers.

I am a real baby-boomer, I was born in 1947, and I think we've really screwed up. We cause pollution, we allowed the world's population to increase three-fold, we've caused the problems of global warming, we've left your generation with a real mess in order to save a really small number of very old people. If I was a young person now, I would say, "now you guys are gonna pay for this."

We have my family whatsapp and very early on I said this is a virus being designed to get rid of the baby boomers. You know I don't know, I think my wife thinks this is going to be a take it to the streets thing,and we're gonna have the young people on the street saying you guys have really screwed up it's time to go. And I always joke with her, saying well at least I've made lots of friends among the young people, I'll be okay.

But quite frankly you know I've had a great life, and I must say this to all the young faces in front of me. I have a grandson who's 17. I'd much rather have young people live for a very long time. That said I do have a mother who's a hundred and five years old living in London with my brother, she's in lockdown and I talk to her by whatsapp every single day on FaceTime, and she's fine. She still uses her phone and so on so you know these differences but

You guys should get out there and do something don't accept this anymore we screwed up too much

[May 30, 2020] Cutting our excessive defense budget post-COVID-19 will be difficult. Here's how to do it by Gordon Adams

Sound like wishful thinking. Looks like cutting US military budget is impossible as "Full spectrum Dominance" doctrine is still in place and neocons are at the helm of the USA foreign policy. COVID-19 or not COVID-19.
May 29, 2020 | responsiblestatecraft.org

The other day an aerospace industry analyst asked me whether I thought the defense budget would start to go down, courtesy of the huge cost of dealing with the pandemic and the massive deficits the nation faces. I said it was unlikely and he agreed.

This is not the conventional wisdom in DC. Some national security analysts and advocates for higher defense budgets have warned that the defense budget is now under siege . Critics of the Pentagon and its spending are equally convinced that the pandemic opens the door to necessary, deep, sensible cuts in defense in order to fund the mountain of debt and take care of pressing needs for income, employment, health care, global warming, and other major threats to the well-being of Americans.

Whatever the nation's strategy, critics argue, the pandemic has changed the face of the threat to America. COVID-19 is an invisible, lethal threat to human security, a viral neutron bomb that spares buildings but kills their occupants.

Congress has appropriated more than 20 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, so far, to cope with this threat. Additional funds for the military, ironically, have become a "rounding error" in this spending -- little more than $10 billion of the more than $4 trillion appropriated to date. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper warned about the likelihood of defense cuts and wanted more funds for the Pentagon, but Rep. Adam Smith, Chair of the House Armed Services Committee said there was no way defense would get more funds through the pandemic bills.

So it looks bad for defense, and good for the advocates of cuts. But not so fast. Yes, it is true; history shows that defense budgets do decline. It happens, predictably, when we get out of a war – World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War. Even when we left Iraq in 2011, the budget went down.

There is a secret ingredient in defense budget reductions: they seem to happen, as well, when the politics of deficit reduction appear. Defense also declined after Korea because a fiscal conservative, Eisenhower, was in office, with five virtual stars on his shoulders, making it possible to put a lid on the budgetary appetites of the services.

In fact, in 1985, well before the end of the Cold War, Congress, focused on the deficit, passed the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act, which was then was reinforced in the 1990 Budget Enforcement Act that set hard spending limits on domestic and defense spending. It had to cover both parts of discretionary spending or Congress could not agree. It was 17 years before the defense budget began to rise .

Put the end of war together with a dollop of deficit reduction and defense budgets will go down. They become the caboose, rather than the engine, of the budgetary train. But beware of what you ask for. The price of constraints on defense has been constraints on domestic spending, as the nation has learned over the past three decades. In fact, the Budget Control Act of 2011 constrained domestic spending, while allowing defense to escape almost unscathed, thanks to war supplementals.

When attention shifts to debates over priorities and deficits, it opens the door to a real discussion about defense. But they do not ensure cuts. While the military services may not see their appetite for real growth of 3-5 percent fulfilled, it is unlikely to decline very much.

There is a floor under the defense budget. But you need to change the level of analysis to see it and look at who actually makes defense budget decisions and why they make the decisions they do. It's about something I called the "Iron Triangle."

We all like to think that strategy drives defense budgets. For the most part, however, defense decisions are made inside a political system involving constant, relatively closed interaction between the military services, the Congress, and the community and industry beneficiaries of defense spending.

In outline, budget planners in the military services start with last year's budget and graft on new funds, rarely giving up a program, a mission, or part of the force. This dynamic points the budgets upwards over time. Secretaries and under-secretaries work to add preferences and projects, like national missile defense, to the services' budget plans. On top of that, presidents have made promises, adding such things as bomber funds (Reagan) and space forces (Trump) the services do not want.

Then there is the second leg of the triangle: Congress. For all their efforts to cut Pentagon waste, progressive members do not drive defense decisions in the Congress. The defense authorizers and appropriators do. The associated committees are dominated by defense spending advocates, deeply interested in the outcomes, encouraged by industry campaign contributions and community lobbying. These outside interests are the third leg of the triangle. Contracts and community-based impacts give them a deep stake in the outcomes.

This system is not a conspiracy; it is a visible part of American politics, similar in shape to the players in farm price supports or health care policy. But it is a system that operates somewhat separately from and parallel to the politics of deficit reduction and has a major impact on the content and levels of the defense budget. And its work bakes a kind of sclerosis into efforts to have a broader debate over spending priorities.

The politics of the Iron Triangle will set limits on the defense budget debate making deep cuts unlikely. So what might be the options to end-run this system? Politics, of course. If the advocates of deeper defense reductions want to change America's spending and budgeting priorities, they will need to join forces with advocates of a "new, new deal" in America -- one that would put priority on the national health system, infrastructure investment, climate change, immigration, and educational reform. Only a very large, very deep coalition has a chance of overcoming the inertia imposed by the Iron Triangle.

And that coalition will need to focus on Joe Biden. The president is the key actor here, particularly at the start of an administration. As Bill Clinton learned, the first months are critical to changing overall budget priorities, before the departments, including Defense, can begin the Iron Triangle dance.

Even then, major cuts in defense budgets are an uphill fight. The opening for a broader priorities debate has been provided by the COVID-19 pandemic. The outcome depends significantly on bringing this kind of focus to actions over the next seven months.

[May 29, 2020] Why Was New York Hit So Badly With Covid 19 by Drew Armstrong et all

Notable quotes:
"... By ..."
May 28, 2020 | www.bloomberg.com

Why New York Suffered When Other Cities Were Spared by Covid-19 The mayor, the CDC and a New York disease expert weigh in By Drew Armstrong , Henry Goldman , and Keshia Clukey May 28, 2020, 9:51 AM EDT

Pedestrians walk through the Times Square on March 12.

Photographer: Mark Kauzlarich/Bloomberg
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As of this week, at least 21,000 New Yorkers are dead from Covid-19, with a few dozen added to the city's count every day. More than 3,000 have perished in nursing homes, many more in hospitals. Some died at home. The most brutal toll came among those who were old, poor and in the outer boroughs.

The city's deaths are 10 times those of Los Angeles County's. They've surpassed the 16,000 lives lost in Italy's hard-hit Lombardy region. In the U.K., eight times as populous as New York City, about 37,500 have died.

With New York's outbreak eclipsing others around the world, it's logical to look for somebody to blame. The mayor, the governor, the president -- a human foil for a microscopic villain. But that would be a simplistic approach to accounting for a new virus hitting a dense city, full of people who'd never faced a pandemic threat, enjoying a decade-long stretch of prosperity.

Medical workers move the body of a deceased patient to an overflow morgue in Brooklyn on April 2. Photographer: Angus Mordant/Bloomberg

"There's blame to go all around," said Jeffrey Shaman , director of the climate and health program at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. "We haven't been confronted with an infectious-disease threat like this for 100 years."

There are glimmers of optimism emerging. The virus's spread is slowing, and New York is moving toward the early stages of reopening by mid-June, Mayor Bill de Blasio said during a Tuesday news briefing.

But a crucial question remains for America's financial and cultural epicenter: What went so wrong? Bloomberg reviewed past comments by those involved in the pandemic response, and asked the question of disease experts, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and de Blasio.

Here's what they said about the major factors that led to New York's outbreak.

1. Close the Front Door, Leave the Back Open

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Outbreaks can't start without a spark. The U.S. shut down most travel from China on Feb. 2, when there were at least 14,000 cases there. But it left open travel from most of Europe until March 13. During that time, Italy went from two known infections to more than 15,000 .

In the week ended March 13, 274,000 people arrived at New York-area airports from Europe, and another 174,000 came from the U.K. and Ireland, according to U. S. Customs and Border Protection's New York field office.

"We closed the front door with the China ban, which was right," New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on April 24. "But we left the back door open."

Using genetic analysis, it's possible to trace the lineage of the virus like a family tree with branches around the world. One analysis , from researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, showed that one branch emerged directly from China, with U.S. cases concentrated in Washington state. But a second branch of the virus grew in Italy, and was then imported to New York, rapidly becoming more prevalent.

"We tested people all through February, but it turns out we weren't testing the right people," de Blasio said in an emailed statement. "It's painful to think about how things might have been different had we been able to test someone returning from Europe a month sooner."

Jay Butler , the CDC's deputy director for infectious diseases, compared the city to dry kindling in a wildfire.

"New York City is a global destination and had the opportunity for multiple introductions of a virus," Butler said in an interview. "Because of the amount of travel to New York, particularly related to the increase of disease in Europe, there were multiple sparks landing at once."

2. "Ride the Subway, Take the Bus"

Wash your hands and cover your cough: That was the main advice given to New Yorkers early in the outbreak to prevent the virus's spread.

"We want New Yorkers to go about their daily lives, ride the subway, take the bus, go see your neighbors," New York City Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot said on March 2.

The mayor gave the same guidance. "From what we do understand, you cannot contract it through casual contact, so the subway is not the issue," de Blasio said March 3. Days later, he said, "It has to go from someone who is infected to another person directly into their mouth, their nose, or their eyes."

A commuter wears a mask while riding a subway train in New York on March 9. Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg

Health experts have now almost totally reversed that understanding. The CDC told people to begin wearing face coverings in public on April 3, at which point there were more than 5,000 new cases a day in New York. Later that month, the agency updated guidance to say that touching contaminated surfaces didn't appear to be the primary mode of transmission. There have since been multiple case studies showing clusters of transmission in offices, at churches and other high-density settings.

"Hindsight is 20-20. If we knew everything we knew now, probably there would have been more intervention earlier, but we didn't have that crystal ball at the time," said the CDC's Butler. "Now we know people can be infectious before the onset of symptoms."

3. Perfect Environment

With the virus's easy transmission, New York's shared spaces were a perfect vector to bring the infection from one family to another.

Subways and buses, concert halls, elevators, offices, crowded bars, apartment towers -- while other U.S. urban areas have natural social distancing built into their structure through the prevalence of cars and less-dense buildings, New York is defined by crowding.

"In a place that doesn't have a car culture, that relies on mass transit, there are more opportunities for it to get into households and move around," said Columbia's Shaman.

A bus driver wears a protective mask while working in New Rochelle, New York on March 16. Photographer: Angus Mordant/Bloomberg

A May 8 CDC report drew a similar conclusion. The agency noted that the four most dense counties in America are New York City boroughs. Combine that with public transit, three major transportation hubs and 1.6 million daily commuters into Manhattan, and it's a perfect human mixing bowl.

In his emailed statement, de Blasio said the city's mass transit system had been a major factor.

"New York's subway system stands alone," de Blasio said. "New York City is different than Los Angeles and Seattle and pretty much everywhere else for how heavily the population relies on travel by subway. The subway has been a lifeline for our essential workers, but we also now know that prolonged, close contact during a commute may have been an issue long before we knew the virus was even in the city."

4. Slow to Close

For all of New York City's risk, its leaders moved late on shutting down the city.

Cuomo and de Blasio -- who have had a long-running, often public feud -- disagreed for days over how and when to act. The city closed the schools on March 15. Two days later, de Blasio raised the possibility of a stay-at-home order. Cuomo disagreed, saying it was the state's decision and that he had "no interest whatsoever or plan whatsoever to contain New York City." On March 20, he announced that the state would shut all non-essential businesses, and told people to stay home.

Commuters walk inside a subway station in New York on March 17. Photographer: Demetrius Freeman/Bloomberg

Butler said those decisions are difficult at the early stages of an outbreak. "When we evacuate a city for a hurricane, we don't do it based on when there's something out off the coast of Africa," he said. "We do it when there's much clearer visibility of when it's going to happen. It's much harder with an infectious disease, particularly a brand new one."

In hindsight, the city's actions came late. The day the stay-at-home orders were announced, New York City reported 4,000 new cases -- despite a significant shortage of testing. The outbreak was well into the acceleration phase. And with a bigger head-start, the virus kept growing in the city, with new cases peaking 17 days later on April 6.

5. Nursing Homes

As the virus swept through nursing homes -- and the city was in an urgent search for hospital beds -- the question arose of what to do with elderly patients who recovered.

On March 25, the state made what now appears to be an ill-fated decision to send those people back to nursing homes once they were well enough to leave the hospital. Two months later, Cuomo said the state had followed the federal government's guidance, and made the rules when the state was scrambling for hospital bed space.

"Is the best use of a hospital bed to have somebody sit there for two weeks in the hospital bed when they don't need the hospital bed, because they're not urgently ill? Cuomo said at a press briefing on May 20. "They're just waiting to test negative."

Statewide, there have been 5,980 presumed and confirmed Covid-19 deaths in nursing homes and adult-care facilities as of May 24. New York has now changed its rules for sending patients back to the homes, saying hospitals can't do so until a patient tests negative for the virus.

Unknowns and the Future

Even with the factors that made New York a hot spot, it's still unclear why it got hit harder than other similarly dense areas. Also unknown are how weather, potential variants of the virus, testing and counting of cases and other factors play a role. And the outbreak is just now breaking over new hot spots like Brazil.

"It's important to recognize the pandemic isn't over yet," Butler said. "Some areas are going to be hit earlier than others."

Much of New York City's risk from an outbreak remains. It will forever be a tightly packed city dependent on public transportation, defined by public spaces and close human interaction.

Mayor Bill de Blasio Photographer: Demetrius Freeman/Bloomberg

"What caused New York City to be hit so hard is something we'll be studying for a long, long time," de Blasio said in his statement. "On the one hand, it's frustrating to think of how things may have been different had we known any of this earlier. On the other hand, it's informative as we move to reopen."

In its push to resume activity, the city and state are now considering how to stop the transit system from becoming a disease vector again.

"We anticipate just phase one is easily hundreds of thousands of more people going to work, and then phase two even more so," de Blasio said. "We still have to make sure that we don't end up with a lot of crowded subway cars and buses. It's got to be very systematic. You need the frequency of the service, you need the face coverings, you need some way to make sure that there isn't overcrowding."

Shaman said he's optimistic that some of the tools are in place to better manage the virus, but that the U.S. hasn't succeeded so far -- though to be fair, few countries have.

"We failed on both ends," Shaman said. "We disrupted the economy and haven't controlled the disease."

[May 28, 2020] U.S. Declares a Vaccine War on the World

Notable quotes:
"... The failure of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) against COVID-19, with nearly four times the annual budget of the WHO, is visible to the world. The CDC failed to provide a successful test for SARS-CoV-2 in the critical months of February and March , while ignoring the WHO's successful test kits that were distributed to 120 countries. ..."
"... Trump has yet to hold his administration and the CDC responsible for this criminal bungling. This, more than any other failure , is the reason that the U.S. numbers for COVID-19 are now more than 1.5 million and about a third of all global infections. Contrast this with China, the first to face an unknown epidemic, stopping it at 82,000 infections, and the amazing results that countries such as Vietnam and South Korea have produced. ..."
"... Taiwan was the first to inform the WHO of human-to-human transmissions in December, but was completely ignored. ..."
"... "Just how evil does this situation become? Is the general leadership of the American political economy trying to be evil just for the fun of it?" ..."
"... And at what point does the general indifference to this state of affairs that still, incredibly, obtains, turn over into mass outrage and condemnation? Skrelli, Bayer, and all the rest are frelling evil. Extortion writ large, with easily preventable death and suffering. ..."
"... As you note it's about profits. One of the disturbing condemnations of the now fading American Century, which most USians remain contentedly oblivious to is that during their watch as global hegemon, the US, in what can be seen, in the best light, as bad faith, worked to undermine the democratic functionality of international cooperative organizations like the WHO, the UN, etc. ..."
"... The intention of granting copyrights and patents was noble, to provide a limited monopoly on an invention or literary work for a limited period. IP has been distorted and twisted, extended to insane time limits to protect works that for any common sense thinkers have already become public domain (see, e.g. the Happy Birthday song, Mickey Mouse or re-formulation of a drug that's gone out of patent). Software should have had its own IP regime but that ship has sailed (thanks Bill G.). ..."
May 28, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Donald Trump launched a new vaccine war in May, but not against the virus. It was against the world. The United States and the UK were the only two holdouts in the World Health Assembly from the declaration that vaccines and medicines for COVID-19 should be available as public goods , and not under exclusive patent rights. The United States explicitly disassociated itself from the patent pool call, talking instead of "the critical role that intellectual property plays" -- in other words, patents for vaccines and medicines. Having badly botched his COVID-19 response, Trump is trying to redeem his electoral fortunes in the November elections this year by promising an early vaccine. The 2020 version of Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan is shaping up to be, essentially, " vaccines for us" -- but the rest of the world will have to queue up and pay what big pharma asks, as they will hold the patents.

In contrast, all other countries agreed with the Costa Rican proposal in the World Health Assembly that there should be a patent pool for all COVID-19 vaccines and medicines. President Xi said that Chinese vaccines would be available as a public good , a view also shared by European Union leaders . Among the 10 candidate vaccines in Phase 1 and 2 of clinical trials, the Chinese have five, the United States has three, and the UK and Germany have one each.

Trump has given an ultimatum to the World Health Organization (WHO) with a permanent withdrawal of funds if it does not mend its ways in 30 days. In sharp contrast, in the World Health Assembly (the highest decision-making body of the WHO), almost all countries, including close allies of the United States, rallied behind the WHO. The failure of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) against COVID-19, with nearly four times the annual budget of the WHO, is visible to the world. The CDC failed to provide a successful test for SARS-CoV-2 in the critical months of February and March , while ignoring the WHO's successful test kits that were distributed to 120 countries.

Trump has yet to hold his administration and the CDC responsible for this criminal bungling. This, more than any other failure , is the reason that the U.S. numbers for COVID-19 are now more than 1.5 million and about a third of all global infections. Contrast this with China, the first to face an unknown epidemic, stopping it at 82,000 infections, and the amazing results that countries such as Vietnam and South Korea have produced.

One issue is now looming large over the COVID-19 pandemic. If we do not address the intellectual property rights issue in this pandemic, we are likely to see a repeat of the AIDS tragedy . People died for 10 years (1994-2004) as patented AIDS medicine was priced at $10,000 to $15,000 for a year's supply, far beyond their reach. Finally, patent laws in India allowed people to get AIDS medicine at less than a dollar a day , or $350 for a year's supply. Today, 80 percent of the world's AIDS medicine comes from India. For big pharma, profits trumped lives, and they will continue to do so, COVID or no COVID, unless we change the world.

Most countries have compulsory licensing provisions that will allow them to break patents in case of epidemics or health emergencies. Even the WTO, after a bitter fight, accepted in its Doha Declaration (2001) that countries, in a health emergency, have the right to allow any company to manufacture a patented drug without the patent holder's permission, and even import it from other countries.

Why is it, then, that countries are unable to break patents, even if there are provisions in their laws and in the TRIPS Agreement? The answer is their fear of U.S. sanctions against them. Every year, the U.S. Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) issues a Special 301 Report that it has used to threaten trade sanctions against any country that tries to compulsorily license any patented product. India figures prominently in this report year after year, for daring to issue a compulsory license in 2012 to Natco for nexavar, a cancer drug Bayer was selling for more than $65,000 a year . Marijn Dekkers, the CEO of Bayer, was quoted widely that this was "theft," and "We did not develop this medicine for Indians We developed it for Western patients who can afford it."

This leaves unanswered how many people even in the affluent West can afford a $65,000 bill for an illness. But there is no question that a bill of this magnitude is a death sentence for anybody but the super-rich in countries like India. Though a number of other drugs were under also consideration for compulsory licensing at that time, India has not exercised this provision again after receiving U.S. threats.

It is the fear that countries can break patents using their compulsory licensing powers that led to proposals for patent pooling. The argument was that since many of these diseases do not affect rich countries, big pharma should either let go of their patents to such patent pools, or philanthropic capital should fund the development of new drugs for this pool. Facing the pandemic of COVID-19, it is this idea of patent pooling that emerged in the recent World Health Assembly , WHA-73. All countries supported this proposal, barring the United States and its loyal camp follower, the UK . The United States also entered its disagreement on the final WHA resolution, being the lone objector to patent pooling of COVID-19 medicines and vaccines, noting "the critical role that intellectual property plays in incentivizing the development of new and improved health products."

While patent pooling is welcome if no other measure is available, it also makes it appear as if countries have no other recourse apart from the charity of big capital. What this hides, as charity always does, is that people and countries have legitimate rights even under TRIPS to break patents under conditions of an epidemic or a health emergency.

The United States, which screams murder if a compulsory license is issued by any country, has no such compunction when its own interests are threatened. During the anthrax scare in 2001, the U.S. Secretary of Health issued a threat to Bayer under "eminent domain for patents" for licensing the anthrax-treatment drug ciprofloxacin to other manufacturers. Bayer folded, and agreed to supply the quantity at a price that the U.S. government had set. And without a whimper. Yes, this is the same Bayer that considers India as a "thief" for issuing a compulsory license!

The vaccination for COVID-19 might need to be repeated each year, as we still do not know the duration of its protection. It is unlikely that a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 will provide a lifetime immunity like the smallpox vaccine. Unlike AIDS, where the patient numbers were smaller and were unfortunately stigmatized in different ways, COVID-19 is a visible threat for everyone. Any attempt to hold people and governments to ransom on COVID-19 vaccines or medicines could see the collapse of the entire patent edifice of TRIPS that big pharma backed by the United States and major EU countries have built. That is why the more clever in the capitalist world have moved toward a voluntary patent pool for potential COVID-19 medicines and vaccines. A voluntary patent pool means that companies or institutions holding patents on medicines -- such as remdesivir -- or vaccines would voluntarily hand them over to such a pool. The terms and conditions of such a handover, meaning at concessional rates, or for only for certain regions, are still not clear -- leading to criticism that a voluntary patent pool is not a substitute for declaring that all such medicines and vaccines should be declared global public goods during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unlike clever capital, Trump's response to the COVID-19 vaccine is to thuggishly bully his way through. He believes that with the unlimited money that the United States is now willing to put into the vaccine efforts, it will either beat everybody else to the winning post, or buy the company that is successful . If this strategy succeeds, he can then use "his" COVID-19 vaccine as a new instrument of global power. It is the United States that will then decide which countries get the vaccine (and for how much), and which ones don't.

Trump does not believe in a rule-based global order , even if the rules are biased in favor of the rich. He is walking out of various arms control agreements and has crippled the WTO . He believes that the United States, as the biggest economy and the most powerful military power , should have the untrammeled right to dictate to all countries. Threats of bombing and invasions can be combined with illegal unilateral sanctions ; and the latest weapon in his imaginary arsenal is withholding vaccines.

Trump's little problem is that the days of the United States being a sole global hegemon passed decades ago. The United States has shown itself as a fumbling giant and its epidemic response shambolic . It has been unable to provide virus tests to its people in time, and failed to stop the epidemic through containment/mitigation measures, which a number of other countries have done.

China and the EU have already agreed that any vaccine developed by them will be regarded as a public good. Even without that, once a medicine or a vaccine is known to be successful, any country with a reasonable scientific infrastructure can replicate the medicine or the vaccine, and manufacture it locally. India in particular has one of the largest generic drug and vaccine manufacturing capacities in the world. What prevents India, or any country for that matter, from manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines or drugs once they are developed -- only the empty threat of a failed hegemon on breaking patents?


Noel Nospamington , May 28, 2020 at 4:19 am

Clearly the Trump and Johnson administrations are completely wrong in not supporting that all COVID vaccines and medications be declared as public goods. This is an unprecedented global threat requiring unprecedented global response.

But as a Canadian I have to reluctantly admit, there are legimate reasons to oppose the WHO. Trump like a broken clock can be correct twice a day, even if he is wrong the other 1438 times a day.

The worst offence is that the WHO (World Health Organisation) is suppose to represent the world, and yet it deliberately excludes Taiwan, which it a known part of the world with 24 million people.

Taiwan was the first to inform the WHO of human-to-human transmissions in December, but was completely ignored. And Taiwan has best handled its response to the pandemic.

Personally I think that all countries should stop supporting the WHO until it restores Taiwan's observer status it previous had until 2016. The only other reasonable option would be to create an alternative health organisation to the WHO which does not exclude any part of the world.

The WHO also has other failings, including corruption, exorbitant travel expenses, and an unqualified president beholden to the CCP. But these failings pale in comparison to Taiwan's exclusion, and hopefully the other failings can be fixed within the organisation.

Amfortas the hippie , May 28, 2020 at 7:49 am

"Just how evil does this situation become? Is the general leadership of the American political economy trying to be evil just for the fun of it?"

And at what point does the general indifference to this state of affairs that still, incredibly, obtains, turn over into mass outrage and condemnation?
Skrelli, Bayer, and all the rest are frelling evil. Extortion writ large, with easily preventable death and suffering.

it did NOT begin with trump.It's been there for most of my life. What will it take for ordinary people to get mad enough about it all to do something about it?

Even in this article, the unspoken assumption is that our hands are somehow tied that these corps have agency far beyond anyone else's but those corps can be seized, and exist only at the pleasure of governments in the places they pretend to exist in.

They are a human creation an Egregore, set tottering about as if it were willful and alive but even Lefties treat them as untouchable godlike entities "oh, well lets appeal to "Benevolent Capital, instead "

"Behold, I show you the last man. 'What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?' thus asks the last man, and blinks. The earth has become small, and on it hops the last man, who makes everything small. His race is as ineradicable as the flea; the last man lives longest. 'We have invented happiness,'say the last men, and they blink. They have left the regions where it was hard to live, for one needs warmth. One still loves one's neighbor and rubs against him, for one needs warmth

One still works, for work is a form of entertainment. But one is careful lest the entertainment be too harrowing. One no longer becomes poor or rich: both require too much exertion. Who still wants to rule? Who obey? Both require too much exertion.

No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into a madhouse. 'Formerly, all the world was mad,' say the most refined, and they blink

One has one's little pleasure for the day and one's little pleasure for the night: but one has a regard for health. 'We have invented happiness,' say the last men, and they blink.""

-Zarathustra

mpalomar , May 28, 2020 at 8:50 am

As you note it's about profits. One of the disturbing condemnations of the now fading American Century, which most USians remain contentedly oblivious to is that during their watch as global hegemon, the US, in what can be seen, in the best light, as bad faith, worked to undermine the democratic functionality of international cooperative organizations like the WHO, the UN, etc.

Thus when emergencies arise such as international diplomatic crisis or pandemics, it is found these organisations have been rendered untrustworthy, corrupted and unreliable; unsuited to purpose. American exceptionalism?

VietnamVet , May 28, 2020 at 5:55 am

It is clear now that the USA will not fund a national public health system to fight the coronavirus epidemic. The only conclusion is the reason is to allow Pharmaceutical Corporations to make huge profits by marketing patented drugs and vaccines to treat the illness; if and when, they become available sometime in the future.

Due to incompetence, lack of money and bad messengering; the economic reopening of the USA could kill close to a million Americans. To Republicans and Libertarians, this is of no concern. Democrats may acknowledge the deaths but say they are unavoidable.

For the Elite keeping their wealth is more important than spending a portion to prevent the huge costs in lives and treasure that will come once the Wuhan Coronavirus is established across North America like the related common cold.

Alternate Delegate , May 28, 2020 at 6:32 am

This is a teachable moment on the immorality of all "intellectual property". I am pleased to see that so many countries – other than the US and the UK – can get together on the common decency of allowing everyone to live, and set that above the "justice" of paying off intellectual property assignees. But these countries still have some ways to go in understanding that this applies to all information. That the creation of information can never be a living – in contrast to a living based on the creation of essential goods and services, about which we are learning so much right now! – and that information can never be owned.

They do not yet fully comprehend that all claims to own and extract rent from information are in fact crimes against humanity.

But they will. A teachable, as I said, moment.

Bugs Bunny , May 28, 2020 at 7:05 am

The intention of granting copyrights and patents was noble, to provide a limited monopoly on an invention or literary work for a limited period. IP has been distorted and twisted, extended to insane time limits to protect works that for any common sense thinkers have already become public domain (see, e.g. the Happy Birthday song, Mickey Mouse or re-formulation of a drug that's gone out of patent). Software should have had its own IP regime but that ship has sailed (thanks Bill G.).

Either a giant reform is due or people will ignore the law and infringe the IP. Chinese companies do it with impunity. Maybe they're right to do so.

John Wright , May 28, 2020 at 9:59 am

It appears that the USA has some real competition in the intellectual property game.

Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Intellectual_Property_Indicators

Patent applications for the top 20 offices, 2018
Rank Country Patent applications
1 China 1,542,002
2 U.S. 597,141
3 Japan 313,567
4 South Korea 209,992

If one sums up USA patent applications vs Asia (China, Japan, SK), it is USA 597K vs Asia 2066K.

So Asia is putting in patent applications, vs the USA, at a 3.46 multiple vs the USA.

It will be interesting to see if the USA attitude about the sanctity of intellectual property changes when important key patents are held by the rest of the world.

timbers , May 28, 2020 at 8:33 am

Teachable moments. This could get really interesting if China or a non US & associated puppets develops an effect Covid treatment first.

I will dream of something like this: China develops vaccine, offers it free to US on condition it reduce it's Dept of War & Aggression by 80% and honor all existing and recently existing arms control agreement, and withdraws it's Naval forces though out the world and confines them to the North Atlantic and California coast.

ProNewerDeal , May 28, 2020 at 8:55 am

I wonder if a geopolitically powerful nation/bloc of nations such as China/India/etc might announce that they disregard pharma IP, & announce that they will adhere to the economist Dr Dean Baker-type policy of open source pharma R&D/recipe publication, any private manufacturer may manufacture & sell the resultant pharma SKU. I am referring to any type of pharma or medical device (such as ventilators), not just a COVID-19 vaccine. I would guesstimate that the "soft power" & goodwill generated by such a policy would be extremely beneficial to those nation(s). Furthermore, the US if it tried to retaliate via sanctions or other threats would get a corresponding additional decrease in soft power.

Raj , May 28, 2020 at 9:37 am

To be honest, in some instances Indian govt practices on pharma are quite bad. It is extremely hard in some instances to recoup investments at prices they ask for.

[May 28, 2020] Cuomo blames nursing homes for following his Covid-19 order that KILLED PATIENTS - after removing it from website

Notable quotes:
"... The obligation is on the nursing home to say, 'I can't take a Covid-positive person,' ..."
"... If they said 'I can't take the person,' they can't take the person! So that's how it works ..."
"... the optimum feeding ground for this virus ..."
"... No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the [Nursing Home] solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19 ..."
"... must comply with the expedited receipt of residents returning from hospitals ..."
"... Advisory: Hospital Discharges and Admissions to Nursing Homes ..."
"... following the president's agencies' guidance ..."
"... follow[ing] what the Republican Administration said to do. ..."
"... admit any individuals that they would normally admit to their facility, including...from hospitals where a case of Covid-19 was present ..."
May 28, 2020 | www.rt.com

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has stealthily attempted to rewrite history, deleting his controversial order requiring nursing homes to admit Covid-19 patients from the state health website and blaming facilities for obeying it. After being lambasted in the press for the March 25 executive order that forced New York elder care facilities to accept patients infected with the highly contagious virus, Cuomo attempted to blame the nursing homes for not disobeying his orders during a Wednesday press conference.

Now he's blaming the nursing homes for obeying HIS ORDERS! pic.twitter.com/W2YBdwhvXi

-- Janice Dean (@JaniceDean) May 27, 2020

" The obligation is on the nursing home to say, 'I can't take a Covid-positive person,' " the governor insisted. " If they said 'I can't take the person,' they can't take the person! So that's how it works ."

The coronavirus has cut a devastating swath through New York's nursing homes, killing more than 5,800 people in long-term care facilities since the pandemic began - nearly a fifth of the state's Covid-19 deaths so far, according to AP statistics compiled on Thursday. The policy ultimately sent over 4,500 recovering coronavirus patients to nursing homes, which Cuomo himself called " the optimum feeding ground for this virus ."

But the executive order itself leaves little room for disobedience, reading (in underlined text, no less), " No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the [Nursing Home] solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19 ." Elsewhere in the document, facilities are advised they " must comply with the expedited receipt of residents returning from hospitals " so long as they've been deemed medically stable - no excuses allowed. Facilities aren't even permitted to test incoming patients.

He specifically told them they couldn't do that @NYGovCuomo pic.twitter.com/x31PWu1v9R

-- commonsense (@commonsense258) May 27, 2020

But that same order, titled " Advisory: Hospital Discharges and Admissions to Nursing Homes ," was apparently removed from the New York healthcare website early this month, according to Fox News, which discovered its absence on Tuesday. Unfortunately for Cuomo's revisionism, it's still available in the Wayback Machine . The governor issued a revised directive on May 10, barring hospitals from sending patients back to nursing homes unless they tested negative for the virus. However, his communications director denied the more recent order represented a " reversal " of the old one so much as " build[ing] on " it.

By Saturday, however, Cuomo was blaming the Trump administration for the ill-advised Covid-19 mandate, declaring New York was merely " following the president's agencies' guidance " and " follow[ing] what the Republican Administration said to do. " While the governor's office claimed he was referring to a March directive from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, that order merely required nursing homes to " admit any individuals that they would normally admit to their facility, including...from hospitals where a case of Covid-19 was present " and even advised setting aside a unit to quarantine patients returning from hospitals - a safety measure notably missing from Cuomo's executive order.

[May 28, 2020] Leading UK Epidemiologist -- Pubs, Nightclubs, Restaurants Could Reopen Without Serious Risk

Just who is going to pay for all of this?!?!
Notable quotes:
"... A prominent Oxford epidemiologist has reportedly called for a more rapid exit from Britain's lockdown, saying the coronavirus pandemic is "on its way out" of Britain after infecting as much as half the population. ..."
May 28, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Trevor Marshallsea via The Belfast Telegraph,

A prominent Oxford epidemiologist has reportedly called for a more rapid exit from Britain's lockdown, saying the coronavirus pandemic is "on its way out" of Britain after infecting as much as half the population.

Professor Sunetra Gupta says there would be a "strong possibility" that pubs, nightclubs and restaurants in Britain could reopen without serious risk from Covid-19.

The professor of theoretical epidemiology at the University of Oxford said the UK had most likely erred on the side of over-reaction in its handling of the crisis, suggesting imposing the lockdown itself was one such misstep.

Prof Gupta told unherd.com the Government had brought in the lockdown based on the worst-case scenario modelling of the Imperial College London.

In March, Imperial College's workings suggested Covid-19 had a deaths-to-cases ratio of as high as 1.4%, reducing to 0.66% when allowing for undiagnosed cases.

Prof Gupta's Oxford team produced a rival model, also in March, speculating as much as 50% of Britain's population may have already been infected, and suggesting an infection fatality rate as low as 0.1%, which she says would be far lower now.

Asked for her updated ratio, Prof Gupta said the epidemic had "largely come and is on its way out in this country" and that the rate would be "definitely less than one in 1000 and probably closer to one in 10,000", or between 0.1% and 0.01%.

Prof Gupta said the Government's defence of the lockdown was that it was based on a plausible, "or at least a possible", worst case scenario.

"The question is, should we act on a possible worst case scenario, given the costs of lockdown?

"It seems to me that given that the costs of lockdown are mounting, that case is becoming more and more fragile," she said.

Prof Gupta called for a "more rapid exits from lockdown" based on factors such as "who is dying and what is happening to the death rates".

She said it was feasible Britain could have fared better with the Covid-19 crisis by doing "nothing at all" or at least by concentrating on protecting the people most vulnerable to the disease.

"Remaining in a state of lockdown is extremely dangerous from the point of view of the vulnerability of the entire population to new pathogens," she said.

"Effectively we used to live in a state approximating lockdown 100 years ago, and that was what created the conditions for the Spanish Flu to come in and kill 50m people."

Whilst accepting it hard to prove on current evidence, Prof Gupta said there was a "strong possibility" the UK could return to normal without great risk. Panic Mode , 42 minutes ago

If you are being furlough and hoping you will getting your job back, Good ******* luck. I will put my money 80% furlough people won't get their jobs back. This is your government doing, those ******* politicians.

The government have surely flattened the curve - THE ECONOMY.

AG17 , 43 minutes ago

Finally we are approaching end of Feardemic...

The Shodge , 41 minutes ago

You wish. Better get ready for The Second Wave of Government Terror

Louhnatique , 43 minutes ago

You can tell by these experts' point of view who's paying their bills. None are independent.

Panic Mode , 52 minutes ago

Yeah, I can't wait for the restaurants to open and see how much fears government have injected to the consumers, totally destroy their industries. For those who have completely lost their career, livelihood and their kids future, this is on government, those ******* politicians.

Thanks to the government listening to crook like Neil ******* Ferguson.

Canoe Driver , 53 minutes ago

5,000 government douchebags are now feverishly looking for a different expert.

They have to know already that there are not many 80-year old chain smokers at the local pub. The continued lockdowns are mostly because they can't be seen to admit it was all a mistake and a horrible overreaction. Oh, and because they are the ones obsessed with defeating Trump. Sucks to lose a family business so Gavin Newsom, et al., can try to win a pissing war with Republicans. But that is what it's come to.

funkyfreddy , 1 hour ago

I guess she thought south Korean clubs could reopen safely until that one guy infected numerous people at multiple clubs in one night causing them all to be shut again?

[May 27, 2020] The CDC Slashed The COVID-19 Fatality Rate To A Fraction Of Earlier Estimate Used To Justify Lockdowns

May 27, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

Governments throughout the world and across the US justified extreme, draconian, undemocratic, and unconstitutional (in most US states) "lockdown" and stay-at-home orders on the grounds that the COVID-19 virus was exceptionally fatal.

In March, the World Health Organization (WHO) was claiming that the fatality rate was a very high 3.4 percent .

Yet as time went on, it became increasingly clear that such high estimates were essentially meaningless because researchers had no idea how many people were actually infected with the disease. Tests were largely being conducted on those with symptoms serious enough to end up in emergency rooms or doctor's offices.

By late April, many researchers were publishing new studies showing that the number of people with the disease was actually much higher than was previously thought. Thus, it became clear that the percentage of people with the disease who died from it suddenly became much smaller.

Now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released new estimates suggesting that the real fatality rate is around 0.26 percent.

Specifically, the report concludes that the "symptomatic case fatality ratio" is 0.4 percent. But that's just symptomatic cases. In the same report, the CDC also claims that 35 percent of all cases are asymptomatic.

Or, as the Washington Post reported this week:

The agency offered a "current best estimate" of 0.4 percent. The agency also gave a best estimate that 35 percent of people infected never develop symptoms. Those numbers when put together would produce an infection fatality rate of 0.26, which is lower than many of the estimates produced by scientists and modelers to date."

Of course, not all scientists have been wrong on this. Back in March, Stanford scientist John Ioannidis was much, much closer to the CDC's estimate than the WHO. The Wall Street Journal noted in April :

In a March article for Stat News, Dr. Ioannidis argued that Covid-19 is far less deadly than modelers were assuming. He considered the experience of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was quarantined Feb. 4 in Japan. Nine of 700 infected passengers and crew died. Based on the demographics of the ship's population, Dr. Ioannidis estimated that the U.S. fatality rate could be as low as 0.025% to 0.625% and put the upper bound at 0.05% to 1% -- comparable to that of seasonal flu.

Not that this will settle the matter.

Proponents of destroying human rights and the rule of law in order to carry out lockdowns will continue to insist that "we didn't know" what the fatality rate was back in March. The lack of evidence, however, didn't stop proponents of lockdowns from implementing policies that destroyed the ability of families to earn a living, and which also created social conditions that caused child abuse and suicides to spike.

But for more sane people, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Those who have claimed that lockdowns are "the only option" had virtually no evidence at all to support their position. Indeed, such extreme over-the-top measures such as the general lockdowns required an extreme level of high-quality, nearly irrefutable evidence that lockdowns would work and were necessary in the face of a disease with an extremely high fatality rate. But the only "data" the prolockdown people could offer was speculation and hyperbolic predictions of bodies piling up in the streets.

But that became politically unimportant.

The people who wanted lockdowns had gained the obeisance of powerful people in government institutions and in the media . So actual data, science, or respect for human rights suddenly became meaningless. All that mattered was getting those lockdowns. So the lockdown crowd destroyed the lives of millions in the developed world -- and more than a hundred million in the developing world -- to satisfy the hunches of a tiny handful of politicians and technocrats.

[May 27, 2020] A Virus-Hunter Falls Prey to a Virus He Underestimated

May 27, 2020 | www.nytimes.com

... ... ...

The evening of March 19 he began feeling feverish and developed a headache.

"My immediate thought was, 'Oh, I hope it's not Covid.'"

Each day he felt more tired, his fever hovering at about 100 degrees.

"It hit me like a bus. Extreme exhaustion, like every cell in your body is tired. And my scalp was very sensitive -- it hurt if Heidi touched it. That's a neurological symptom."

It was a new feeling. Despite all the time he has spent in mosquito-riddled climes, "I'd never been seriously ill in my life," he said. A regular jogger and apparently healthy he joked, "This is the first time in my adult life I didn't drink wine for a month."

Image
Dr. Larson in the office of the Vaccine Confidence Project in London last year. Credit... Edu Bayer for The New York Times

Dr. Larson, on the other hand, has survived a fusillade of tropical diseases in her travels: cerebral malaria, hepatitis E, typhoid and dengue.

"I knew how a lot of the symptoms Peter had felt -- how you hold your head when it hurts, how fatigued you get just moving across the room. So if he asked for water, or anything, I dropped what I was doing and got it immediately. Time is a different experience when you're not well -- every minute matters."

At the time, it was almost impossible to get tested; the few kits available were reserved for hospitals.

On March 26, he finally found one through a private doctor. It was positive, and his fever kept rising.

On March 31, it hit 104 degrees and he began feeling confused. He and his wife went to the emergency room of the Royal London Hospital. Latest Updates: Coronavirus Outbreak in the U.S.

See more updates Updated Just now More live coverage: Global Markets New York

Although he did not feel short of breath, his oxygen saturation was only 84 percent, dangerously low. An X-ray showed fluid in both lungs in a pattern that suggested bacterial pneumonia.

His blood tests "were really bad," he said. His levels of C-reactive protein, which indicate inflammation, and of D-Dimer, which indicate blood clots forming, were both very high.

"I instantly changed from doctor to patient," he said. He was put on oxygen and sent upstairs on a gurney.

"That was when it hit me in the stomach," Dr. Larson said. She had been allowed to stay while he was assessed but could not venture upstairs.

Normally Britain's National Health Service hospitals "are as crowded as Indian buses," Dr. Larson said. "But they had a campaign saying, 'Don't come to the hospital unless you're in the 11th hour,' so it was almost empty."

"But when I saw Peter go through the double doors on that cart -- I had the same feeling as the Ebola families we knew in Sierra Leone: They were hiding their relatives because they didn't want to be separated from them emotionally, knowing they might never see them again."

At first, Dr. Piot said, he was so exhausted he was apathetic. He asked for a single room, but was told they were reserved for people who had not tested positive, for their protection. He was put in a 20-by-22-foot room, one bathroom, with three other men.

"They call the N.H.S. 'the great equalizer,'" he said. "The food was bangers and mash -- awful. And my roommates snored a lot."

Image
Dr. Piot, second left, in Yambuku, present-day Democratic Republic of Congo, in 1976. Credit... Joel Breman

Dr. Larson went home that night to hear on the news that Dr. Gita Ramjee, a well-known South African AIDS researcher, had just died of Covid-19. Dr. Ramjee was an honorary professor at Dr. Piot's school and had led a symposium there before falling ill.

"She was my age, and I suddenly felt an acute sense of 'it could happen to me,'" Dr. Larson said.

Dr. Piot was struggling with his own fears.

"All you can do is lie there thinking, 'I hope it's not going to get worse.'"

He got intravenous antibiotics and high-flow oxygen, and was roused every two hours for checks on his a blood pressure and other vital signs.

"I was particularly anxious that I not be put on a ventilator," he said. "Ventilators can save lives, but they can also do a lot of harm. Once you're on one, your chances of surviving are the same as of surviving Ebola -- about one third." The Coronavirus Outbreak


Every day, he talked to Dr. Larson or his grown children. He did get to watch episodes of a new BBC series about a Sicilian detective, " Inspector Montalbano ," that his wife recommended.

"If this had happened before cellphones, can you imagine the loneliness?" he said. "It's like being in prison. Look, I know I'm privileged, and I know I'm not going to be stuck here for 27 years like Nelson Mandela. But the world shrinks to the essentials. All you can think is: 'How is my breathing going?'"

Finally, Dr. Piot said, his oxygen saturation came up to 92 percent. He was discharged on April 8.

"They wanted to call me a taxi, but I said no, I wanted to breathe the now non-polluted air in London."

He took a train home.

"It was a shock, like Stockholm syndrome," he said of his survival. "When I got home, frankly, I started crying. It was so emotional."

But his body wasn't through with the disease.

Before the hospital released him, he had tested negative for the virus. But now something else was going on -- a delayed immune reaction.

"Gradually, I became short of breath," he said. "We live in an old Georgian house, with three floors, and I had a hard time getting upstairs."

Dr. Larson bought a pulse oximeter, a fingertip monitor that measures blood oxygen levels.

She recently tested positive for antibodies to the virus herself, although her illness was so mild that she's not sure when it peaked. She had two bouts of bad headaches, the first in late March and the second in mid-April. The second time, she also had itchy red eyes, which are a rare but recognized symptom and may indicate infection through the eyes .

On April 15, Dr. Piot's heart started to race to 165 beats a minute. The percentage of his blood oxygen dropped to the mid-80s again.

He and Dr. Larson went to the University College Hospital where he had a chest X-ray.

This time, instead of distinct bacterial masses on each side, "my lungs were full of infiltrates, and they were a real mess. It's called ' organizing pneumonia .'"

The tiny sacs that grow like bunches of grapes throughout the lungs, he explained, were oozing signaling proteins -- he was having a "cytokine storm." Those drew voracious white blood cells into the spaces between the air sacs so they threatened to block the paths oxygen normally takes to his red blood cells.

His doctors thought about rehospitalizing him -- an outcome he dreaded.

"My grandfather fought in the trenches in World War I -- in those poppy fields in Flanders," Dr. Piot said. "He said the worst part was going home on leave -- and then realizing what you had to go back to."

But hospitalizing him on oxygen might have been fruitless -- his lungs were "stiffening" and perhaps unable to absorb it.

Instead, Dr. Joanna Porter, who specializes in difficult pneumonias, put him on an intravenous steroid to reduce the inflammation, along with an anticoagulant to prevent blood clots from his atrial fibrillation.

Britain's N.H.S. bureaucracy forbade her from discussing Dr. Piot's treatment, though he gave his permission. He is still under her care. Last week, a PET scan, CT scan and bronchoscopy showed that parts of his lungs have not completely cleared. "And," he added, ever the universal health care booster, "tell your American audience: All these expensive tests are free from the N.H.S."

The steroids appear to be working, but taking them for too long can have side effects, including muscle wasting, weakening of bones and diabetes.

Image

[May 27, 2020] The general election scenario that Democrats are dreading

Notable quotes:
"... "Consumption and hiring started to tick up "in gross terms, not in net terms," Furman said, describing the phenomenon as a "partial rebound." The bounce back "can be very very fast, because people go back to their original job, they get called back from furlough, you put the lights back on in your business. Given how many people were furloughed and how many businesses were closed you can get a big jump out of that. ..."
"... IMO Trump now realizes that he was snookered by the medical equivalent of the Holy Office. Our Auto da Fe has been impressive and nearly fatal but not quite. Trump's statement that he will never shut the economy down again indicates to me that the "scales have fallen" from his eyes. ..."
"... One thing to note are all the diffusion indexes will show large upticks, because of the base effects. U6 will likely be more stubborn. ..."
May 27, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"... he believes, the way to think about the current economic drop-off, at least in the first two phases, is more like what happens to a thriving economy during and after a natural disaster: a quick and steep decline in economic activity followed by a quick and steep rebound.

The Covid-19 recession started with a sudden shuttering of many businesses, a nationwide decline in consumption, and massive increase in unemployment. But starting around April 15, when economic reopening started to spread but the overall numbers still looked grim, Furman noticed some data that pointed to the kind of recovery that economists often see after a hurricane or industry-wide catastrophe like the Gulf of Mexico oil spill." politico

******

"Consumption and hiring started to tick up "in gross terms, not in net terms," Furman said, describing the phenomenon as a "partial rebound." The bounce back "can be very very fast, because people go back to their original job, they get called back from furlough, you put the lights back on in your business. Given how many people were furloughed and how many businesses were closed you can get a big jump out of that. It will look like a V."" politico

--------------

Well, pilgrims, there you have it. If Politico thinks so, it must be so. Do I think the Democratic Party grandees are deliberately suppressing the economy as long as they can and bitching and whining as the GOP tries to crank up the machine? Yes, I do. Is that criminal? Should it be criminal? IMO it should be but to prevent the disintegration of the Great Republic, we must not treat it as such.

IMO Trump now realizes that he was snookered by the medical equivalent of the Holy Office. Our Auto da Fe has been impressive and nearly fatal but not quite. Trump's statement that he will never shut the economy down again indicates to me that the "scales have fallen" from his eyes.

Are his attempts too little and too late? That could be. Or, maybe not.

The brawny beast that is America is gathering itself up, and looking once again at what CAN BE, not at what is forbidden us by the Globalist nitwits who would destroy us and make us into building blocks for their utopia. pl

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/26/2020-election-democrats-281470

What I don't understand is how prolonging the lockdown of reliably blue states like my own WA furthers the Democrat election strategy -- assuming it is what you suggest.

It seems to me that when people in those states feel the totalitarian pinch on their own livelihood, they might be more inclined to vote against the party that's doing it to them, tipping the state into the purple or even red column.

Same goes for the battleground states. Seems like a surefire way to throw the election, not win it.

Can someone explain how this is supposed to work?!?


Jack , 26 May 2020 at 01:10 PM

Sir,

One thing to note are all the diffusion indexes will show large upticks, because of the base effects. U6 will likely be more stubborn.

The best comparisons will be unit volumes relative to prior to lockdown. For example, number of flights or gas consumption prior to and after lockdown ends.

One indicator that I track is used car prices. It is starting a nice uptick particularly for full size trucks. With all the incentives and financing options I would bet we'll see growth in even new truck volumes .

On the flip side, IMO, the increased debt and the trillions that the Fed printed up for Wall St will constrain growth in the medium term.

walrus , 26 May 2020 at 01:52 PM
Col. Lang,

With respect, I don't agree with your view of what has happened from an economic and medical sense although I agree with your view of the political machinations of the democrats.

I said when all this started that the economy would bounce back quickly. I still believe it will. I also believe that the lockdown was necessary, but now it is thought possible to open up because the medical system and logistics have now caught up with the pandemic. The lockdowns bought us time.

Fauci, Birx and Co. were talking of easing up three weeks ago at one of President Trumps press conferences, I watched most of them live. I don't see the medicos as malevolent globalists or anything other than public health officials doing their jobs under great pressure and public scrutiny. I don't think they have drunk any of the numerous glasses of kool aid that were proffered. They appear to me to have stuck stubbornly to the science.

We too are easing lockdown rules - allegedly in "a controlled and measured manner" but that is actually BS. Everyone is sick of being cooped up and can't wait. We too have one State leader - a leftist "democrat" that is dragging their feet in Queensland for political reasons, our equivalent of Florida. Their borders are currently closed - when they reopen there will be an absolute avalanche of tourists heading North, us included, to get some warm weather, that will provide a huge economic spike.

Let's hope we can get vaccines moving PDQ.

LondonBob , 26 May 2020 at 02:25 PM
Problem is things were frothy before covid, financial markets were well overextended, the deficit was out of control, oil won't come back anytime soon. In many ways Trump is a lucky general, gets to blame the slowdown on the virus and any faltering in the recovery on Dem governors.
Eric Newhill , 26 May 2020 at 03:10 PM
Here is a link to a poll that suggests the globalists have screwed up again (see bottom 1/3 of the link). A large % of Americans polled say they will now avoid products made in China and would be willing to pay more for the same product if it's made in the USA. They also think that trade restrictions and tariffs are a good idea. Basically, they like the Trumpian model. China Joe and his boy Hunter are going to be perceived as being on the wrong side of this issue by Trump.

https://fticommunications.com/covid-19/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/FTI-Shifting-Expectations-II-Topline-Results.pdf

turcopolier , 26 May 2020 at 03:21 PM
walrus

you are right. We do not agree. IMO the country wide shutdown was never necessary. What was needed was a strategy of protection for the vulnerable. The rest could have taken care of themselves with anti-flu like treatment while therapies and vaccines were developed.

turcopolier , 26 May 2020 at 03:23 PM
Corkyagain

Yes. In their contempt for those they think "deplorable, they f----d up.

turcopolier , 26 May 2020 at 03:26 PM
LondonBob

The Democrats deserve it and BTW I don't agree with any of the negatives you state with regard to the pre-COVID state of things. You just don't like Trump. Neither do I

turcopolier , 26 May 2020 at 03:32 PM
LondonBob

Lucky is better than skillful. But I disagree about trump. He is a lot more than just lucky.

AK , 26 May 2020 at 03:45 PM
CorkyAgain,

It is the strategy (poorly conceived) of people whose ideology blinds them to extant reality, and who think they can mold that reality to their whims through sheer fervency of their belief in their moral superiority to other, "lesser types." I can't think of a single historical example where such a strategy has worked out, but there you have it. Then again, according to them, history also fits into that concept of "malleable reality" as they see it. They are the makers of history in their own estimation, rather than part of and subject to it. This is why the Left has never been able to grapple with, and is often outright hostile to, the notion of unforeseen consequences.

BillWade , 26 May 2020 at 03:56 PM
This past weekend our hotel parking lots were pretty full, this is normally a slow time in SW Florida. It's likely restaurants will be allowed 100% capacity seating with bars opening this coming Monday.

Reasonable people who want a real economy in the USA should all be voting for President Trump. If he wins, and I think he will, we're going to have a real boom as smart EU money moves into USA equities, particularly the NASDAQ.

Vegetius , 26 May 2020 at 04:49 PM
Trump is the Charlie Brown of American political history.

How many more footballs will he make a go at before (and after) November?

Fred , 26 May 2020 at 05:37 PM
LondonBob,

" blame the slowdown on the virus "
Not gonna happen. He's going to blame the Democrats who issued all those EO declaring who was essential and who was "seperate but equal". He'll blame China, rightfully so, for spreading this as far and wide in the West as possible; he'll blame the academics and professional "resistance" within and without the government for their incompetence and intransigence.

Corky,

"Seems like a surefire way to throw the election, not win it."
it doesn't matter who votes, it only matters now who counts them. Thus the statewide mailings of ballots to maximize ballot harvesting. At the very least lots of local elections will get stolen, probably a congressional one too, even if WA doesn't go for Trump in November.

Terence Gore , 27 May 2020 at 09:20 AM
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3086177/coronavirus-uses-same-strategy-hiv-dodge-immune-response-chinese

"Both viruses remove marker molecules on the surface of an infected cell that are used by the immune system to identify invaders, the researchers said in a non-peer reviewed paper posted on preprint website bioRxiv.org on Sunday. They warned that this commonality could mean Sars-CoV-2, the clinical name for the virus, could be around for some time, like HIV...that the coronavirus was showing "some characteristics of viruses causing chronic infection"."

J , 27 May 2020 at 10:52 AM
It appears that an Intelligence report that's come out regarding the CCP and their virus by French Intelligence (DGSE) isn't getting the traction it deserves.

Eleven years, , 'eleven years' BEFORE the EU signed off on the PRC/CCP Wuhan lab construction, French DGSE warned that the PRC/CCP's lab was a construction leak and bio-weapon making facility disaster waiting to happen.

Why was nobody listening at the time? Where were the FIVE EYES in all of this, were they ignoring French Intelligence's warning, what? Where was the CIA in this? They're supposed to be the 'external' watchdog, right? It was the Tenet/Goss handover time frame, 2004. But surely the DGSE warnings had to have been 'flagged' by Langley for a closer scrutiny, right? What was DIA's read on this at the time?

..."French diplomatic and security advisers, who argued that the Chinese reputation for poor bio-security could lead to a catastrophic leak.

They also warned that Paris could lose control of the project, and even suggested that Beijing could harness the technology to make biowarfare weapons."...

Another interesting cavet in the article relates to P4 labs everywhere (including U.S. facilities)..... "A source told the newspaper: 'What you have to understand is that a P4 [high-level bio-security] laboratory is like a nuclear reprocessing plant. It's a bacteriological atomic bomb."

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8351113/Wuhan-virus-lab-signed-Michel-Barnier-2004-despite-French-intelligence-warnings.html

Barbara Ann , 27 May 2020 at 03:15 PM
An interesting development yesterday: Twitter have flagged a couple of Trump's tweets on mail-in ballots as "Misleading". A link at the bottom of each tweet says "Get the facts about mail-in ballots" and directs you to a piece written by Twitter on the subject quoting CNN & WaPo as having contrary views to the President - hardly news in itself.

Are we seeing the beginning of another insurance policy, in case the economy recovers? It appears to put Trump in a bind, as shutting down or sanctioning Twitter as a whole would not only deny Trump his (until yesterday) unfiltered comms channel to his base, but also invite cries of censorship by the MSM. If he does nothing, what is to stop Twitter 'correcting' more of this messages? In a later tweet Trump directly accused Twitter of "..interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election". It will be very interesting to see how this develops. Here is the first of the offending tweets:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1265255835124539392

CK , 27 May 2020 at 03:38 PM
@Barbara
If Israel, Mexico, Great Britain, China, Ukraine, Canada, et.al can interfere in American elections, and the USA can interfere in the elections of any nation it wishes, why should the Masters and Commanders of the internet be forbidden the same hobby?
Have you never watched Network?
https://americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechnetwork4.html
Same as it ever was.

[May 26, 2020] COVID-19 progress, take 2

May 26, 2020 | angrybearblog.com
  1. likbez , May 25, 2020 10:13 pm

    This is a very interesting virus. IMHO curves by the country does not tell us much as local conditions drastically differ within each single country. Like in 'Lies, damned lies, and statistics" :-)

    As death rates in many countries include both from COVID-19 and "with COVID-19" those curves can even be misleading. Only excessive deaths rom previous years average make some sense in country to country comparison.

    First of all, the spread is highly concentrated in large multi-million cities. For example, NYC metropolitan area accounts for ~40% of attributed to COVID-19 deaths and essentially dominates the country stats.

    But the situation in NYC and Hudson river area of NJ is not all the USA. Outside large cities and their immediate suburbs the USA is affected much less.

    For example, in many towns 70 miles west from NYC nobody knows even one person who became infected.

    The second interesting feature of this virus is that it mainly kills old (and, especially, very old) as well as obese ("diabetic" in the USA is, in a way, a code name for the morbidly obese), and hypertonics. Those three categories cover around 80% of all deaths, Add to them people with other serious medical conditions and you probably get 90%.

    As such, they reflect as much the level of inequality and "aging population" phenomena, as the government reaction..

    If so, the question arise whether the sacrifices forced by prolonged quarantine are justified by the severity of the epidemic (the first month was probably justifiable as it was unclear what kind of danger we face) ?

    Also Fauci fake prognoses (based on now discredited Ferguson models) now became serious liability both for him and for Trump (Fauci probably is a goner; hopefully Trump is too )

    And while Trump administration as a whole demonstrated amazing incompetence in the process, states amplifies it with arbitrary measures of their own and idiotic moves. Remember Cuomo stupid (and expensive) quest for more ventilators, for more hospital beds, and his controversial directive ordering nursing homes to admit COVID-19 patients..

    I also doubt that opening shops in the areas with zipcodes that registered zero or single digit of cases can change something. Just look how unequal the NY counties are:

    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/

    For example, I doubt that there is much value in continuation of quarantine in the bottom dozen of counties in this table.

    There is no surprise that in many western counties the NY and NJ governors are now viewed as enemies of people and effigies were burned on Memorial day 😉

    At the same time the problems for NYC and vicinities are not gone. They now look even more serious. Homeless, subways, packed buses and elevators are pretty efficient means of spreading the virus and will remains so. Population density is also a huge, insurmountable factor.

    So here one size definitely does not fit all and the work should be done differently in individual areas.

    In may areas closing shops and restaurants was probably redundant and closing of entertainment (especially night clubs and cinemas) and churches (which are mostly attended by old people) as well as special protection measured for nursing homes and prisons might be sufficient.

[May 26, 2020] The fact that this being a great social experiment has been lost on those decrying the lockdown. We are still unpacking the effects of it, but I will repeat that the gov't has essentially blown its wad for all to see.

May 26, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

NemesisCalling , May 25 2020 17:35 utc | 95

@91 lizard

I love it, man. Your post/writing/poems.

But don't you think you are being a wee bit devil-may-care with your hotdoggin'? Lol.

...

Russ is also a fantastic writer but whereas his post above and his prior during the pandemic have focused on the brutality of the lockdown, I'm afraid he has missed the boat on its net-positive effects, although he has rightly noted that being a bachelor during this time is a far different experience than a family man (the same goes for apartment dwellers vs. homeowners):

- As the breadwinner, I have never been home as much as I have with the fam. I'm exploring fatherhood, long hair and a patchy and itchy beard, and enjoying myself more than anyone should during the lockdown.

- I have seen more use at public parks, tennis courts, dog walking, family-outing than ever before. They say that street foot-traffic is down but I beg to differ. Perhaps consumerism and strip-mall venturing is way down, but f*** that vacuous endeavor I say anyhow.

- People are cooking again. Fast food has more or less been relegated to treat-status where it rightfully belongs

- More time at home allows the family to see the benefits of parenting at home and how NOT to rely on public school raising your child in absentia. Our public school system desperately needs a wake-up call. It needs to end the trend of politically-charged mission-statements and remove itself back to second-fiddle status when it comes to raising our children.

- The fact that this being a great social experiment has been lost on those decrying the lockdown. We are still unpacking the effects of it, but I will repeat that the gov't has essentially blown its wad for all to see. Future generations will be able to judge this event more accurately, but there are those now who are more politically active than they have ever been and so will be more fully enraged during the NEXT encroachment on our liberties. And do you think that the gov't will be able to repeat this lockdown in the near future with the same acquiescence from the people? I think not. Indeed, a powder keg has been borne out of this and it is propelling us out of our collective consumer-driven apathy. And the fact that those decrying this event have failed to understand how disrupting the course of this spirit-trough we have all been dwelling in the past decades could actually be a boon for consciousness, I'm afraid says more about them and their need of the status-quo than anything else. FFS, how long do you think the gov't can enforce such a policy? How long before it goes to far and creates a reaction that reinvigorates the sleeping masses? My argument is that it is getting closer every day and that their goal during this event will backfire spectacularly on them in the near future.

- As the lockdown peters out, and liberty to frequent parks, forests, and the right to disperse camp is restored, one wonders what the point of barring us from such activities for just under three months was for other than piss people off? These activities would never stand a snowballs chance to be removed permanently, so one can only wonder why? All it did was further cast a spotlight on their idiocy and further reinforces my point above that, in effect, they blew their wad.

- Small businesses have suffered. Money is printing so fast to go out of style in the near future. Oh well, if your margins were that thin so as not to weather a couple months hiatus/sabbatical, where the gov't has been alleviating the burden of such a time, then you should probably rethink your business venture and decide whether it is 1) needful, 2)worthwhile, 3)non-superfluous. We need to eliminate the novel enterprises of a late-capitalist society where hard work is shunned and luxury is all. Toughening up and becoming lean-and-mean is not necessarily a bad idea, especially when it comes to the powder-puff society that we find ourselves in.


[May 26, 2020] COVID Politics Insider Closers vs. Outsider Openers

May 26, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Now with the coronavirus, we see a similar misplay between earnest elites and raucous masses. When the severity of the crisis became apparent to all in early March -- some alarmist statistical models were predicting millions of deaths–it seemed obvious and necessary for federal and state officials to follow the advice of the earnest elites and to order lockdowns; as for the raucous masses, they were initially too bowled over by the apparent menace to raise much of a protest. After all, nobody wanted to be outdoors during a zombie apocalypse.

Of course, in the absence of zombies, or of people dropping dead in the streets, anti-lockdown protests soon erupted; in this country, somebody is always protesting something. At first the protesters seemed to be little more than surviving Tea Partiers, flecked with neo-Confederates -- a perception that the media was only too happy to reinforce -- and yet over the past few weeks, it's become clear that the reopen movement is broader than just the anti, the angry, and the Trumpy.

Indeed, as this author noted last week, blue-state politicians, including incumbent Democrats, are now in favor of reopening, albeit in a sometimes inconsistent and arbitrary fashion. In fact, some recognized members of the earnest healthcare policy elite have gone so far as to write in The New York Times , "As circumstances have evolved, so has my thinking" -- that is, time to open up.

Yet in the meantime, populists -- aided by Republican researchers -- are tallying up incidents of blue-state condescension and hypocrisy, as the woke and the wealthy have imposed one set of rules on the proles, even as they themselves live by another set of rules.

For instance, there were the orders about closing down churches, but not liquor stores . And there was the governor's wife who ignored her husband's lockdown order and flew by private jet to her equestrian farm in another state. And there was the state public health chief who pulled her mother out of a nursing home even while ordering such homes to accept Covid-19 patients. (That official was the first transgender person to hold such a post, so she gets extra points for wokeness, if not for fairness.)

Indeed, the comedian Ruth Buzzi -- best known for her appearances on the Laugh-In TV show in the late 60s and early 70s -- tweeted about some of the many weirdnesses of the current situation: "Marijuana is legal and haircuts are against the law. It took half a century but Hippies finally won."

In the meantime, many people -- including Elon Musk , who defies ideological categorization, and including as well African American partiers in Florida, not likely to be Republicans -- are simply ignoring the remaining restrictions. The hard-pressed police, betwixt and between the rulers and the ruled, can't arrest them all.

It's in this environment that The Washington Examiner took note of a Gallup poll showing that a whopping 63 percent of Americans support reopening, if new cases of the virus are declining. To be sure, that's a big "if," and yet for the time being, it doesn't seem coincidental that Gallup also finds that the approval rating of President Trump -- who has mostly supported reopening and who has always been contemptuous of those earnest elites -- has edged into positive territory.

.... ... ...

[May 25, 2020] Should I be ashamed of this gathering? I'm sure some will think yes, yes I am being an asshole. But I'm going to take the risk of doing what social herd animals need to do in order to maintain my mental health.

May 25, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

lizard , May 25 2020 16:35 utc | 92

Thank you Russ @66. I always appreciate your comments.

I'm going to repost something I wrote this morning about how one can be a skeptic but not be an asshole about it:

Did you know it is possible to be skeptical about the pandemic but not be an asshole about it?

I'll use myself as an example.

I wear a mask when I'm in commercial spaces, even when it's not required. I understand and respect how irrationally fearful people are, and I also understand how the mask has been turned into a politically divisive symbol of freedom vs. tyranny. I'm not going to waste energy on opposing mask-wearing when the real threat is a mandatory vaccine program cooked up by sociopaths and administered by the military.

I don't bring my little germ-sponges–aka, children–into stores with me when I'm shopping. My oldest, half-jokingly, said he wants to go into Target for his birthday as his birthday gift. Not to buy anything, just to be in a store.

I'm not rushing into bars and restaurants and cram-packed swimming pools in the Ozarks now that things are reopening. I stay at home, play with Legos, and drink box wine like a good adult male with kids and no social life.

Since there is a reopening going on, and a subsequent media effort to highlight the most obnoxious visual examples of violating our NEW NORMAL social distancing requirements, let me offer a personal example of what reopening looks like for me.

Yesterday I hosted a social gathering. My friend came over with his two girls, and another friend came over with his partner. The kids played and laughed over a fart gun. We ate hotdogs and had a fire. It was great.

We talked about the risk of our gathering in our backyard to eat hotdogs and to let the kids play. I think we understand the risk as best we can, considering how dubious much of the information has been, and how flawed the models were.

Should I be ashamed of this gathering? Am I being an asshole by hanging out with a few friends who have social lives that are about as exciting as mine?

I'm sure some will think yes, yes I am being an asshole. And that's fine. But until the freedom to hang out with other people is completely removed, I'm going to take the risk of doing what social herd animals need to do in order to maintain my mental health.

[May 24, 2020] I Think It May Have Cost Lives - Nobel Prize Winner Slams Lockdowns As Product Of Panic Virus

May 24, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

According to the Telegraph , Michael Levitt correctly predicted the initial trajectory of the pandemic, but was ignored by now-disgraced Imperial College epidemiologist Niall Ferguson, whose warnings were embraced by the UK government as justification for the lockdown, despite the fact that the projections proved to be extremely flawed and dramatically overestimated the virus's potential for devastation. As early as march, Levitt warned that Ferguson's projections had over-estimated the potential death toll by "10 or 12 times".

Instead of helping the situation, Fergusons' projections created an unnecessary "panic virus" which spread among global political leaders, Prof Levitt told the Telegraph.

Prof Levitt, a British-American-Israeli who shared the Nobel prize for chemistry in 2013 for the "development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems", has said for two months that the planet will beat coronavirus faster than most other experts predict.

"I think lockdown saved no lives," said the scientist, who added that the Government should have encouraged Britons to wear masks and adhere to other forms of social distancing.

"I think it may have cost lives. It will have saved a few road accident lives - things like that - but social damage - domestic abuse, divorces, alcoholism - has been extreme. And then you have those who were not treated for other conditions."

Data from various studies has offered a mixed picture about the effectiveness of the lockdowns. The number of cases and deaths has undoubtedly plunged in the US and across Europe since strict lockdowns were almost universally enacted, but many wonder whether governments are being overly cautious, perhaps to a dangerous degree.

Though his models have been vindicated by the passage of time, Levitt said his initial concerns about Ferguson's models were largely ignored due to what he calls the "panic virus", despite the fact that there's recent precedent for epidemiological models over-estimating the impact of other outbreaks, including H1N1 and Ebola.

Having assessed the initial outbreak in China and from the infected Diamond Princess cruise ship, he predicted by March 14 that the UK would lose around 50,000 lives. Prof Ferguson's modelling that same week estimated up to 500,000 deaths without social distancing measures.

"I think that the real virus was the panic virus," Prof Levitt told the Telegraph. "For reasons that were not clear to me, I think the leaders panicked and the people panicked and I think there was a huge lack of discussion..

The 73-year-old has no background as an epidemiologist, but he assessed the outbreak in China and prepared a paper based on his own calculations. Most countries, he predicted, would suffer a Covid-19 death rate worth around an extra month in excess deaths over the calendar year.

"In Europe, I don't think that anything actually stopped the virus other than some kind of burnout," he added. " There's a huge number of people who are asymptomatic so I would seriously imagine that by the time lockdown was finally introduced in the UK the virus was already widely spread. They could have just stayed open like Sweden by that stage and nothing would have happened."

Professor Levitt has now analysed the data from 78 nations with more than 50 reported cases of coronavirus. His investigations proved the virus was never going to achieve the type of exponential growth that the researchers at Imperial were predicting at the same time.

At this point, Levitt believes the virus has reached a point of saturation across Europe and parts of the US making lockdowns much less effective. At this point, they're probably causing far more harm than benefit.

The virus "has saturated", he believes, across Europe. "I think the lockdown will cause much more damage than the deaths saved," he added. "When I saw the briefing (from Prof Ferguson) I was shocked. I had a run-in with him when I actually saw that Ferguson's death rate was a year's worth - doubling the normal death rate. I saw that and said immediately that's completely wrong. I think Ferguson over-estimated 10 or 12 times. We should have seen from China that a virus never grows exponentially. From the very first case you see, exponential growth actually slows down very dramatically.

"The problem with epidemiologists is that they feel their job is to frighten people into lockdown, social distancing. So you say 'there's going to be a million deaths' and when there are only 25,000 you say 'it's good you listened to my advice'. This happened with Ebola and bird flu. It's just part of the madness."

Prof Levitt says the global evidence shows the virus fades in dry heat and in much of the western world "there seems to be some kind of immunity". "The main worry I would have would be in China," he said when asked about the prospect of a second outbreak. "I am 73 and I feel very young," he added. "I don't care about the risk at all. As you get old the risk of dying from disease is so high that this is the time to buy a motorcycle, go skiing!"

Even as the NYT and WaPo search for every shred of evidence to support the view that the reopening in the US will lead to a second wave, they're finding that there's not nearly as much as they'd hoped - which is why projections are their new favorite tool.

[May 24, 2020] It all points to social economic status and povert: one argument against shutting down economies so drastically

May 24, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Blue Dotterel , May 24 2020 16:29 utc | 8

"It all points to social economic status and poverty," Gray Molina said.

This is probably true. It was one argument against shutting down economies so drastically. This is less of a problem in the wealthier countries for the moment, but in a second or third wave, you will probably see more deaths among the below 60s due to increasing poverty caused by poorly managed lockdowns this time around.

[May 24, 2020] 'How Could the CDC Make That Mistake?' The government's disease-fighting agency is conflating viral and antibody tests, compromising a few crucial metrics that governors depend on to reopen their economies. Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, and other states are doing the same.

Notable quotes:
"... "According to CDC, the disease of obesity affects about 78 million Americans 1 and the ASMBS estimates about 24 million have severe or morbid obesity." ..."
May 24, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Richard Steven Hack , May 24 2020 23:54 utc | 46

And the government botching of this crisis continues...

'How Could the CDC Make That Mistake?' The government's disease-fighting agency is conflating viral and antibody tests, compromising a few crucial metrics that governors depend on to reopen their economies. Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, and other states are doing the same.
https://tinyurl.com/y92ea59f

And overseas as well...

'Politicised nature' of lockdown debate delays Imperial report
https://tinyurl.com/y7csboom

And of course, the effect of that...

Nearly half of US states haven't contained their coronavirus outbreaks, a new study finds
https://tinyurl.com/yc72pd8t

And no, Sweden is not doing better...

Just 7.3% of Stockholm had Covid-19 antibodies by end of April, study shows
Official findings add to concerns about Sweden's laissez-faire strategy towards the pandemic
https://tinyurl.com/yahnmb3a

Finally, a large scale study on HCQ - 86,000 patients, with 15,000 receiving HCQ...

Trump drug hydroxychloroquine raises death risk in Covid patients, study says
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52779309

The color of coronavirus:
COVID-19 deaths by race and ethnicity in the U.S.
https://www.apmresearchlab.org/covid/deaths-by-race

Blacks are *twice* as likely to get it as whites and Latinos. American Indians are *five times* more likely to get it. They conclude the best indicator is poverty.

From The Lancet, a study of New York patients... Epidemiology, clinical course, and outcomes of critically ill adults with COVID-19 in New York City: a prospective cohort study https://tinyurl.com/yblmszsx

Between March 2 and April 1, 2020, 1150 adults were admitted to both hospitals with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19, of which 257 (22%) were critically ill.

The median age of patients was 62 years (IQR 51–72), 171 (67%) were men. 212 (82%) patients had at least one chronic illness, the most common of which were hypertension (162 [63%]) and diabetes (92 [36%]).

119 (46%) patients had obesity.

As of April 28, 2020, 101 (39%) patients had died and 94 (37%) remained hospitalised.

203 (79%) patients received invasive mechanical ventilation for a median of 18 days (IQR 9–28), 170 (66%) of 257 patients received vasopressors and 79 (31%) received renal replacement therapy.

The median time to in-hospital deterioration was 3 days (IQR 1–6).

In the multivariable Cox model, older age (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] 1·31 [1·09–1·57] per 10-year increase), chronic cardiac disease (aHR 1·76 [1·08–2·86]), chronic pulmonary disease (aHR 2·94 [1·48–5·84]), higher concentrations of interleukin-6 (aHR 1·11 [95%CI 1·02–1·20] per decile increase), and higher concentrations of D-dimer (aHR 1·10 [1·01–1·19] per decile increase) were independently associated with in-hospital mortality.

Note: 36% had diabetes; 46% were fat. Like I've said before, "diabetes" is a code word for "fat." And how many people in the US are fat and thus at risk? "According to CDC, the disease of obesity affects about 78 million Americans 1 and the ASMBS estimates about 24 million have severe or morbid obesity."

So much for "let's just isolate the elderly"...so we can attend our baseball games this summer and stuff ourselves with crap food...

[May 24, 2020] It's the biggest question in the world right now: is Covid-19 a deadly disease that only a small fraction of our populations have so far been exposed to? Or is it a much milder pandemic that a large percentage of people have already encountered and is already on its way out?

May 24, 2020 | www.unz.com

Swedish Family , says: Show Comment May 21, 2020 at 8:39 pm GMT

New UnHerd interview up , this time with Sunetra Gupta, professor of theoretical epidemiology at Oxford. From their summary:

It's the biggest question in the world right now: is Covid-19 a deadly disease that only a small fraction of our populations have so far been exposed to? Or is it a much milder pandemic that a large percentage of people have already encountered and is already on its way out?

If Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College is the figurehead for the first opinion, then Sunetra Gupta, Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at the University of Oxford, is the representative of the second. Her group at Oxford produced a rival model to Ferguson's back in March which speculated that as much as 50% of the population may already have been infected and the true Infection Fatality Rate may be as low as 0.1%.

Since then, we have seen various antibody studies around the world indicating a disappointingly small percentage of seroprevalence -- the percentage of the population has the anti-Covid-19 antibody. It was starting to seem like Ferguson's view was the one closer to the truth.

But, in her first major interview since the Oxford study was published in March, Professor Gupta is only more convinced that her original opinion was correct.

As she sees it, the antibody studies, although useful, do not indicate the true level of exposure or level of immunity. First, many of the antibody tests are "extremely unreliable" and rely on hard-to-achieve representative groups. But more important, many people who have been exposed to the virus will have other kinds of immunity that don't show up on antibody tests -- either for genetic reasons or the result of pre-existing immunities to related coronaviruses such as the common cold.

The implications of this are profound – it means that when we hear results from antibody tests (such as a forthcoming official UK Government study) the percentage who test positive for antibodies is not necessarily equal to the percentage who have immunity or resistance to the virus. The true number could be much higher.

Observing the very similar patterns of the epidemic across countries around the world has convinced Professor Gupta that it is this hidden immunity, more than lockdowns or government interventions, that offers the best explanation of the Covid-19 progression:

"In almost every context we've seen the epidemic grow, turn around and die away -- almost like clockwork. Different countries have had different lockdown policies, and yet what we've observed is almost a uniform pattern of behaviour which is highly consistent with the SIR model. To me that suggests that much of the driving force here was due to the build-up of immunity. I think that's a more parsimonious explanation than one which requires in every country for lockdown (or various degrees of lockdown, including no lockdown) to have had the same effect."

Asked what her updated estimate for the Infection Fatality Rate is, Professor Gupta says, "I think that the epidemic has largely come and is on its way out in this country so I think it would be definitely less than 1 in 1000 and probably closer to 1 in 10,000." That would be somewhere between 0.1% and 0.01%.

[ ]

https://www.youtube.com/embed/DKh6kJ-RSMI?feature=oembed

If she is right, antibody tests are a poor measure of the true virus spread, and the declining death rate Sweden and many other countries have seen this past month is from immunity -- not measures -- lowering the effective reproduction number. Time will tell.

[May 24, 2020] Coronafacts IFR 1%, Spread Low by Anatoly Karlin

May 24, 2020 | www.unz.com

Beckow , says: Show Comment May 21, 2020 at 11:24 am GMT

To summarise: corona infects less than 5-10% of people, more under ideal virus circumstances in cold, dumpy ski resorts or in NY-London tenements. Among infected it kills about 1%, almost all over 65, with those over 80 having a 10-20% chance of dying.

And they shut down the world, because ' corona '. This is a policy of 'do anything to protect the old' even if it means enslaving the young, a gerontocracy that would be unthinkable in the past.

It is dawning on even the most fanatical corona fans that the data won't change. Now we hear about a 'second wave' – why only one more? Or that the restrictions stopped a disaster – one of those 'what if' historical speculations. But the best one lately is that ' we didn't know anything, nobody knew '.

Right, who knew? One can justify anything by embracing ignorance: "I know nothing, but you must do what I say." This is one is better than WMDs, lier loans, or Putin personally flipping votes in Michigan in 2016 West is really growing intellectually. I can't wait for the next one

sudden death , says: Show Comment May 21, 2020 at 11:50 am GMT

To summarise: corona infects less than 5-10% of people, more under ideal virus circumstances in cold, dumpy ski resorts or in NY-London tenements

That is in 2-3 months since initial infections and it was enough to completely overwhelm organized healthcare in some places and strain very hard in most places, then all those loathed protective measures kick in and the spread slows because of it. If there were no such any measures taken anywhere in the world growth would become explosively exponential very soon and those 5% would increase tenfold.

Ludwig , says: Show Comment May 21, 2020 at 1:34 pm GMT
Thanks for a great list of resources! Incidentally ongoing studies from the COVID-19 stricken USS Roosevelt – a closed ecosystem like the Diamond Princess but with relatively young, fit crew members – should be interesting. ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/23/roosevelt-coronavirus-epidemiology )

A couple of thoughts (and apologize if they may be in some of the links you mentioned):

While it's good to know what the "average" IFR is, IMO it's as important from a policy point of view to know what the conditions in which it varies and how much (based on current treatment options) it can vary by. Speaking purely statistically, a mean of 1% with a 95% CI of 0.9-1.1% is significantly different from one of 1% with a 95% CI of 0.01% to 2%.

Here are some factors that we already know significantly impact hospitalizations/mortality:

Inherent Factors:
– Age (easily the biggest known variable for impacting IFR, likely correlated with immune system response)
– Gender (men more susceptible than women (around 30% more?)
– Co-morbidity (correlates with pre-existing damage to tissues throughout the body and sensitivity of receptors/immune response)
– Prior coronavirus history (??? One paper claims that recent infection with coronavirus that causes the common cold may offer cross-reactive antibodies to SARS-Cov-2 https://www.lji.org/news-events/news/post/first-detailed-analysis-of-immune-response-to-sars-cov-2-bodes-well-for-covid-19-vaccine-development/ )
– Blood groups (??? Contradictory/not fully vetted data claiming for example those with ABO antigen type A more susceptible to infection progressing than type O, B, AB)

External Factors
– Early detection and treatment before severe symptoms
– Medical care availability
– Tailored treatment cocktails (evolving but reports that each country/region gaining experience on identifying optimal treatment regimens depending on patient)
– Optimal use of ventilators (reports that though low blood oxygen is first presented, automatic intubating may often make things worse)
– Lethality/Infectiousness of different strains (?? Non-peer reviewed studies claim for example at least three major strains that differ in infectiousness/severity which are found dominant in different regions.

There may be more (eg BCG vaccine (a theory I don't buy for reasons too long to go into here); past use of nicotine etc; ethnic genotypes etc).

But the point is, based on even current, rapidly evolving knowledge, IFR varies widely based on known/speculative factors, which should inform response policy from severity/types of lockdowns/social restrictions to medical responses in addition to efforts to prevent infection in the first place.

A123 , says: Show Comment May 21, 2020 at 1:36 pm GMT
@AP The interesting & important thing to note is that fatalities are heavily tied to the related factors of pre-existing conditions and advanced age. For example:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107913/number-of-coronavirus-deaths-in-sweden-by-age-groups/

With CQ/AZ/ZN available everywhere, the bulk of the economy could reopen immediately with or without masks. Given that psychology is important, odds are mask wearing will make the restart more effective. However, masks provide partial protection at most.

Znzn , says: Show Comment May 21, 2020 at 3:03 pm GMT
Let us talk about this again, basically, how much of international travel is really necessary, the cheap labor travel? White pedos vacationing in Thailand? A lot of mass tourism just leads to places like Queenstown, Kyoto, and Venice being trashed, driving the locals out, and losing their local culture, and 95 percent of business travel are really junkets that can be replaced by videoconferencing.
Znzn , says: Show Comment May 21, 2020 at 3:05 pm GMT
@james wilson Given that the current crap state of Western culture is that responsibility of SJW millennials and zoomer maybe it is they that should be sacrificed? How much will the world lose anyway? The world was much better off before they came here. They are the ones who are responsible for things going off the deep end the past decade or so. Look at how much better Star Trek the next generation was compared to the crap now by JJ Abrams.
utu , says: Show Comment May 21, 2020 at 3:18 pm GMT
I liked very much the paper by the Berkeley physicists: Modi, Chirag, Vanessa Boehm, Simone Ferraro, George Stein, and Uros Seljak. Epidemiologists and all kinds of statisticians could learn from them how to write transparently. One of the reason there are so many papers written poorly is that the authors often have to obfuscate as they do not really understand what they are doing. People can be taught how to use statistical software packages like SAS, SPSS, R w/o really understanding the underlying mathematical routines.

[May 23, 2020] Lock Bill Gates Up!

May 23, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Millennial Millie investigates the deep conflicts of interest and connections Bill Gates has with the coronavirus and his proposed 'vaccine' to cure the pandemic.

[May 22, 2020] Washington State conned out of a likely 'hundreds of millions of dollars' by Nigerian scammers

If Nigerian hackers can steal that much money, Israel, Chinese, and Russian, intel agencies probably are in the most Fed information systems doing what they want ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... officials in Washington State may have lost "hundreds of millions of dollars" to fraudsters filing bogus unemployment claim ..."
May 22, 2020 | www.rt.com
officials in Washington State may have lost "hundreds of millions of dollars" to fraudsters filing bogus unemployment claim s – all the way from Nigeria.

[May 22, 2020] Grandma Killer Cuomo Sent 4,300 Patients Back To Nursing Homes Despite Positive COVID-19 Tests

May 22, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

"Grandma Killer" Cuomo Sent 4,300 Patients Back To Nursing Homes Despite Positive COVID-19 Tests by Tyler Durden Fri, 05/22/2020 - 17:25 Earlier this month, a reporter at one of NY Gov Andrew Cuomo's daily press briefings asked the governor about reports that the state issued guidance calling for hospitals to return thousands of patients who had tested positive for COVID-19 to nursing homes or long-term care facilities where they lived.

Somehow, despite the horrifying notion that Cuomo deliberately sent patients back to nursing homes where they unleashed some of the deadliest outbreaks in the country, the governor readily owned up to the decision, and insisted public health officials believed this to be the best option to prevent the patients from just hanging around the hospital.

With the benefit of hindsight, we now see that the hospital bed shortages that the US had prepared for never came to pass. So, not only did this decision lead to thousands of deaths, it was also totally unnecessary.

Because as the Associated Press reported Friday morning, an investigation discovered that more than 4,000 nursing home patients who had tested positive for COVID-19 were returned to their care facilities due to this state order.

More than 4,300 recovering coronavirus patients were sent to New York's already vulnerable nursing homes under a controversial state directive that was ultimately scrapped amid criticisms it was accelerating the nation's deadliest outbreaks, according to a count by The Associated Press.

AP compiled its own tally to find out how many COVID-19 patients were discharged from hospitals to nursing homes under the March 25 directive after New York's Health Department declined to release its internal survey conducted two weeks ago. It says it is still verifying data that was incomplete.

The issue has become a huge problem for Cuomo, who has been labeled "the grandma killer" by critics. When confronted with the data by the AP, the state health department declined to comment. One individual quoted by the AP called it "the single dumbest decision" made during the response to the pandemic.

And guess what - this decision had nothing to do with President Trump. While Cuomo of course tried to deflected criticism to the Trump administration by claiming that the decision stemmed from federal guidance, the AP pointed out that "few states went as far as New York and neighboring New Jersey, which has the second-most care home deaths, in discharging hospitalized coronavirus patients to nursing homes. California followed suit but loosened its requirement following intense criticism."

Whatever the full number, nursing home administrators, residents' advocates and relatives say i t has added up to a big and indefensible problem for facilities that even Gov. Andrew Cuomo -- the main proponent of the policy -- called "the optimum feeding ground for this virus."

"It was the single dumbest decision anyone could make if they wanted to kill people," Daniel Arbeeny said of the directive, which prompted him to pull his 88-year-old father out of a Brooklyn nursing home where more than 50 people have died. His father later died of COVID-19 at home.

"This isn't rocket science," Arbeeny said. "We knew the most vulnerable - the elderly and compromised - are in nursing homes and rehab centers."

Told of the AP's tally, the Health Department said late Thursday it "can't comment on data we haven't had a chance to review, particularly while we're still validating our own comprehensive survey of nursing homes admission and re-admission data in the middle of responding to this global pandemic."

Cuomo didn't reverse the order until May 10. According to the directive, nursing homes could "refuse" to take in the patients if they weren't "equipped" to handle them. But unsurprisingly, no nursing homes did so - since this would be tantamount to admitting that the facilities weren't safe .

Cuomo, a Democrat, on May 10 reversed the directive, which had been intended to help free up hospital beds for the sickest patients as cases surged. But he continued to defend it this week , saying he didn't believe it contributed to the more than 5,800 nursing and adult care facility deaths in New York -- more than in any other state -- and that homes should have spoken up if it was a problem.

"Any nursing home could just say, 'I can't handle a COVID person in my facility,'" he said, although the March 25 order didn't specify how homes could refuse, saying that "no resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the (nursing home) solely based" on confirmed or suspected COVID-19.

Over a month later, on April 29, the Health Department clarified that homes should not take any new residents if they were unable to meet their needs, including a checklist of standards for coronavirus care and prevention.

And according to the AP, even the most well-equipped nursing homes in the state saw the trickle of COVID patients turn into a flood that quickly overwhelmed their ability to cope. Across the country, thousands of nursing home residents and staff have succumbed to the illness.

Gurwin Jewish, a 460-bed home on Long Island, seemed well-prepared for the coronavirus in early March, with movable walls to seal off hallways for the infected. But after the state order, a trickle of recovering COVID-19 patients from local hospitals turned into a flood of 58 people.

More walls were put up, but other residents nonetheless began falling sick and dying. In the end, 47 Gurwin residents died of confirmed or suspected COVID-19.

The state order "put staff and residents at great risk," CEO Stuart Almer said. "We can't draw a straight line from bringing in someone positive to someone catching the disease, but we're talking about elderly, fragile and vulnerable residents."

Nationally, over 35,500 people have died from coronavirus outbreaks at nursing homes and long-term care facilities, about a third of the overall death toll, according to the AP's running tally.

Bottom line: Irony of ironies, the most sanctimonious blue-state governors, who used every conceivable pretext to bash President Trump, also allowed the largest numbers of vulnerable patients to die because of what amounts to sheer bureaucratic idiocy.

The scandal has earned Cuomo a new nickname that has been heavily suppressed by the likes of Google, Facebook and Twitter: The "Grandma Killer".

[May 22, 2020] Cuomo Order That Sent Estimated 4,300 Covid-19 Patients to Nursing Homes Denounced as 'Single Dumbest Decision Anyone Could Make'

May 22, 2020 | www.commondreams.org

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is facing new criticism after the Associated Press reported Friday that a state directive led to over 4,300 still recovering coronavirus patients being sent to New York's "already vulnerable nursing homes."

"It was a death sentence," tweeted Daniel Choi, a doctor at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell. He called the directive a "horrendous idea" and "definitely not something any doctor taking care of nursing home patients would have signed off on."

The state health department directive (pdf), issued March 25, barred nursing homes from requiring patients deemed "medically stable" from being tested for Covid-19 prior to admission. Cuomo, a Democrat, rescinded the order May 10, but not before thousands of infected patients likely entered nursing homes and contributed to the coronavirus's spread.

The estimated number tallied by the AP amounts to what would have been a "big and indefensible problem for facilities," the outlet reported.

From the AP :

"It was the single dumbest decision anyone could make if they wanted to kill people," Daniel Arbeeny said of the directive, which prompted him to pull his 88-year-old father out of a Brooklyn nursing home where more than 50 people have died. His father later died of Covid-19 at home.

"This isn't rocket science," Arbeeny said. "We knew the most vulnerable -- the elderly and compromised -- are in nursing homes and rehab centers."

CBS New York reported Friday that the conoravirus has taken the lives of almost 5% of nursing home residents in the state, and this week the Cuomo tried to deflect blame for the directive.

"Why did the state do that with Covid patients in nursing homes?" asked Cuomo. "It's because the state followed President Trump's CDC guidelines. So they should ask President Trump."

In an op-ed at the Guardian on Wednesday questioning the recent accolades heaped on the New York governor -- including suggestions that Cuomo run for president -- journalists Lyta Gold and Nathan Robinson of Current Affairs magazine write that "Cuomo should be one of the most loathed officials in America right now. "

Gold and Robinson argue that blame for New York's high death toll from the virus should sit largely with Cuomo.

"Federal failures played a role, of course, but this tragedy was absolutely due, in part, to decisions by the governor," they wrote, citing as examples his failure to take swift action, delays in imposing social distancing measures, Medicaid cuts both before and after the start of the pandemic, and his partnership with Silicon Valley billionaires to "reimagine education."

"This is the problem: for too long, Democrats have measured their politicians by 'whether they are better than Republicans,' wrote Gold and Robinson. "This sets the bar very low indeed, and means that Democrats end up settling for incompetent and amoral leaders who betray progressive values again and again."

[May 22, 2020] End New York City's lockdown now! by David Marcus

May 22, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Terence Gore , 21 May 2020 at 12:13 PM

long interview Robert Kennedy Jr

as left as you can get

against the left support of big Pharma

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3164&v=QLi6ZrFp6vQ&feature=emb_logo

RFrancis , 21 May 2020 at 12:27 PM
The phrase "professional deformations" helped clarify a number of things for me! Thank you for your incisive words, Col. Lang.
CK , 21 May 2020 at 12:30 PM
But what about the snitches and the virtue signalers and the screamingly fearful faux celebrities, and how can you be so cruel to the currently essential who if we re-open have to return to being just another bunch of working stiffs. Have you not seen the vasty deep outpouring of love and affection we are currently piling on the Nurse Ratcheds and Dr. Evils of the world for their virtuous and self effacing tv commercials and the many glorious PSAs with paeans and "we're all in this together" sophistries from various health insurance companies and makers of very expensive symptom mollifiers?
I am sorry sir, but I must disagree. We must not only keep closed that which is currently closed, we must use the power of the IC and the various state and federal militaries and national guards to close down all the open and partially opened states and cities and towns and farms and counties and any other political subdivisions of this great nation until we are truly "all in this together".
Or
We could just open all of it, now.
If we did, we would be back to normal in about 60 days, some places would open with new management, some folks would enjoy continued unemployment until they were called back.
I, personally, expect that except for Ca and NY the country will be reopen about 90 days prior to the election.
Deap , 21 May 2020 at 12:38 PM
The liberal media and legislators applied the 100% solution to 1% of the population, if that much.

That was failed leadership; that was slavish "following orders". That was a loss of the maxim "trust, but verify" maxim. This powerful legacy of the Reagan era, must be put back at the forefront of any public decision process. Question authority needs repeating as well.

Our public education system failed us completely for too many decades. Teaching generations of Americans to be critical of America, is not teaching them critical thinking skills. We need to own up to that, from our local school boards on up.

These non-science , not thinking, hateful liberal media and politicians deserve the 100% solution - 100% voted out of office in 2020. Liberal media and legislators must get a new message. Voting and boycotting are the two primary tools we have. Some stunning upsets in primary races are already occurring. It will be morning in America again.

But may we never forget why so many were so willing to shoot ourselves in the foot. For what end purpose? Were we ever so collectively scared as a Nation in the past, that we were willing destroy ourselves as we witnessed happening these past few money - no nuance, no graduated response, no scalpel wiled with professional precision.

What happened to our true grit as Americans? How did we get into this devastatingly false dichotomy - total submission or we are all going to die.

Will there be a post mortem examination of the corpse of our once vibrant nation? This requires honest soul searching. I honestly don't think we have the tools to do this any longer. I hope I am wrong. In fact I would be greatly comforted to be proven wrong.

Will current national leadership rise to this challenge? Or has the Black Swan yet to arrive. Or do we start this soul-searching right here and right now, one by one. "Stronger together". Will the Karens stop demanding we go through their menopause danger years with them.

ancientarcher , 21 May 2020 at 02:02 PM
It is astonishing that no one is talking about the death profile from covid19 (or as it should have been named - the Wuhan coronavirus). Over there in the UK, the median age of death from covid is 83-84.

There has been a lot of talk about Children dying of covid. Only 2 (two) children under the age of 10 have died from covid since it started and they probably had other conditions. This is in a total population of 65million.

Fully 90% of the deaths from covid19 are in the ages of 65+ and that segment of the population doesn't, by and large, participate in production in the economy (of goods or services). While death is always sad and it will lead to grieving, we have to understand that people always die, especially the old and infirm. Anyways, no one is suggesting that they should be left to fend for themselves, the older people and those with conditions makes them high risk should be isolated.

The UK closed the massive Nightingale hospitals that were set up to handle thousands of patients. The one in London handled a total of 54 before shutting down. Clearly, we had over-provisioned for the outbreak (as we should) but very clearly we are past the worst.

Please OPEN UP THE ECONOMY. And do it NOW. The deaths being avoided are not worth keeping the economy shut down, not only in the UK but across the world.

People point towards the Spanish flu where most deaths happened in the 2nd wave. Well, most of those deaths would not have happened had antibiotics been invented then. The deaths were due to subsequent bacterial infections (usually pneumonia) after the virus weakened the immune system.

We need to start going back to normal and we need to do it now!

Fred , 21 May 2020 at 02:03 PM
Democrats - the Dream Killers. Meanwhile immigration is our strength, multi-national corporations may operate, private businesses may not - "for the common good" as Deborah Dingell, former GM lobbyist and now successor to John D's hold on power in Congress and the DNC, likes to repeat daily on her FB stream of concousness - along with exhortations to obedience.

"By prolonging the coronavirus shutdown long after its core mission was accomplished, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio have plunged tens of thousands of New Yorkers into poverty."

Poverty apparently doesn't kill anyone infected with this virus, but it sure is killing our freedoms and thanks to Cuomo and Whitmer it has killed thousands in nursing homes. The press is all praise for them, and tries to gin up stories about other governors, such as De Santis of Florida, or ignores them, as they are going with the story in Georgia.

Eric Newhill , 21 May 2020 at 02:05 PM
Sir,
I was a fence sitter/agnostic until the end of February or early March. Then there was enough data in to be able to understand that the elderly needed to be protected and the rest of should go about life as normal. When you first posted about panic, I wasn't seeing a panic as I would define it. Then a few days later lockdowns were announced. You had the jump on that one!

Just to summarize what I have been saying since the lockdown started, there are going to be more deaths (and many more years of life lost) from all of the people not able and/or too afraid to engage in regular healthcare services than there will be killed by the virus - and from the effects of economic destruction.

The Mayor of Ithaca, NY - not a conservative by any means - made an appeal to Cuomo to open the economy back up and to allow students to return to colleges. He says his college town (includes Cornell U) had the best economy in all of NY up to the lockdown (lowest unemployment, etc). Now he can't collect enough tax revenue to pay police and other public servants.

And that's what I don't get about this scheme to establish a new [socialist] normal. How do the socialists think they are going to generate revenues to pay for everything they want? It's almost as if they don't understand economics 101. Will they turn on their limousine faction and confiscate their wealth along with that of conservatives? Do they really imagine that no one is going to fight back (I mean with votes, pitchforks, guns...whatever)? For that matter, same goes for the non-scheming sincere useful science geek/idiots. They are supposed to be engineer types, but where are the sober calculations of costs and benefits? What are they thinking?

TedBuila , 21 May 2020 at 02:14 PM
Re:
A lot of people die every day of a variety of causes. This virus is a reaper that culls the population, eliminating the weak and the old. The great majority of healthy, productive people survive infection with little or no apparent effect.

The last or only time this brushed me was with polio in Detroit in the 50's. Following your "re-open the country, all of it" swimming pools and Belle Isle would never have been closed would have remained open in August and September to allow nature to thin-out Detroit's/the country's weakest.

That's your C19 call as I read it.

Keith Harbaugh , 21 May 2020 at 02:28 PM
On the damage the shutdowns and restrictions are causing,
this is a good account:

Doctors raise alarm about health effects of continued coronavirus shutdown: 'Mass casualty incident'

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/doctors-raise-alarm-about-health-effects-of-continued-coronavirus-shutdown

Laura Wilson , 21 May 2020 at 02:58 PM
Yeah, too bad about all those doctors and nurses dying. Easily replaced, I'm sure.

It's just math, folks. Epidemics are math...you can either go with the math or try to change the equation and the outcome of the math. I, personally, would rather try to change the equation.

turcopolier , 21 May 2020 at 03:40 PM
Laura Wilson

"The greater good ..." How many doctors and nurses really? How many? You should remember about me that I am accustomed to sacrificing people for the greater good. That is MY professional deformation.

turcopolier , 21 May 2020 at 03:44 PM
TedBuila

This plague actually kills few outside the legion of the old and infirm. Polio kills the youngest first. Yours is a false comparison.

turcopolier , 21 May 2020 at 03:50 PM
Eric Newhill

What were the Khmer Rouge thinking in the Year Zero when they systematically destroyed Cambodia and killed millions?

jerseycityjoan , 21 May 2020 at 04:07 PM
New York City is still getting hundreds of new cases and hospitalizations a day. How many people will want to go to crowded indoor places? If there is social distancing with lots of empty chairs and spaces, how many closed places could make any money if they opened?

There's been a lot of uncertainty and guesswork involved with this new virus and that will continue. We came through the first round with some hotspots but most places doing OK. I think we were right to shut down when we did and that we need to be careful in opening back up. I still trust Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx.

Certainly it's time to start relaxing restrictions in most places. But we need to remember that this is a new virus with many unknowns and that we are all vulnerable because there's no proven ttestment that works, cure or vaccine.

I have to say that this crisis has taken on a symbolic importance for some. It has not for me. I think this will lead to a lot more disagreement about what should be done in the future, particularly if we have addition waves. That makes me feel uneasy -- very uneasy. I am not assuming we're going to have a very effective vaccine within a year so we may be living with this threat for a long time.

Deap , 21 May 2020 at 04:09 PM
Eric, socialists in California have one standard answer when confronted with funding for their schemes: They'll find the money. .

End of all practical discussion. When asked for details, they will invariably add .. "you had money for the Vietnam war .... the military etc. Just use that money."

Only two decades of total socialism in this state has this done to our fiscal literacy. "Just tax the rich" gets anything passed. Cruel fact in this state, the rich - just the top 1% in this state pay 50% of all state revenues. Only a handful of people pay half the bills.

Should any of this top 1% leave, like Musk recently threatened, shock waves will reach the state's executive suite. But this threat will fall on deaf ears in the state's Democrat super-majority legislature.

Voters finally are catching on - they lost their livelihood due to government actions, but government employees never missed a paycheck. How this translates at the ballot box remains to be seen. Two Democrats getting recently tossed out is a good start, but is it a trend?

My own local city council yesterday just gave all SEIU employees a raise; while our entire economy, much of it dependent on tourism, has been totally trashed. This is what a Democrat one party state looks like.

turcopolier , 21 May 2020 at 04:19 PM
jerseycityjoan

Timid. Will you like living in a dying metro area?

blue peacock , 21 May 2020 at 04:28 PM
"How do the socialists think they are going to generate revenues to pay for everything they want?"

Eric,

Simple. Print money. As they've been doing since the GFC at scale. The added benefit is that the biggest beneficiary of socialism - the titan of capitalism - Wall St - will get the lion's share as they're getting now with the Wuhan virus lockdown. Average Joe peon should be thankful they got $1,200.

Powell on 60 Minutes says there's no limit to the Fed printing money. He like Bernanke loves to click Print on the keyboard. And no pesky Congressional authorization either. MOAR & MOAR!!

BillWade , 21 May 2020 at 04:47 PM
It's feeling pretty normal here in SW Florida now, rumor is Jun 1st the bars will open up and that makes it 100% normal. I know of at least 6 restaurants in Port Charlotte/Punta Gorda that will not re-open. We go through the restaurant closings every year anyway, "Season" ended early this year with the lock down. Memorial Day usually is when we get the closings. But, they will reopen with new owners who have recently retired and "have always wanted to own a restaurant" not understanding that the restaurant business is for the younger, just as life is.

I feel awful when I see the little old ladies driving alone in their cars with their masks on, victims of the MSM that are truly a national security threat.

Eric Newhill , 21 May 2020 at 05:06 PM
Sir,
The fact of the Khmer Rouge and the mentality behind it (at bottom, same as Mao, same as Stalin same others that brought death, destruction and misery to their societies) is another reason to get back to normal in this country - and accept any casualties that might result. This has become a war for the heart and soul of the country. Actually, it's a war for everything; even material prosperity. Whatever the casualties might be in the short run, they will be far less than the long run if we allow the Khmer Rouge to continue (which, of course, is one of your key points).

One of my objectives on social media has been to try to gain insight into the Khmer Rouge and young pioneer psychology. I can now recognize it when I see it; even when it tries to disguise itself, but I truly don't understand such people. IMO it is some kind of twisted spiritual illness that seeks dominance as it replaces God with themselves. That much I can see. I guess it has to do with the battle between good and evil. Evil always seeks to control and manipulate and disrespects the sanctity of each soul. It seeks to enslave and cut off from freedom and recognition of divinity around each of us and in each of us. Its sycophants are attracted to the sense of power; false as it may truly be.

At least that is the way I best understand it.

Barbara Ann , 21 May 2020 at 05:15 PM
jerseycityjoan

Our natural capacity for threat perception and assessment is warped by the media's need to generate headlines. The virus is a gift to them which they have enthusiastically embraced. Most of us have a vanishing small chance of it killing us off, yet this single risk dominates the public discourse to the exclusion of almost all else.

Social media is particularly insidious, the effects of which far too few are prepared to counter. The feedback loops of hysteria it generates must be assessed as a threat in their own right - to our ability to make sound judgments.

A destroyed economy is not a direct threat to any one individual's survival, but it's collapse is an inevitable consequence if the lockdowns are allowed to continue. In this case many will die and very many more will experience a great deal of misery. Sadly the headlines carrying these stories will only come after it is far too late.

Turn off the Tee Vee news, treat social media 'news' with great skepticism and read the opinions of people who see the bigger picture. You are in the right place for the last of these.

Bobo , 21 May 2020 at 05:51 PM
Open it up-It never should of closed. What we have done is to prolong the inevitable. You either get it or you don't but it is still here waiting for those cowering in their homes. Prudent actions and awareness of your situation will get one through most of life's events.
The next thing we will here is Oh Folks, get out there and enjoy the summer while you can as it's coming back in the fall. No schools, Sheltering in Place, minimize the essentials, where are those ships and tent hospitals, we need PPE, start the printing etc etc cause the vaccine ain't ready Folks.

It will all be fine, don't worry. Keep in mind it has only taken a 100,000 out 330,000,000 a very low ratio.

rho , 21 May 2020 at 06:39 PM
"How do the socialists think they are going to generate revenues to pay for everything they want?"

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/goldman-spots-huge-problem-fed

The US government will issue 3 trillion $ of new debt in this quarter alone. The banks will buy these bonds, then sell them back to the US Central Bank (that's called "quantitative easing", the quoted article talks about the expectation that the central bank will announce a new bond purchasing program soon because the current one is far too small to absorb all the new debt), and the cycle repeats.

That's not sustainable, but that's the only plan that exists. If the shutdown of the economy continues indefinitely, it will end in economic collapse by bankruptcy of the federal government, or hyperinflation, which is really just a different way to reach the same painful end point.

Same story here in Europe, just with the added complication that there are conflicts between the different national governments of the Eurozone when the European Central Bank does the very same thing.

Master Slacker , 21 May 2020 at 06:50 PM
You can open up the city when everyone starts to wear a mask . Covid-19 is proving to be an airborne killer... which simplifies things enormously. Consider it an instance of CBW. And of course the children's inflammatory syndrome is just collateral damage.
Laura Wilson , 21 May 2020 at 07:59 PM
Master Slacker--And now there is some evidence that the inflammatory syndrome is hitting teenagers and young adults, too.

turocpolier--The numbers aren't comprehensive (or even good) on the national toll of doctors and nurses and aides and CNAs, etc. in health care/hospitals. Too bad our government can't get everyone to report in a uniform manner!!!! (Not that any other administration has been successful with this either.) It certainly would be helpful in the middle of a novel pandemic to know if we were going to have enough front line responders to stay in the fight.

And I NEVER forget that you are a professional "sacrificer for the greater good." That is why I appreciate what you have to say...it is a worthy perspective and not one that I default to!

Fred , 21 May 2020 at 08:00 PM
Master slacker,

So "my body, my choice" is for abortion only now, because your fear is greater than my rights? "stay home, stay safe" negates my need to wear a gag in your presence. I reccomend Kevin Drum go out and drum up some antifa support for the socialist distancing policing. They ought to be well rested and ready for some agit-prop and agent provocateur actions by now.

"children's inflammatory syndrome" - is a miniscule risk to a minimal risk pool. It's like the CDC's mentioning legionaire's disease in their school opening guidlelines - meant to invoke fear. More civil servent "resistance". Trump should reform the civil service. Perhaps he should revoke EO 10988,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_10988
His initial order was upheld, I'm sure this one would be too.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-shift/2019/07/17/executive-orders-limiting-federal-employee-unions-reinstated-458951


[May 22, 2020] Battle Covid-19, Not Medicare for All: Doctors Demand Hospital Industry Stop Funding Dark Money Lobby Group

May 22, 2020 | www.commondreams.org

A progressive organization of 23,000 physicians from across the U.S. demanded Thursday that the American Hospital Association (AHA) divest completely from a dark-money lobbying group that has spent millions combating Medicare for All and instead devote those financial resources to the fight against Covid-19 and to better support for patients and healthcare workers.

Dr. Adam Gaffney, president of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), said in a statement that "the Covid-19 pandemic has stretched hospitals' resources to the limit, and the AHA should not waste precious member hospitals' funds lobbying against universal health coverage" as a member of the Partnership for America's Health Care Future (PFAHCF).

Because Medicare for All would provide a lifeline to hospitals in underserved areas that have been hit hard by Covid-19, Gaffney argued, the AHA "cannot claim to represent hospitals while also opposing a single-payer system that would keep struggling hospitals open." The AHA represents around 5,000 hospitals and other healthcare providers in the U.S.

As Common Dreams reported earlier this month, public health officials are accusing the Trump administration of directing billions of dollars in Covid-19 hospital bailout funds to high-revenue providers while restricting money to hospitals that serve low-income areas.

Tenet Healthcare, an investor-owned hospital company that has donated hundreds of thousands to PFAHCF, has received $345 million in Covid-19 bailout funds, Axios reported last month.

"The AHA should immediately leave the PFAHCF," Gaffney said, "and redirect that money to supporting patients and frontline healthcare workers."

"As physicians, we can no longer tolerate a health system that puts profits ahead of patients and public health," Gaffney added. "It's time for health professionals to hold accountable the organizations that claim to represent us."

Formed in the summer of 2018 by an alliance of pharmaceutical, insurance, and hospital lobbyists with the goal of countering the push for universal healthcare, PFAHCF's anti-Medicare for All " army " has grown rapidly since its founding, with the AHA joining the fray in 2019.

As The Intercept reported last October, the for-profit hospital industry has played an "integral role" in the corporate fight against single-payer.

[May 22, 2020] America's Patchwork Pandemic Is Fraying Even Further

May 22, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

"America's Patchwork Pandemic Is Fraying Even Further" [ The Atlantic ]. "America spent much of April on a disquieting plateau, with every day bringing about 30,000 new cases and about 2,000 new deaths .

This pattern exists because different states have experienced the coronavirus pandemic in very different ways . The U.S. is dealing with a patchwork pandemic. The patchwork is not static. Next month's hot spots will not be the same as last month's.

I spoke with two dozen experts who agreed that in the absence of a vaccine, the patchwork will continue. Cities that thought the worst had passed may be hit anew. States that had lucky escapes may find themselves less lucky. The future is uncertain, but Americans should expect neither a swift return to normalcy nor a unified national experience, with an initial spring wave, a summer lull, and a fall resurgence. "The talk of a second wave as if we've exited the first doesn't capture what's really happening," says Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. What's happening is not one crisis, but many interconnected ones.

A patchwork was inevitable, especially when a pandemic unfolds over a nation as large as the U.S. But the White House has intensified it by devolving responsibility to the states. There is some sense to that. American public health works at a local level, delivered by more than 3,000 departments that serve specific cities, counties, tribes, and states. This decentralized system is a strength: An epidemiologist in rural Minnesota knows the needs and vulnerabilities of her community better than a federal official in Washington, D.C.

But in a pandemic, the actions of 50 uncoordinated states will be less than the sum of their parts. Only the federal government has pockets deep enough to fund the extraordinary public-health effort now needed. Only it can coordinate the production of medical supplies to avoid local supply-chain choke points, and then ensure that said supplies are distributed according to need, rather than influence

The pandemic patchwork exists because the U.S. is a patchwork to its core . New outbreaks will continue to flare and fester unless the country makes a serious effort to protect its most vulnerable citizens, recognizing that their risk is the result of societal failures, not personal ones." • A must-read.

[May 22, 2020] Andrew Cuomo is no hero. He's to blame for New York's coronavirus catastrophe

May 22, 2020 | www.theguardian.com

Andrew Cuomo may be the most popular politician in the country. ... All of which is bizarre, because Cuomo should be one of the most loathed officials in America right now. ProPublica recently released a report outlining catastrophic missteps by Cuomo and the New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, which probably resulted in many thousands of needless coronavirus cases. ProPublica offers some appalling numbers contrasting what happened in New York with the outbreak in California. By mid-May, New York City alone had almost 20,000 deaths, while in San Francisco there had been only 35, and New York state as a whole suffered 10 times as many deaths as California.

Federal failures played a role, of course, but this tragedy was absolutely due, in part, to decisions by the governor. Cuomo initially "reacted to De Blasio's idea for closing down New York City with derision", saying it "was dangerous" and "served only to scare people". He said the "seasonal flu was a graver worry". A spokesperson for Cuomo "refused to say if the governor had ever read the state's pandemic plan". Later, Cuomo would blame the press, including the New York Times for failing to say "Be careful, there's a virus in China that may be in the United States?" even though the Times wrote nearly 500 stories on the virus before the state acted. Experts told ProPublica that "had New York imposed its extreme social distancing measures a week or two earlier, the death toll might have been cut by half or more".

But delay was not the only screw-up. Elderly prisoners have died of coronavirus because New York has failed to act on their medical parole requests. As Business Insider documented:

"Testing was slow . Nonprofit social-service agencies that serve the most vulnerable couldn't get answers either . And medical experts like the former CDC director Tom Frieden said 'so many deaths could have been prevented' had New York issued its stay-at-home order just 'days earlier' than it did. On March 19, when New York's schools had already been closed, Cuomo said 'in many ways, the fear is more dangerous than the virus.'"

The governor has failed to take responsibility for the obvious failures, consistently blaming others and at one point even saying " governors don't do pandemics ". (Actually, some governors just don't read their state's pandemic plans.) But much of the press has ignored this, focusing instead on Cuomo's aesthetic presentation: his poise during press conferences, his dramatic statements about "taking responsibility" (even when he obviously hasn't), and his invisible good looks. ...

There's something disturbing about Cuomo being hailed as the hero of the pandemic when he should rightly be one of the villains. As Business Insider notes, he is now only able to attain praise for his actions because his earlier failures made those actions necessary. He's lauded for addressing a problem that he himself partly caused. Of course, part of this is because Donald Trump has bungled the coronavirus response even more badly , so that Cuomo – by not being a complete buffoon – looks like a capable statesman by contrast. But this is the problem: for too long, Democrats have measured their politicians by "whether they are better than Republicans". This sets the bar very low indeed, and means that Democrats end up settling for incompetent and amoral leaders who betray progressive values again and again.

[May 22, 2020] With 36 Million Newly Out of Work, Trump Says He s Willing to Let Boosted Unemployment Benefits Expire

Notable quotes:
"... Washington Post ..."
May 22, 2020 | www.commondreams.org

President Donald Trump told Republican senators during a private lunch Tuesday that he is willing to let expanded unemployment benefits expire at the end of July, a decision that would massively slash the incomes of tens of millions of people who have lost their jobs due to the Covid-19 crisis.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the president "privately expressed opposition to extending a weekly $600 boost in unemployment insurance for laid-off workers affected by the coronavirus pandemic, according to three officials familiar with his remarks."

House Democrats passed legislation last week that would extend the beefed-up unemployment benefits through January of 2021 as experts and government officials -- including Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell -- warn the U.S. unemployment rate could soon reach 25%. The unemployment insurance boost under the CARES Act is set to expire on July 31, even as many people have yet to receive their first check.

"With nearly 1 in 5 Americans out of work, Donald Trump's plan is to cut off the boost to unemployment benefits and shower his wealthy buddies with more tax cuts," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), one of the architects of the unemployment insurance expansion, told HuffPost . "This is the worst economic crisis in 100 years and Donald Trump is doubling down on Herbert Hoover's economic playbook and pushing workers to risk their health for his political benefit."

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) -- who declared earlier this month that Congress will only extend the boosted unemployment insurance "over our dead bodies" -- said after the private lunch that Trump believes the benefits are "hurting the economic recovery." Graham was one of several Republican senators who opposed the initial expansion of unemployment benefits as too generous.

An analysis released last week by the Hamilton Project, an initiative of the Brookings Institution, found that expanded unemployment benefits offset "roughly half of lost wages and salaries in April." Unemployment insurance has "been essential to families, and is vital for keeping the economy from cratering further," the authors of the analysis noted.

Ernie Tedeschi, a former Treasury Department economist, estimated that "come July 31, if the emergency UI top-up isn't extended, unemployed workers will effectively get a pay cut of 50-75% overnight."

"It's increasingly looking like there won't be enough labor demand to hire them all back at that point," Tedeschi tweeted.

The latest Labor Department statistics showed that more than 36 million people in the U.S. have filed jobless claims since mid-March as mass layoffs continue in the absence of government action to keep workers on company payrolls. Despite the grim numbers, the Post 's Jeff Stein reported Tuesday that the White House is " predicting a swift economic recovery " as it resists additional efforts to provide relief to frontline workers and the unemployed.

On top of rejecting an extension of enhanced unemployment insurance, Trump last month publicly voiced opposition to another round of direct stimulus payments, instead advocating a cut to the tax that funds Social Security and Medicare.

[May 22, 2020] McDonald's Workers Strike Across US to Demand Better Protections From Covid-19

May 22, 2020 | www.commondreams.org

Demanding McDonald's prioritize public health and worker safety over profits, hundreds of employees at the fast food chain went on strike Wednesday, a day before the company was set to hold its annual shareholders' meeting.

Instead of distributing dividends to its shareholders, the striking employees are calling for the company to use its massive profits to pay for safety and financial protections for workers, scores of whom have contracted Covid-19 in at least 16 states so far.

Employees and strike organizers at the fair wage advocacy group Fight for $15 are demanding hazard pay during the pandemic of "$15X2," paid sick leave, sufficient protective gear for workers, and company-wide policy of closing a restaurant for two weeks when an employee becomes infected, with workers being fully paid.

The strike is taking place at stores in at least 20 cities. Fight for $15 and the SEIU, which is also supporting the action, say it's the first nationwide coordinated effort targeting the company since the coronavirus pandemic began in March.

[May 21, 2020] Do Lockdowns Work Mounting Evidence Says No

May 21, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

The coerced economic "shutdowns" - enforced with fines, arrests, and revoked business licenses - are not the natural outgrowth of a pandemic. They are the result of policy decisions taken by politicians who have suspended constitutional institutions and legal recognition of basic human rights. These politicians have instead imposed a new form of central planning based on an unproven, theoretical set of ideas about police-enforced "social distancing."

Suspending the rule of law and civil rights will have enormous consequences in terms of human life counted in suicides, drug overdoses, and other grave health problems resulting from unemployment , denial of "elective" medical care , and social isolation.

None of that is being considered, however, since it is now fashionable to have governments determine whether or not people may open their businesses or leave their homes. So far, the strategy for dealing with the resulting economic collapse is no more sophisticated than record-breaking deficit spending , followed by debt monetization via money printing. In short, politicians, bureaucrats, and their supporters have insisted a single policy goal -- ending the spread of a disease -- be allowed to destroy all other values and considerations in society.

Has it even worked? Mounting evidence says no.

In The Lancet , Swedish infectious disease clinician (and World Health Organization (WHO) advisor) Johan Giesecke concluded:

It has become clear that a hard lockdown does not protect old and frail people living in care homes - a population the lockdown was designed to protect. Neither does it decrease mortality from COVID-19, which is evident when comparing the UK's experience with that of other European countries.

At best, lockdowns push cases into the future, they do not lower total deaths. Gieseck continues:

Measures to flatten the curve might have an effect, but a lockdown only pushes the severe cases into the future -- it will not prevent them. Admittedly, countries have managed to slow down spread so as not to overburden health-care systems, and, yes, effective drugs that save lives might soon be developed, but this pandemic is swift, and those drugs have to be developed, tested, and marketed quickly. Much hope is put in vaccines, but they will take time, and with the unclear protective immunological response to infection, it is not certain that vaccines will be very effective.

As a public policy measure, the lack of evidence that lockdowns work must be balanced with the fact that we have already observed that economic destruction is costly in terms of human life.

Yet in the public debate, lockdown enthusiasts insist that any deviation from the lockdown will result in total deaths far exceeding those places where there are lockdowns. So far, there is no evidence of this.

In a new study titled "Full Lockdown Policies in Western Europe Countries Have No Evident Impacts on the COVID-19 Epidemic," author Thomas Meunier writes , "total deaths numbers using pre-lockdown trends suggest that no lives were saved by this strategy, in comparison with pre-lockdown, less restrictive, social distancing policies." That is, the "full lockdown policies of France, Italy, Spain and United Kingdom haven't had the expected effects in the evolution of the COVID-19 epidemic." 1

The premise here is not that voluntary "social distancing" has no effect. Rather, the question is to whether "police-enforced home containment" works to limit the spread of disease. Meunier concludes it does not.

Meanwhile a study by polititical scientist Wilfred Reilly compared lockdown policies and COVID-19 fatalities among US states. Reilly writes:

The question the model set out to ask was whether lockdown states experience fewer Covid-19 cases and deaths than social-distancing states, adjusted for all of the above variables. The answer? No. The impact of state-response strategy on both my cases and deaths measures was utterly insignificant. The "p-value" for the variable representing strategy was 0.94 when it was regressed against the deaths metric, which means there is a 94 per cent chance that any relationship between the different measures and Covid-19 deaths was the result of pure random chance.

Overall, however, the fact that good-sized regions from Utah to Sweden to much of East Asia have avoided harsh lockdowns without being overrun by Covid-19 is notable.

Another study on lockdowns -- again, we're talking about forced business closures and stay-at-home orders here -- is this study by researcher Lyman Stone at the American Enterprise Institute. Stone notes that areas where lockdowns were imposed either had already experienced a downward trend in deaths before the lockdown could have possibly shown effects or showed the same trend as the year prior. In other words, lockdown advocates have been taking credit for trends that had already been observed before lockdowns were forced on the population.

Stone writes:

Here's the thing: there's no evidence of lockdowns working. If strict lockdowns actually saved lives, I would be all for them, even if they had large economic costs. But the scientific and medical case for strict lockdowns is paper-thin.

Experience increasingly suggests that a more targeted approach is better for those who actually want to limit the spread of disease among the most vulnerable. The overwhelming majority -- nearly 75 percent -- of deaths from COVID-19 occur in patients over sixty-five years of age. Of those, approximately 90 percent have other underlying conditions . Thus, limiting the spread of COVID-19 is most critical among those who are already engaged with the healthcare system and are elderly. In the US and Europe , more than half of COVID-19 deaths are occuring in nursing homes and similar institutions.

This is why Matt Ridley at The Spectator quite reasonably observes that testing, not lockdowns, appears to be the key factor in limiting deaths from COVID-19 . Those areas where testing is widespread have performed better:

Yet it is not obvious why testing would make a difference, especially to the death rate. Testing does not cure the disease. Germany's strange achievement of a consistently low case fatality rate seems baffling -- until you think through where most early cases were found: in hospitals. By doing a lot more testing, countries like Germany might have partly kept the virus from spreading within the healthcare system. Germany, Japan and Hong Kong had different and more effective protocols in place from day one to prevent the virus spreading within care homes and hospitals.

The horrible truth is that it now looks like in many of the early cases, the disease was probably caught in hospitals and doctors' surgeries. That is where the virus kept returning, in the lungs of sick people, and that is where the next person often caught it, including plenty of healthcare workers. Many of these may not have realised they had it, or thought they had a mild cold. They then gave it to yet more elderly patients who were in hospital for other reasons, some of whom were sent back to care homes when the National Health Service made space on the wards for the expected wave of coronavirus patients.

We could contrast this with the policies of Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York, who mandated that nursing homes accept new residents without testing . This method nearly ensures that the disease will spread quickly among those who are most likely to die from it.

Meanwhile, Governor Cuomo saw fit to impose police-enforced lockdowns on the entire population of New York, ensuring economic ruin and ruined health for many non-COVID patients who were then cut off from vital treatments. Yet, disturbingly, lockdown fetishists like Cuomo are hailed as wise statesmen who "acted decisively" to prevent the spread of disease.

But this is the sort of regime we now live under. In the minds of many, it is better to abolish human rights and consign millions to destitution in the name of pursuing trendy unproven policies. The prolockdown party has even turned basic fundamentals of policy debate upside down. As Stone notes:

At this point, the question I usually get is, "What's your evidence that lockdowns don't work?"

It's a strange question. Why should I have to prove that lockdowns don't work? The burden of proof is to show that they do work! If you're going to essentially cancel the civil liberties of the entire population for a few weeks, you should probably have evidence that the strategy will work. And there, lockdown advocates fail miserably, because they simply don't have evidence.

With economic output crashing worldwide and unemployment soaring to Great Depression levels, governments are already looking for a way out. Don't expect to hear any mea culpas from politicians, but we can already see how governments are quickly moving toward a voluntary social-distancing, nonlockdown strategy. This comes even after politicians and disease "experts" have been insisting that lockdowns must be imposed indefinitely until there's a vaccine .

The longer the lockdown-created economic destruction continues, the greater will be the threat of social unrest and even economic free fall. The political reality is thst the current situation cannot be sustained without threatening the regimes in power themselves. In an article for Foreign Policy titled " Sweden's Coronavirus Strategy Will Soon Be the World's ," authors Nils Karlson, Charlotta Stern, and Daniel B. Klein suggest that regimes will be forced to retreat to a Swedish model:

As the pain of national lockdowns grows intolerable and countries realize that managing -- rather than defeating -- the pandemic is the only realistic option, more and more of them will begin to open up. Smart social distancing to keep health-care systems from being overwhelmed, improved therapies for the afflicted, and better protections for at-risk groups can help reduce the human toll. But at the end of the day, increased -- and ultimately, herd -- immunity may be the only viable defense against the disease, so long as vulnerable groups are protected along the way. Whatever marks Sweden deserves for managing the pandemic, other nations are beginning to see that it is ahead of the curve.

[May 21, 2020] On the necessity and the duration of quarantine

May 21, 2020 | www.unz.com

likbez , says: Show Comment May 21, 2020 at 9:20 pm GMT

Hi The Kremlin Stooge,

Don't forget 'Covidiots'. The frontline-worker-lovin', government-narrative-believin' social-distance welcomin' simpletons are endlessly inventive when it comes to coining contemptuous nicknames for those who don't buy into their embrace of madness. I am happy to be able to say I thought the virus was bogus from the first, and said so to anyone who would listen.

That's too simplistic. You should agree that religious nuts who attend the church in large groups despite the risk can and should be called "Covidiots". Because they are. And the people who are trying to preserve their meager income generally should not.

Why religious nuts can't move to outdoors for the same purpose like first Chirstians did, is unclear to me ;-). Not sure about Orthodox Jews, which is pretty closed sect in any case so if they want to infect each other, be my guest.

The virus causes specific for it virus pneumonia which is no joke. People who recovered still have fibroses in this lungs of different degree. That's why people who were hospitalized with COVID-19 are ineligible to serve in US army. So for those unlucky who get virus pneumonia that's a crippling disease. You can't deny this.

For around 15-20% of people over 65 infected with COVID-19 it means the death sentence -- they will never recover and either die in hospital or soon after. Men over 65 are two third of those so for old men the risk can't be discounted.

So the question is what forms and length of quarantine was optimal, not whether it should or should not be enforced. I doubt that you want to argue that night clubs should remain open. Or that wearing masks in closed spaces is redundant (in open spaces they generally are redundant, unless you are standing in line, etc)

You also need some timeout to collect the vital information about the disease using first cases, enhance the protection of medical personnel, and access the level of actual risk to the population and the economy (the USA generally wasted it and Trump was inapt; so the effect of quarantine is more questionable for this particular country).

It was not that clear in March that the risk is generally low, although we can't deny that Fauci and Co were caught without pants (or, for some sinister reason were intended to be caught this way as if they waited until epidemic got to a certain point that masks something else )

That does not excuse incompetence of Trump administration and very strange behaviors of Fauci, who spent two months and then woke up and suddenly start crying Wolf, Wolf, but the USA is very mysterious country and in no way Canadians can understand it

[May 21, 2020] The Argument Against the Argument Against Facemasks

May 21, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Richard Steven Hack , May 19 2020 6:26 utc | 110


Richard Steven Hack , May 19 2020 6:47 utc | 111

The Argument Against the Argument Against Facemasks
Resistance rooted in liberty clashes with the unalienable right of life
https://tinyurl.com/yctjydmx

Masks help stop the spread of coronavirus – the science is simple and I'm one of 100 experts urging governors to require public mask-wearing
https://tinyurl.com/yah8orzo

THE STATE OF THE NATION: A 50-STATE COVID-19 SURVEYUSA, April 2020
https://tinyurl.com/yaf58h27

Key takeaways:


More than 80% of Americans support closing non-essential businesses. Support for limiting restaurants, closing schools, canceling sporting and entertainment events, and group gatherings exceeds 90%. A total of 94% strongly or somewhat approve asking people to stay home and avoid gathering in groups; 92% support canceling major sports and entertainment events; 91% approve closing K-12 schools; 91% approve limiting restaurants to carry-out only; 83% approve closing businesses other than grocery stores and pharmacies. There are some partisan differences on these items -- Republicans are somewhat less supportive, but even among Republicans large majorities support all of these measures; and, as summarized below, support is largely consistent across every state.

A bipartisan consensus opposes a rapid "reopening" of the economy. Only 7% support immediate reopening of the economy, and the median respondent supports waiting four to six weeks. There is a bipartisan consensus on waiting (89% of Republicans as compared to 96% of Democrats opposed immediate re-opening), and Republicans support a somewhat faster re-opening of the economy than Democrats, where the median Republican supports waiting two to four weeks versus median Democrat six to eight weeks. As discussed below, even in those Republican-led states which are moving toward re-opening, few people support reopening immediately
Generally, Americans report adhering to social distancing, indicating that they had minimal social interactions with people outside of their households. That said, 56% reported encountering at least one person from outside of their home in the preceding 24 hours (and 7% reported encountering 10 or more persons); the survey did not contain information on the circumstances of those encounters (e.g., was it at grocery stores? were the individuals wearing masks?). Generally, there were not large differences with respect to age, gender, race, income, partisanship or education. An exception was that Asian Americans were substantially less likely to encounter other individuals, and more likely to avoid contact with other people. There were significant racial differences reported in wearing face masks outside of the home, with 51% of whites reporting following recommendations very closely, along with 62% of Hispanics, 64% of African Americans, and 68% of Asian Americans. There was also an age gradient in this regard, ranging from 50% face mask wearing for 18-24 year olds to 60% of those aged 65 or higher. There were also partisan differences: 51% of Republicans, compared to 64% for Democrats, reported wearing face masks outside the home.

I find the racial differences interesting, especially since in my observation fewer blacks are wearing masks. However, since I was specifically looking at blacks (due to the disproportionate number of blacks dying) in my walks, I may have under counted the number of whites not wearing masks. Also I suspect it varies between cities, states and more suburban or rural areas.

In any event, not enough people are wearing masks to re-open the economy - and we damn sure don't have enough testing, tracing and isolating capability and probably won't until September, according to one report I read.

A number of other interesting results. Check it out.

Richard Steven Hack , May 19 2020 7:03 utc | 113
Another useful article on masks...which is likely to be the next hot-button issue for the idiots and trolls...

The Science and Politics of Masks in the Covid-19 Pandemic
https://tinyurl.com/y7bxakhv


One of the key things to understand in thinking about the value of masks is the concept of the viral dose. While it seem logical that a single viral particle hitting a person's mouth, nose or eye could cause an infection, strong laboratory and empirical evidence says that this is not the case -- it takes a big dose of virus to launch a case of Covid. This happy fact means that masks for everyday use don't need to block 100% of pathogens in order to prevent the disease from spreading. (Even the medical grade N95 masks don't block every viral particle, but they block enough to protect the user, even when caring for patients with known Covid-19.)

A simulation by De Kai and colleagues makes the case that masks are most effective if at least 80% of people are using them. The figure below maps the rate of transmission with the expected deaths from Covid-19 in a nation the size of the UK. According to the simulation, social distancing alone without masking would lead to 1.16 million deaths by May 31st. However, with 50% of the population masking, the projected death figure drops to 240,000. With 80% masking, there are 60,000 deaths. If Professor De Kai's mind-blowing video (below) doesn't convince you of the virtue of mask wearing, I just don't know what to tell you.

Video referenced above:
Visual simulations show why we all need to wear masks now #UniversalMasking #masks4all #COVID19
42,341 views •Apr 26, 2020
https://tinyurl.com/yc89vf9c

[May 21, 2020] More than 80% of Americans support closing non-essential businesses. Support for limiting restaurants, closing schools, canceling sporting and entertainment events, and group gatherings exceeds 90%.

May 21, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Richard Steven Hack , May 19 2020 6:47 utc | 111

The Argument Against the Argument Against Facemasks
Resistance rooted in liberty clashes with the unalienable right of life
https://tinyurl.com/yctjydmx

Masks help stop the spread of coronavirus – the science is simple and I'm one of 100 experts urging governors to require public mask-wearing
https://tinyurl.com/yah8orzo

THE STATE OF THE NATION: A 50-STATE COVID-19 SURVEYUSA, April 2020
https://tinyurl.com/yaf58h27

Key takeaways:


More than 80% of Americans support closing non-essential businesses. Support for limiting restaurants, closing schools, canceling sporting and entertainment events, and group gatherings exceeds 90%. A total of 94% strongly or somewhat approve asking people to stay home and avoid gathering in groups; 92% support canceling major sports and entertainment events; 91% approve closing K-12 schools; 91% approve limiting restaurants to carry-out only; 83% approve closing businesses other than grocery stores and pharmacies. There are some partisan differences on these items -- Republicans are somewhat less supportive, but even among Republicans large majorities support all of these measures; and, as summarized below, support is largely consistent across every state.

A bipartisan consensus opposes a rapid "reopening" of the economy. Only 7% support immediate reopening of the economy, and the median respondent supports waiting four to six weeks. There is a bipartisan consensus on waiting (89% of Republicans as compared to 96% of Democrats opposed immediate re-opening), and Republicans support a somewhat faster re-opening of the economy than Democrats, where the median Republican supports waiting two to four weeks versus median Democrat six to eight weeks. As discussed below, even in those Republican-led states which are moving toward re-opening, few people support reopening immediately
Generally, Americans report adhering to social distancing, indicating that they had minimal social interactions with people outside of their households. That said, 56% reported encountering at least one person from outside of their home in the preceding 24 hours (and 7% reported encountering 10 or more persons); the survey did not contain information on the circumstances of those encounters (e.g., was it at grocery stores? were the individuals wearing masks?). Generally, there were not large differences with respect to age, gender, race, income, partisanship or education. An exception was that Asian Americans were substantially less likely to encounter other individuals, and more likely to avoid contact with other people. There were significant racial differences reported in wearing face masks outside of the home, with 51% of whites reporting following recommendations very closely, along with 62% of Hispanics, 64% of African Americans, and 68% of Asian Americans. There was also an age gradient in this regard, ranging from 50% face mask wearing for 18-24 year olds to 60% of those aged 65 or higher. There were also partisan differences: 51% of Republicans, compared to 64% for Democrats, reported wearing face masks outside the home.

I find the racial differences interesting, especially since in my observation fewer blacks are wearing masks. However, since I was specifically looking at blacks (due to the disproportionate number of blacks dying) in my walks, I may have under counted the number of whites not wearing masks. Also I suspect it varies between cities, states and more suburban or rural areas.

In any event, not enough people are wearing masks to re-open the economy - and we damn sure don't have enough testing, tracing and isolating capability and probably won't until September, according to one report I read.

A number of other interesting results. Check it out.

[May 21, 2020] New York Times continues to prop up the vaccine hype

May 21, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , May 21 2020 0:49 utc | 55

New York Times continues to prop up the vaccine hype:

Coronavirus Live Updates: Scientists See Progress in Path to Vaccine by Next Year

In addition to this Home Page highlight, there's an opinion piece as a side dish:

What to Expect When a Coronavirus Vaccine Finally Arrives

Buried a little bit more at the bottom, there's this borderline pseudoscientific, definitely reckless article:

Prototype Vaccine Protects Monkeys From Coronavirus

There is a statistical possibility a vaccine comes out next year. But his possibility is remote. The key here is that a vaccine must be tested to the exhaustion before being ok'd by any government for mass use. Any mistake can result in a number of deaths that will make this pandemic look like child's play. My opinion is that the NYT is feeding too much enthusiasm to its readers.

Circe , May 19 2020 12:05 utc | 119

The Moderna Vaccine the media is touting as a promising, miracle breakthrough that has only been tested on a limited group of 45 people, aged 18 to 55 has Grade 3 adverse effects in 100 and 250 microgram dosage.

So they're going to lower dosage to 50 micrograms and test it on the 56 to 70 and over 70 age groups. What about the group most Americans are in: the KFC, McDonald's, IHOP group?

[May 20, 2020] Trust Is Being Undermined - Harvard Medical School Prof Questions Fauci's Shading Vaccine Results

Fauci jumped the gun with the Moderna vaccine promotion.
Notable quotes:
"... Former Harvard Medical School professor and founder of the university's cancer and HIV/AIDS research departments, William Haseltine dared to speak out today about the high level of bullshit and damage that is being done to "trust" in "scientists" and even dared to break the one holy writ that shall go un-mentioned, throwing some shade a Dr.Fauci. ..."
"... But, but, but... the CNBC anchorette blubbered, "are you questioning Dr. Fauci who also said that this was encouraging news?" ..."
"... "Whether [Fauci] shaded what should should have been done, I think is an important question. He's obviously under enormous pressure for positive results but it was not the right thing to do if you can't see the data." ..."
"... The most recent example is Moderna's claim Monday of favorable results in its vaccine trial, which it announced without revealing any of the underlying data. The announcement added billions of dollars to the value of the company, with its shares jumping almost 20 percent. Many analysts believe it contributed to a 900-point gain in the Dow Jones industrial average. ..."
"... The Moderna announcement described a safety trial of its vaccine based on eight healthy participants. The claim was that in all eight people, the vaccine raised the levels of neutralizing antibodies equivalent to those found in convalescent serum of those who recovered from covid-19. What to make of that claim? Hard to say, because we have no sense of what those levels were. This is the equivalent of a chief executive of a public company announcing a favorable earnings report without supplying supporting financial data, which the Securities and Exchange Commission would never allow. ..."
"... There is a legitimate question regarding what Moderna's unsupported assertion means. The scientific and medical literature reports that some people who have recovered have little to no detectable neutralizing antibodies . There is even existing scientific literature that suggests it is possible neutralizing antibodies may not protect animals or humans from infection or reinfection by coronaviruses. ..."
"... The National Institutes of Health announced last month that the drug remdesivir offered a clear benefit to covid-19 patients with moderate disease, shortening the length of their hospital stay by several days. But did it really? Twenty days after the announcement, the supporting data has still not been published. Without the data, no doctor treating a patient can be sure they are doing the right thing. ..."
"... Another paper , published the same day, found that remdesivir had no measurable effect on patient survival or the amount of virus detectable in nasopharynx and lung secretions. What then should a practicing physician do? Follow the unsupported advice of a news announcement or a medical report published in a leading scientific journal? This is not an idle question: The NIH announcement triggered a global stampede for limited supplies of the drug. ..."
"... The media also bears responsibility. Asking experts to opine on unsubstantiated claims is not useful. Medicine and science are not matters of majority opinion; they are matters of fact supported by transparent data. This is the backbone of scientific progress and our only hope to end this pandemic. We can't give up on our standards now. ..."
May 20, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
At a moment in time when narrative-following "scientists" are lauded like unquestionably omniscient supreme beings enabling dumb-as-a-rock-partisan-politicians to play omnipotent overlords without fear of blowback, the world needs more people like William Haseltine.

The last two weeks have seen markets and politicians jump exuberantly at the hope of every press release from a biotech firm that proclaims one of their pet rabbits didn't die when they fed it their latest DNA-reshaping test material (oh that is except if anyone dares say anything positive about hydroxychloroquine but that is a topic for another discussion) as the fate of global citizenry rests on a vaccine (and definitely not herd immunity, don't even mention it).

Barstool Sports' Dave Portnoy said it right - when did we shift from "flatten the curve, flatten the curve, flatten the curve" to "we have to fund a cure or everyone's going to die."

And so, that is where we find ourselves... Every talking head proclaiming the same malarkey - we will re-open carefully, with PPE, and social distancing, and whetever else is mandated from on-high "until we find a vaccine in 12-18 months" at which point the world will be made whole again and Kumbaya...

All of which brings us back to the man of the day in our humble opinion.

Former Harvard Medical School professor and founder of the university's cancer and HIV/AIDS research departments, William Haseltine dared to speak out today about the high level of bullshit and damage that is being done to "trust" in "scientists" and even dared to break the one holy writ that shall go un-mentioned, throwing some shade a Dr.Fauci.

Reflecting on Moderna's press release this week (which was immediately followed by massive equity raises across numerous biotech firms and upgrades from the underwriters, surprise), Haseltine said:

"If a CFO had tried to get away with such an opaque and data-less statement it would have bee treated with derision and possibly an investigation."

The CNBC anchor desperately tried to guilt him into the official narrative of clinging to any hope as long as it lifts stocks - no matter its utter bullshittiness - but Haseltine destroyed her naive party line:

"we all know its an emergency, and in an emergency it's even more important to be clear on what you know and what you do not know."

Moderna did not follow the process:

"you don't know what happened, we don't know what happened, there is no data."

But, but, but... the CNBC anchorette blubbered, "are you questioning Dr. Fauci who also said that this was encouraging news?"

"Whether [Fauci] shaded what should should have been done, I think is an important question. He's obviously under enormous pressure for positive results but it was not the right thing to do if you can't see the data."

The full interview below is a must-watch by all who care about their freedom being controlled by a narrative directed by fearmongering elites in the name of "science" when the "science" is a) being ignored, b) being bastardized to meet a political need, c) being treated as if handed down on high from the man himself, or d) being manipulated explicitly.

https://player.cnbc.com/p/gZWlPC/cnbc_global?playertype=synd&byGuid=7000137277&size=530_298

Why this former Harvard Med School prof says Moderna's vaccine trial 'publication by press release' from CNBC .

Haseltine's interview is perfect lead into his opinion piece in todays' Washington Post :

Faith in medicine and science is based on trust. But today, in the rush to share scientific progress in combating covid-19, that trust is being undermined.

Private companies, governments and research institutes are holding news conferences to report potential breakthroughs that cannot be verified. The results are always favorable, but the full data on which the announcements are based are not immediately available for critical review. This is "publication by press release," and it's damaging trust in the fundamental methods of science and medicine at a time when we need it most.

The most recent example is Moderna's claim Monday of favorable results in its vaccine trial, which it announced without revealing any of the underlying data. The announcement added billions of dollars to the value of the company, with its shares jumping almost 20 percent. Many analysts believe it contributed to a 900-point gain in the Dow Jones industrial average.

The Moderna announcement described a safety trial of its vaccine based on eight healthy participants. The claim was that in all eight people, the vaccine raised the levels of neutralizing antibodies equivalent to those found in convalescent serum of those who recovered from covid-19. What to make of that claim? Hard to say, because we have no sense of what those levels were. This is the equivalent of a chief executive of a public company announcing a favorable earnings report without supplying supporting financial data, which the Securities and Exchange Commission would never allow.

There is a legitimate question regarding what Moderna's unsupported assertion means. The scientific and medical literature reports that some people who have recovered have little to no detectable neutralizing antibodies . There is even existing scientific literature that suggests it is possible neutralizing antibodies may not protect animals or humans from infection or reinfection by coronaviruses.

Such "publication by press release" seems to be a standard practice lately.

The National Institutes of Health announced last month that the drug remdesivir offered a clear benefit to covid-19 patients with moderate disease, shortening the length of their hospital stay by several days. But did it really? Twenty days after the announcement, the supporting data has still not been published. Without the data, no doctor treating a patient can be sure they are doing the right thing.

Another paper , published the same day, found that remdesivir had no measurable effect on patient survival or the amount of virus detectable in nasopharynx and lung secretions. What then should a practicing physician do? Follow the unsupported advice of a news announcement or a medical report published in a leading scientific journal? This is not an idle question: The NIH announcement triggered a global stampede for limited supplies of the drug.

The case is more nuanced for the vaccine developed by the Jenner Institute at Oxford University, though the mileposts remain the same: It started with a public pronouncement of favorable results from an early study, this time in monkeys, well before any data was publicly released. An NIH scientist working on a trial of the Oxford vaccine gave an interview to the New York Times , claiming the drug was a success.

But the data, released as a prepublication version more than two weeks after the story ran, didn't quite live up to the early claim. All of the vaccinated monkeys became infected when introduced to the virus. Though there was some reduction in the amount of viral RNA detected in the lungs, there was no reduction in the nasal secretions in the vaccinated monkeys. So the positive result reported by the Oxford group turned out not to be protection from infection at all, something most would agree is what a successful vaccine would do. Instead, it lowered only the amount of virus recoverable from the vaccinated monkey's lung.

To the Jenner Institute's credit, it does warn visitors to its website that there have been many false reports about the progress of its vaccine trial. Still, having a scientist working on the trial paint preliminary results in such a positive manner without having yet released the full data is cause for concern.

We all understand the need to share scientific and medical data as rapidly as possible in this time of crisis. But a media announcement alone is not enough. There are ways to share the data quickly and transparently: posting manuscripts before review or acceptance on publicly available websites or working with journals to allow an early view. Publishing in this manner allows doctors and scientists to reach their own conclusion, based on the evidence available.

The media also bears responsibility. Asking experts to opine on unsubstantiated claims is not useful. Medicine and science are not matters of majority opinion; they are matters of fact supported by transparent data. This is the backbone of scientific progress and our only hope to end this pandemic. We can't give up on our standards now.

* * *

So, by all means, trust in "science" but choose your "scientist" well...


Pure Evil, 13 minutes ago

It seems the more this hoax is exposed. The more Gates/Fauci appear as money grubbing opportunist vaccine pushers the more the MSM and the government double down on the whole false narrative.

hanekhw, 13 minutes ago

Look around at the moral climate and ask yourself if lying about everything for profit was not required for success how can we stop it without pain, suffering and violence? There really IS no free lunch and there never has been nor ever will be. We pay one way or another but we ALL pay.

Enraged, 15 minutes ago

Fake media, fake Big Pharma, fake banksters, fake government, fake breasts, fake stock "market", fake medical agencies, fake wars.

Assume they are 100% wrong unless there is substantial evidence they are correct, which will be on very rare occasions.

[May 20, 2020] Adding insult to injury Spike in Covid-19 robocalls fraud

Few things can be more annoying than answering the phone while you're in the middle of something -- and then being greeted by a recording. If you receive a robocall trying to sell you something (and you haven't given the caller your written permission), it's an illegal call. You should hang up. Then, file a complaint with the FTC and the National Do Not Call Registry.
May 20, 2020 | www.rt.com

From phony positive Covid-19 test results to deceptive offers of financial relief, robocalls have proliferated amid the pandemic, separating Americans from millions of precious dollars at a time when few can afford to lose money.

One particularly nasty scam sees the target receive a text or phone call warning them they've been exposed to the virus, tricking them into providing personal information while in a state of panic. Another cruel variant dangles the possibility of virus-related financial relief if they just give up their bank account details or wire the scammer a small " fee " – a tempting prospect at a time when half of American workers are unlikely to see a paycheck this month and upwards of 36 million have filed for unemployment since the pandemic began. Phony treatments – in which the target orders a miracle cure, only to never receive it – comprise some 22 percent of coronavirus-related robocalls, making them the most common pandemic scam.

Even those who haven't been personally scammed by a robocaller have experienced stress because of them, Provision found; 70 percent of millennials are concerned a parent or grandparent will be preyed upon by the automated scammers, who frequently impersonate government authorities like the Social Security Administration or the Internal Revenue Service in order to con their targets out of bank account information or other personal data. In fact, nearly two in five robocalls (39 percent) claim to be the SSA, with 38 percent impersonating the IRS and 33 percent pretending to be debt collectors.

The Covid-19 scams are apparently quite effective, robbing Americans of over $13.4 million of their hard-earned cash in the first three months of 2020 alone, according to the Federal Trade Commission. That number doesn't include scams that haven't been discovered by their victims, or those that go unreported to the FTC – meaning the real figure is likely much higher.

[May 20, 2020] Beware of fake contact tracers, N.J. officials warn

May 20, 2020 | www.nytimes.com

Beware of fake contact tracers, N.J. officials warn.

New Jersey officials warned residents on Wednesday to be wary of fraudsters identifying themselves as contact tracers in order to obtain financial information.

In recent weeks, as health departments have hired legitimate tracers to track the spread of the coronavirus, fake tracers have been sending people text messages looking for insurance information and bank account and social security numbers, said Judith Persichilli, the state health commissioner.

Real contact tracers do not ask for such things, the state said.

A legitimate tracer will call, identify themselves as part of a local health department, and explain to the person on the phone that they may have come into contact with someone who tested positive for the virus.

Scams around the virus, unemployment benefits and stimulus checks have proliferated nationwide , the authorities say.

Gov. Philip D. Murphy said "there is a special place in hell" for people who would scam others during the pandemic.

Mr. Murphy also reported the state's daily virus fatalities: 168, bringing the overall death toll to 10,747.

[May 20, 2020] Was Fauci a complete idiot to use Ferguson model as the base of his own forecast

May 20, 2020 | www.armstrongeconomics.com

Stochastic" is simply defined as "randomly determined; having a random probability distribution or pattern that may be analyzed statistically but may not be predicted precisely." In other words, they begin with a presumption, and therein lies the FIRST error. Ferguson's assumption was wrong, to begin with. Then this mode is so old, they recommend that it be run only on a single CORE processor as if we were dealing with an old IBM XT.

Effectively, you start the program with what is called a "seed" number which is then used to produce a random number. Most children's games begin this way. In fact, this is a version of what you would be similar to the game SimCity where you create a city starting from scratch and it simulates what might happen based upon the beginning presumption. There are numerous bugs in the code and the documentation suggests to run it several times and take the average. This is just unthinkable! A program should produce the same result with the same data from which it begins. Therefore, there is no possible way this model would ever produce the same results. In reality, this model produces completely different results even when beginning with the very same starting seeds and parameters because of the attempt to also make the seed random. This is not even as sophisticated as SimCity, which is really questionable. This is where the Imperial College claims that the errors will vanish if you run it on an old system in the single-threaded mode as if you were using a 1980s XT.

In programming, you run what is known as a regression-test, which is re-running a functional and non-functional test to ensure that previously developed and tested software still performs after a change. In market terminology, its called back-testing. In the most unprofessional manner imaginable, the Imperial College code does not even have a regression-test structure. They apparently attempted to but the extent of the random behavior caused by bugs in the code to prevent that check? On April 4th, 2020, Imperial College noted:

" However, we haven't had the time to work out a scalable and maintainable way of running the regression test in a way that allows a small amount of variation, but doesn't let the figures drift over time."

This Ferguson Model is such a joke it is either an outright fraud, or it is the most inept piece of programming I may have ever seen in my life. There is no valid test to warrant any funding of Imperial College for providing ANY forecast based upon this model. This is the most UNPROFESSIONAL operation perhaps in computer science. The entire team should be disbanded and an independent team put in place to review the world of Neil Ferguson and he should NOT be allowed to oversee any review of this model.

The only REASONABLE conclusion I can reach is that this has been deliberately used to justify bogus forecasts intent for political activism, or I must accept that these academics are totally incapable of even creating a theoretical model no less coding it as a programmer. There seems to have been no independent review of Ferguson's work which is unimaginable!

A 15,000 line program is nothing. I will be glad to write a model like this in two weeks and will only charge $1 million instead of $79 million. If you really want one to work globally, no problem. It will take a bit more time and the price will be at a discount – only $50 million on sale – refunds not accepted as is the deal with Imperial College.

[May 19, 2020] One more Fauci narrative about how the virus was so horrific, used to justify the lockdowns, is shown to be utter bullshit. Remember "the immunity doesn't last, you can get reinfected, the next time it's lethal"?

May 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

aqualech , May 19 2020 1:29 utc | 98

So just one more narrative about how the virus was so horrific, used to justify the lockdowns, is shown to be utter bullshit. Remember "the immunity doesn't last, you can get reinfected, the next time it's lethal"?

So, contrary to that, lots of people have immunity before they even get exposed to it. From the common cold. So the idea that the corona immunity is a short term and unreliable thing was just a bunch of uninformed blather, or worse, targeted and manipulative narrative.

Fearmongering bullshit that is 95% wrong needs to get called out constantly.

Even in New York there was not the "catastrophic death count" that I see people writing about as if it were true.

Hey! Let's talk about duct tape and plastic sheeting! Remember that idiotic bullshit scare narrative?

[May 19, 2020] Fauci vs. Trump -- Who's Right by Pat Buchanan

May 19, 2020 | www.unz.com

"We have met the moment and we have prevailed," said President Donald Trump Monday, as he supported the opening of the U.S. economy before the shutdown plunges us into a deep and lasting depression.

Tuesday, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation's leading expert on infectious diseases, made clear to a Senate committee his contradictory views.

"If states reopen their economies too soon, there is a real risk that you may trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control," said Fauci. "My concern is that we will start to see little spikes that might turn into outbreaks of the disease (and) the inevitable return of infections."

Fauci is talking of the real possibility of a second and even more severe wave of the pandemic this summer and fall, if we open too soon.

There is evidence to justify the fears of Fauci and Dr. Robert Redfield of the Centers for Disease Control, who told the same Senate committee, "We are not out of the woods yet."

Yet, there is a case to be made for the risks that Trump and red state governors are taking in opening up sooner.

The Washington Post daily graph of new deaths nationally has been showing a curve sloping downward for a month from April's more than 2,000 a day. On no day yet this week did the U.S. record 2,000 dead from the virus. On some days, there were fewer than 1,000.

The graph for new coronavirus cases, which was showing more than 30,000 a day in April, is now closer to 25,000.

Also, hospitalizations and ICU occupancies are not as high as they were. Hospitals put up in Central Park and the Javits Center seem not to have been needed. There was and is no shortage of ventilators. The Navy hospital ships Comfort and Mercy are returning to their home ports.

Also, not all states are suffering equally, nor are all communities in the hardest-hit states. There have been three times as many COVID-19 cases in New Jersey as in Texas, though New Jersey is a fraction of the size and has a fraction of the population of Texas.

There are twice as many cases in Massachusetts as in Florida, the nation's third-most populous state with one of its highest percentages of retirees and elderly. There have been five times as many cases in New York as in California.

It is the nursing homes filled with the elderly and ill that have proven to be the real killing fields of this virus. According to The New York Times, one-third of all deaths from COVID-19 have come among residents and staff of nursing homes. Beyond these are the meatpacking plants and the prisons where social distancing is almost nonexistent.

Moreover, while Fauci and Redfield are specialists in epidemics, Trump's portfolio goes far beyond that.

He is chief of state, head of government and commander in chief, responsible for the security and defense of the nation. His portfolio is broader and deeper than those of Fauci and Redfield.

ORDER IT NOW

In the first hours of the Normandy invasion, General Eisenhower must have been rightly alarmed about the high U.S. casualties on Omaha Beach. But he also had to concern himself with the failure to capture the Port of Caen to bring ashore the armor to stop any German counterattack that might turn D-Day into another Anzio.

Ike could not worry about casualties alone.

According to The Washington Post, economists already project that 100,000 small businesses have shuttered, never to reopen.

"(D)eeper and longer recessions can leave behind lasting damage to the productive capacity of the economy," warned Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday. "Avoidable household and business insolvencies can weigh on growth for years to come."

Ultimately, Fauci is not "The Decider" here. Trump is.

It is he who is accountable to the nation for weighing the losses, both human and material, due to his decisions.

Fauci may be the best at what he does, but he is still only an adviser. As John F. Kennedy said after the Bay of Pigs, it is the president who ultimately bears responsibility for what he does and fails to do, while "the advisers may move on to new advice."

Believing he can do no more than his White House is now doing to contain the incidence of cases, hospitalizations and deaths, Trump has decided his primary job is to prevent the nation from a catastrophic economic collapse from which it might take years to recover.

The country is slowly moving in Trump's direction, slowly opening. And he will be responsible for whether the policy succeeds or opens the floodgates to a second and worse wave, should it come.

As Abraham Lincoln put his situation: "I mean to keep going. If the end brings me out all right, then what is said against me won't matter. If I'm wrong, ten angels swearing I was right won't make a difference."

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever."

Copyright 2020 Creators.com.

Bill H , says: Show Comment May 15, 2020 at 5:41 am GMT

Fauci says that, "My concern is that we will start to see little spikes that might turn into outbreaks of the disease "

The problem with his statement is the first two words. A science advisor is supposed to provide advice based knowledge and science. It is not part of his job description to voice his feelings.

BobM11 , says: Show Comment May 15, 2020 at 7:52 am GMT
In this case, it doesn't matter who is "right" only one of them is POTUS! I get it that Trumps perch on his seat is tenuous and exactly how much real control he has over the government he supposedly heads is open to speculation, but at the end of the day Trump is POTUS and this is no time to be thinking of political futures he must be focused on the future of America.

We need not only an end to the lockdowns, but an end to the media campaign to demoralize the country by hyping the non-event known as corona virus. It is all hype. when you get past the spin and media blitz, there is nothing about this virus that would justify any kind of response beyond your doctor testing you for covid along with the flu when you go to the doctor with flu symptoms. That's it.

This is simply not the life altering virus that is being hyped. The enemy here is NOT the virus, it is the (((elites))) who are trying to destroy us. It is time people it is time.

[May 18, 2020] Judicial Watch files lawsuit seeking Dr. Fauci, WHO records - YouTube

May 18, 2020 | www.youtube.com

soakedbearrd , 6 days ago (edited)

Good, he's a crooked snake. And the WHO is corrupt.

Candy Rinard , 6 days ago

Don't trust Fauci at all. Not one thing he says.

Ender Gate , 1 week ago

Fauci sits on the leadership board of the Gates Foundation. That's a conflict of interest...

Eagle Arrow , 1 week ago

Fauci & Gates shouldn't be able to patent vaccines from research funded by American tax payers.

Mary Bevacqua , 1 week ago

Look at Fauci's connection and history. Follow the money! Corruption is a normal way of life. People's lives are NOT a concern.

dolphinsc1 , 1 week ago

Gen. Flynn is the perfect example of how far these gov't agencies will go to protect a lie and those frauds involved in the cover up/hoax. Trump was there target, the pathetic part of all this is just how many republicans knew about the fraud before Trump did and did nothing to protect him or Americans.

Linda Huckabee , 1 week ago

Their pushing vaccines to make money. When other treatments would be better like interferon therapy.

Carie Saad , 1 week ago

The CARES ACT was introduced in January of 2019, almost a year before CoronaVirus started. Hmmmmm......

ozrocksinger , 1 week ago (edited)

File on Gates too for practicing Medicine without a license!

Jillayne Holter , 6 days ago

Fauci, Clinton's, Gates, WHO, Big Pharma, and China all together to keeping things locked-down until they can make a vaccin

jomeza72 , 6 days ago (edited)

3.7 million Dollars To Wuhan Laboratories , Come On !!!

Nathan McClellan , 4 days ago

Fauci wasn't mislead by the WHO, he was given cover for his misdeeds.

Spyderhead , 4 days ago (edited)

"Doctor" Fauci is just another Deep State hack. A puppet. 😎

[May 18, 2020] Donald Trump says Americans won't stand for stay-at-home orders anymore

May 18, 2020 | www.washingtontimes.com

me name=

President Trump said Wednesday the coronavirus crisis is worse than the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and Americans won't allow it to go on any longer.

"I don't think people will stand for it," Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "The country won't stand for it. It's not sustainable."

He said the pandemic "is worse than Pearl Harbor."

...Asked about soaring unemployment being a potential liability for him in an election year, the president replied, "Nobody's blaming me for that. I built the greatest economy and I'm going to rebuild it again. This was an artificially induced unemployment."

[May 17, 2020] Fact check Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates won't profit from remdesivir

May 17, 2020 | www.usatoday.com

Fauci, Gates and coronavirus treatments

Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is not cited anywhere as an inventor or patent owner of the drug and has not authored any research studying remdesivir.

While Fauci has also said that early trials of remdesivir on coronavirus patients are a positive sign, he has also cautioned against prematurely celebrating.

"I was very serious when I said this was not the total answer by any means, but it's a very important first step," Fauci said on April 30 about the NIH study on remdesivir.

As remdesivir is wholly owned by Gilead Sciences, Fauci is not legally entitled to any profits from remdesivir.

Fauci was the director of NIAID during the 2013-14 Ebola outbreak and spearheaded the department's research and response to the virus. NIAID supported research into a range of potential Ebola treatments, including remdesivir, as recently as December. That said, Fauci did not directly conduct this research; neither he nor the NIH stand to profit from its results.

The National Institutes of Health confirmed that Fauci has not authored any studies on remdesivir and does not own stock in any biomedical or pharmaceutical companies.

Owning financial assets in pharmaceutical firms like Gilead would also be required to be publicly disclosed per the agency's ethics policy .

The NIH now recommends remdesivir be used "in hospitalized patients with severe disease," meaning any case where a the patient needs the use of a ventilator.

[May 17, 2020] How Huxley's X-Club Created Nature Magazine Sabotaged Science For 150 Years

May 16, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Amidst the storm of controversy raised by the lab-origin theory of COVID-19 extolled by such figures as Nobel prize winning virologist Luc Montagnier, bioweapons expert Francis Boyle, Sri Lankan Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith and the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, an elaborate project was undertaken under the nominal helm of NATURE Magazine in order to refute the claim once and for all under the report 'The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2' .

This project was led by a team of evolutionary virologists using a line of reasoning that "random mutation can account for anything" and was parroted loudly and repeatedly by Fauci, WHO officials and Bill Gates in order to shut down all uncomfortable discussion of the possible laboratory origins of COVID-19 while also pushing for a global vaccine campaign. On April 18, Dr. Fauci (whose close ties with Bill Gates, and Big Pharma have much to do with his control of hundreds of billions of dollars of research money), stated :

"There was a study recently that we can make available to you, where a group of highly qualified evolutionary virologists looked at the sequences there and the sequences in bats as they evolve. And the mutations that it took to get to the point where it is now is totally consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to a human."

I think at this moment, rife as it is with speculative arguments, confusion and under-defined data, it is useful to remove oneself from the present and look for higher reference points from which we can re-evaluate events now unfolding on the world stage.

... ... ...

[May 17, 2020] Italian Politician Demands Bill Gates Arrest For Crimes Against Humanity

Notable quotes:
"... Sara Cunial, the Member of Parliament for Rome denounced Bill Gates as a "vaccine criminal" and urged the Italian President to hand him over to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. ..."
"... In an extraordinary seven-minute speech met with wide applause, Sara Cunial, the Member of Parliament for Rome said that Italy had been subjected to a "Holy Inquisition of false science." ..."
May 17, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Via GreatGameIndia.com,

As the FDA shuts down a Bill Gates-funded COVID-testing program , an Italian politician has demanded the arrest of Bill Gates in the Italian parliament.

Sara Cunial, the Member of Parliament for Rome denounced Bill Gates as a "vaccine criminal" and urged the Italian President to hand him over to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

She also exposed Bill Gates' agenda in India and Africa, along with the plans to chip the human race through the digital identification program ID2020.

As reported by GreatGameIndia earlier, in 2015 it were the Italians who exposed secret Chinese biological experiments with Coronavirus . The video, which was broadcast in November, 2015, showed how Chinese scientists were doing biological experiments on a SARS connected virus believed to be Coronavirus, derived from bats and mice, asking whether it was worth the risk in order to be able to modify the virus for compatibility with human organisms.

In an extraordinary seven-minute speech met with wide applause, Sara Cunial, the Member of Parliament for Rome said that Italy had been subjected to a "Holy Inquisition of false science."

She roundly criticized the unnecessary lockdown imposed on her fellow Italians in the service of a globalist agenda. She urged fellow political leaders to desist in any plans to compel citizens to surrender themselves to compulsory COVID-19 vaccination at the hands of the corrupt elite – whom she identified as the Deep State .

Below is the transcription of the full speech delivered to the Italian Parliament by Sara Cunial, the Member of Parliament for Rome.

* * *

Sara Cunial

The Member of Parliament for Rome

Speech delivered to the Italian Parliament

May 2020

https://www.youtube.com/embed/QnsYcsCjLWI

[Emphasis ours]

Hobbes said that absolute power does not come from an imposition from above but by the choice of individuals who feel more protected renouncing to their own freedom and granting it to a third party.

With this, you are going on anesthetizing the minds with corrupted Mass Media with Amuchina (a brand of disinfectant promoted by Mass Media) and NLP, with words like "regime", "to allow" and "to permit", to the point of allowing you to regulate our emotional ties and feelings and certify our affects.

So, in this way, Phase 2 is nothing else than the persecution/continuation of Phase 1 – you just changed the name, as you did with the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). We have understood people, for sure, don't die for the virus alone. So people will be allowed to die and suffer, thanks to you and your laws, for misery and poverty. And, as in the "best" regimes, the blame will be dropped only on citizens. You take away our freedom and say that we looked for it. Divide et Impera (Divide and Rule).

It is our children who will lose more, who are 'raped souls', with the help of the so-called "guarantor of their rights" and of CISMAI (Italian Coordination of Services against Child Abuse). In this way, the right to school will be granted only with a bracelet to get them used to probation, to get them used to slavery – involuntary treatment and to virtual lager. All this in exchange for a push-scooter and a tablet. All to satisfy the appetites of a financial capitalism whose driving force is the conflict of interest, conflict well represented by the WHO, whose main financier is the well-known "philanthropist and savior of the world" Bill Gates.

We all know it, now. Bill Gates, already in 2018, predicted a pandemic, simulated in October 2019 at the "Event 201", together with Davos (Switzerland). For decades, Gates has been working on Depopulation policy and dictatorial control plans on global politics, aiming to obtain the primacy on agriculture, technology and energy.

Gates said, I quote exactly from his speech:

"If we do a good job on vaccines, health and reproduction, we can reduce the world population by 10-15%. Only a genocide can save the world".

With his vaccines, Gates managed to sterilize millions of women in Africa. Gates caused a polio epidemic that paralyzed 500,000 children in India and still today with DTP, Gates causes more deaths than the disease itself. And he does the same with GMOs designed by Monsanto and "generously donated" to needy populations. All this while he is already thinking about distributing the quantum tattoo for vaccination recognition and mRNA vaccines as tools for reprogramming our immune system. In addition, Gates also does business with several multinationals that own 5G facilities in the USA.

On this table there is the entire Deep State in Italian sauce : Sanofi, together with GlaxoSmithKline are friends of the Ranieri Guerra, Ricciardi, and of the well-known virologist that we pay 2000 Euro every 10 minutes for the presentations on Rai (Italian state TV. She's probably talking about Burioni). Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline sign agreements with medical societies to indoctrinate future doctors, making fun of their autonomy of judgment and their oath.

Hi-Tech multinationals, like the Roman Engineering which is friend of the noble Mantoan, or Bending Spoons, of Pisano, which are there for control and manage our personal health datas in agreement with the European Agenda ID2020 of electronic identification, which aims to use mass vaccination to obtain a digital platform of digital ID. This is a continuation of the transfer of data started by Renzi to IBM. Renzi, in 2016, gave a plus 30% to Gates Global Fund.

On the Deep State table there are the people of Aspen, like the Saxon Colao, who with his 4-pages reports, paid 800 Euros/hour, with no scientific review, dictates its politics as a Bilderberg general as he is, staying away from the battlefield. The list is long. Very long. In the list there is also Mediatronic, by Arcuri and many more.

The Italian contribution to the International Alliance Against Coronavirus will be of 140 million Euros, of which 120 million Euros will be given to GAVI Alliance, the non-profit by Gates Foundation. They are just a part of the 7.4 billion Euro fund by the EU to find a vaccine against Coronavirus – vaccines which will be used as I said before.

No money, of course for serotherapy, which has the collateral effect of being super cheap. No money for prevention, a real prevention, which includes our lifestyles, our food and our relationship with the environment.

The real goal of all of this is total control. Absolute domination of human beings, transformed into guinea pigs and slaves, violating sovereignty and free will. All this thanks to tricks/hoax disguised as political compromises. While you rip up the Nuremberg code with involuntary treatment, fines and deportation, facial recognition and intimidation, endorsed by dogmatic scientism – protected by our "Multi-President" of the Republic who is real cultural epidemic of this country.

We, with the people, will multiply the fires of resistance in a way that you won't be able to repress all of us.

I ask you, President, to be the spokesperson and give an advice to our President Conte: Dear Mr. President Conte, next time you receive a phone call from the philanthropist Bill Gates forward it directly to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. If you won't do this, tell us how we should define you, the "friend lawyer" who takes orders from a criminal.

Thank you.

[May 17, 2020] No Evidence Coronavirus Was Made in a Chinese Lab Fauci Says

May 05, 2020 | www.informationclearinghouse.info
By teleSUR

" Information Clearing House " - Trump insists that his administration has evidence that the virus was created in Wuhan city. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci Monday reiterated that there is no scientific evidence to claim that the SARS-CoV coronavirus was created in a laboratory. His statement contradicts again the theory on the origin of COVID-19 defended by the U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

"If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what's out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated," Fauci said in an interview with National Geographic

"Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species," the U.S. government's leading epidemiologist added.

His statements are in line with those set forth by the World Health Organization (WHO), a United Nations agency that ratified on Monday that the coronavirus is of animal origin. "The coronavirus circulates ancestrally between bats.

"That is something we know based on this virus's genetic sequence. What we need to understand is which animal... was infected by bats and transmitted it to humans," the WHO Emerging Diseases Department Director Maria Van Kerkhove said.

Demand Trump's incompetent, unqualified son-in-law be removed from the coronavirus response team! #care2 https://t.co/TN8jpMIw2p

-- Frank (@watercutter11) May 5, 2020

Nevertheless, Trump insists that the U.S. government has evidence that the virus was created in a laboratory in Wuhan (China), something that the Intelligence Directorate also rejected.

Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda?

On Tuesday morning, the U.S. president also reacted angrily to a video titled "Mourning In America" produced by The Lincoln Project (LP), a conservative group opposed to Trump's reelection which blames him for mishandling the COVID-19 pandemic.

"There's mourning in America - and under the leadership of Donald Trump, our country is weaker, sicker, and poorer," the LP video points out and adds that the United States is on the brink of a new Great Depression.

In response to the above, Trump released his discomfort by calling the Lincoln Project members "losers."​​​​​​​

[May 16, 2020] The controversy and confusion on wearing masks

May 16, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Likklemore , May 16 2020 18:11 utc | 130

the Controversy and confusion on wearing masks:

Should everyone be wearing face masks? It's complicated.

Why don't masks protect the wearer?
Paul Glasziou, Professor of Medicine, Bond University and Chris Del Mar, Professor of Public Health, Bond University, AU
also endorsed by epidemiologists in UK, CAD.


[.] There are several possible reasons why masks don't offer significant protection. First, masks may not do much without eye protection. We know from animal and laboratory experiments that influenza or other coronaviruses can enter the eyes and travel to the nose and into the respiratory system.

While standard and special masks provide incomplete protection, special masks combined with goggles appear to provide complete protection in laboratory experiments. However, there are no studies in real-world situations measuring the results of combined mask and eyewear.

The apparent minimal impact of wearing masks might also be because people didn't use them properly. For example, one study found less than half of the participants wore them "most of the time". People may also wear masks inappropriately, or touch a contaminated part of the mask when removing it and transfer the virus to their hand, then their eyes and thus to the nose.

Masks may also provide a false sense of security, meaning wearers might do riskier things such as going into crowded spaces and places.[.]

Got goggles or a Visor? Eye protection is essential.

[May 16, 2020] The obvious shortcomings of the USA government reaction: no distributions of free masks, no temperature checks, no oxymeter checks, no retrofitted busses and other transportation to have individual air supplies, no retrofitting air conditioners

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... > How about we follow WHO's rule zero: test, test and test? ..."
"... Why the USA did not implemented entry/exist temperature checks (even at airports) I do not understand. The richest nation in the world has the government which is probably the most inept and disfunctional ..."
"... It looks like this is mainly the disease of megacities and industries with closely packed people (ships, meatpacking plants, Amazon warepuses) . And a large part of large cities infrastructure such as subways and air-conditioned building, hotels and shops are ideal environment for spreading of the virus. ..."
"... Another interesting feature of this virus is that it simply revealed how unhealthy the USA population generally is. For example, the epidemic of obesity now is tightly intermixed with the epidemic of COVID-19. Within the limits of the neoliberal social system very little can be done about it: for profit medicine makes is more fragile and create multiple avenue of abusing people. ..."
May 16, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

likbez , May 16, 2020 at 19:42

@vk | May 16 2020 15:52 utc | 108

> How about we follow WHO's rule zero: test, test and test?

Do you understand the cost of each test? Some data suggest that it is between $50 and $100. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-15/coronavirus-tests-from-labcorp-quest-will-cost-50-to-100

Do you understand that the current polymerase tests have 20-30% of false positives?

So if everybody in the USA is tested around 60-80 million people in the USA would be deemed infected. I suspect that a very large percentage of "asymptomatics" are in reality false positives.

We need to distinguish between the necessary measures and fearmongering. I suspect that in the case of polymerase test the mantra "test, test, test" is close to the latter. This is s rather expensive test and money probably can be better spend distributing masks to the population. That would instantly give a larger effect. The simple measure that in the USA was not done. Just for that Fauci should be fired and probably tried, IMHO.

The same is probably true with the distribution of oxymeters too: people with lows reading need oxygen. As simple as that. That probably will cut hospitalizations in half.

My impression is that temperature and oxymeter testing might be a proxy for polymerase testing and much cheaper: if oxygen saturation is less then 90% the person need to be isolated/treated with oxygen

Why the USA did not implemented entry/exist temperature checks (even at airports) I do not understand. The richest nation in the world has the government which is probably the most inept and disfunctional

It looks like this is mainly the disease of megacities and industries with closely packed people (ships, meatpacking plants, Amazon warepuses) . And a large part of large cities infrastructure such as subways and air-conditioned building, hotels and shops are ideal environment for spreading of the virus.

Even reasonable prophylactic measures do not work that well in large cities. Slums and homeless are and will be hotspots.

Even at work enforcing prophylactic measures is non trivial. You need to change mask each 2 hours when you are working inside. How many people will do that ?

I think there is not way out other then clench your teeth and go forward adapting the behavior as new information about the virus emerge.

For example individual supply of air in planes, trains and buses (which existed in old planes and some buses ) might be an important psychological (and with better filters medical) measure required.

Also Cruise ships "experiments" suggest that only around 20% of population is susceptible to the virus. Even among Wuhan medics who started working with coronavirus patients without wearing protective equipment only around half got the disease. The simplistic assumption that 100% of people is susceptible is just a myth propagated by fearmongers for fun and profit.

Another interesting feature of this virus is that it simply revealed how unhealthy the USA population generally is. For example, the epidemic of obesity now is tightly intermixed with the epidemic of COVID-19. Within the limits of the neoliberal social system very little can be done about it: for profit medicine makes is more fragile and create multiple avenue of abusing people.

[May 16, 2020] TSA Better late then never: To Check Passengers' Temperature At Airports

There are four month late...
May 16, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will be checking passengers' temperatures at select airports next week.

People familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal that additional details would be unveiled in the near term. The program is expected to roll out at 12 airports next week and will cost $20 million to implement. Thermal check fees will be waived for travelers and likely expensed to the federal government.

[May 16, 2020] Note to the quarantine/vaccine promoter Fauci: Any sufficiently advanced cluelessness is indistinguishable from malice

May 16, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

1. 'BE AFRAID '

The first message is that covid19 is terrifying, unique, an existential threat to the human race.

This message is never sourced to much fact, because the facts about the virus don't really support it. If it cites anything solid it's the appallingly sloppy and discredited Imperial computer model, or some generic research into the pathology of severe infections or rare viral syndromes, which it tries to spin as being unique to covid19, even though it is not. But mostly it doesn't cite anything at all. Or really claim anything at all.

It just tells people to be afraid. Very afraid. Of death, of uncertainty, of the 'virus', of other people, of 'fake news'.

The fear being encouraged is not rooted in facts, and is therefore impervious to them.

2. 'THERE IS NOTHING TO BE AFRAID OF '

The second message is that covid19 is actually pretty harmless and no big deal.

This message is rooted in a great deal of fact, because, as we have been pointing out since day one, pretty much all the data coming out about this virus supports exactly this conclusion.

No official body has ever denied this, and most of them readily admit it. Regularly and unambiguously. Here and here and here and here .

Chris Whitty above is only one of many and this is not even his first go (see here ) at explaining clearly that covid19 is only dangerous to a very very small minority of people, and that most who get it will be just fine.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/adj8MCsZKlg

Here's a slide from his talk on April 30th:

At an individual level the chances of dying of coronavirus are low.

• Over the whole epidemic, even if there is no vaccine, a high proportion
will not get it.

• Of those who do, a significant proportion (exact number not yet clear)
have no symptoms.

• Of the symptomatic cases, the great majority (around 80%) a mild-
moderate disease.

• A minority have to go to hospital, most need only oxygen. The great
majority of these survive.

• A minority of those need ventilation.

• A minority of every agegroup sadly die with current treatment, but even
of the oldest group most do not.

[T]he great majority of people will not die from this and I'll just repeat something I said right at the beginning because I think it's worth reinforcing :

Most people, a significant proportion of people, will not get this virus at all, at any point of the epidemic which is going to go on for a long period of time.

Of those who do, some of them will get the virus without even knowing it, they will have the virus with no symptoms at all, asymptomatic carriage, and we know that happens.

Of those who get symptoms, the great majority, probably 80%, will have a mild or moderate disease. Might be bad enough for them to have to go to bed for a few days, not bad enough for them to have to go to the doctor.

An unfortunate minority will have to go as far as hospital, but the majority of those will just need oxygen and will then leave hospital.

And then a minority of those will end up having to go to severe end critical care and some of those sadly will die.

But that's a minority, it's 1% or possibly even less than 1% overall.

And even in the highest risk group this is significantly less than 20%, ie. the great majority of people, even the very highest groups, if they catch this virus, will not die.

And I really wanted to make that point really clearly

[May 16, 2020] I know it does not fit the fear agenda but COVID-19 disruption present much higher threat to children then CODIV-19 itself.

May 16, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

ted01 , May 16 2020 0:17 utc | 32

Australia - deaths from Covid-19

Total - 98 (15/05/2020)

0-39 = 0
40-49 = 1
50-59 = 2
60-69 = 11
70-79 = 31
80-89 = 34
90+ = 19

Australian Government Dept. of Health

I know it does not fit the fear agenda.

As the lockdown has been eased in most Australian states there have been zero announcements on additional protections for the elderly & infirm.

Why are the Federal & state governments doing nothing but the most basic measures to ensure the safety of the elderly & infirm?

fairleft , May 16 2020 2:37 utc | 37

Yes, Ken Garoo @26, the fearmongers have blood on their hands, not just in the UK, and this is a massive life-and-death crisis. More evidence, from another unimpeachable source various MoA stalwarts will now have to claim is a hack:

Unicef warns lockdown could kill more than Covid-19 as model predicts 1.2 million child deaths
Subhead: 'Indiscriminate lockdowns' are an ineffective way to control Covid and could contribute to a 45 per cent rise in child mortality

"...According to a stark report published in Lancet Global Health journal on Wednesday, almost 1.2 million children could die in the next six months due to the disruption to health services and food supplies caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

"The modelling, by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Unicef, found that child mortality rates could rise by as much as 45 per cent due to coronavirus-related disruptions, while maternal deaths could increase by almost 39 per cent.

"Dr [Stefan Peterson, chief of health at UNICEF] said these figures were in part a reflection of stringent restrictions in much of the world that prevent people leaving their homes without documentation, preventing them from accessing essential health care services. ...

"...Covid is not a children's disease. Yes there are rare instances and we see them publicised across the media. But pneumonia, diarrhoea, measles, death in childbirth, these are the reasons we will see deaths rise."

[May 15, 2020] The reason NYC appears to be such an outlier could be a combination of all the possible reasons PO mentions bad healthcare system; runaway spread in nursing homes

May 15, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Jen May 12, 2020 at 3:54 pm

The reason NYC appears to be such an outlier could be a combination of all the possible reasons PO mentions – bad healthcare system; runaway spread in nursing homes that maybe weren't being run very well in the first place and were employing people on low wages or contracts so they were forced to work long hours and ended up being exposed to large viral loads and were passing the disease from one person to the next – plus reasons particular to NYC itself as a large city (poor communities densely packed in sub-standard housing with little or no access to the most up-to-date and accurate information on COVID-19, and unable to practise the hygiene and social distancing measures needed to stop transmission of the virus; air pollution issues).

Some mainstream news media reports I have seen state many poor communities in the US have particular issues with obtaining necessary healthcare because (a) they have experienced discrimination (racial, religious, whatever) in the past from hospitals or clinics and are reluctant to go again, so they delay and delay until their situation becomes critical; and (b) they have no medical insurance so again they delay seeking help. The situation in NYC does seem to be the result of myriad factors, some particular to the city itself, others particular to NYC because it is a large city with dense population clusters in particular neighbourhoods with problems of discrimination that impact on their health, and still others that are general, all of them having an impact on one another.

Black communities in some parts of the US have been badly hit by COVID-19: in the state of Louisiana, where about a third of the total population is black, 70% of COVID-19-related deaths have been of black people.
Brookings Institution: Mapping racial inequity amid COVID-19 underscores policy discriminations against Black Americans

Patient Observer May 13, 2020 at 4:35 pm
A significant factor, embarrassing to us Americans, is the link between obesity and its related health issues to the fatality rate of the virus. Bluntly put, obese people appear much more likely to succumb to the virus. If Russia has a significantly lower rate of obesity, it would only be logical that they would also have a significantly lower rate of mortality. I have not seen this factor mentioned in the blizzard of discussion on the difference in death rates between NCY and Moscow.
Mark Chapman May 13, 2020 at 4:45 pm
But obesity is not nearly so prevalent in the UK as it is in the USA, and it is clearing them out like nobody's business – their death rate is significantly higher than Russia's. The UK, also, follows a practice of assigning the death to COVID-19 if the patient dies even if obvious underlying conditions are present, and it may have a similar financial system in place, in which the hospital receives a payout if a patient is deemed to be suffering from COVID-19, and a much larger payment if the patient has to be put on a ventilator.
Patient Observer May 13, 2020 at 6:10 pm
Let's say lower obesity, generally better fitness, more effective planning, better medical response and possibly other factors (e.g. TB vaccination) could explain the difference.

Tp support the foregoing, differences in mortality between racial group is generally attributed to differences in the level of obesity and related health issues so general levels of obesity is a factor, perhaps a major factor. It may be a little morbid but it would be interesting to understand the correlation between obesity and Covid-19 deaths in the US, UK and Russia.

Absolutely the case that the US and the UK authorities have an enormous financial interest in exaggerating the mortality rate for short term gain and long term sustainable profit through massive and likely unnecessary vaccination programs of hundreds of millions of people generating $10 of billions revenue. And it would almost be a certainty that a new deadly virus will pop up at a rate that match the available capacity of Big Pharma to crank out new" life saving" medicines. To be clear, Big Pharma is only one of the nefarious groups benefitting from a public cowering in fear.

I read somewhere years ago that Big Pharma's long term goal is to have every American on a prescription drug(s) from cradle to grave. And Big Data wants every American to be enslaved by their smart phones and social media. Bastards.

[May 15, 2020] Ferguson fraud and Orlov tale of coronavirus epidemic

May 15, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

Mark Chapman May 9, 2020 at 10:55 am

Hurrah! I have my blogroll back! I'm just starting to build it. At some point in the frequent rollouts of new WordPress features, they added a 'WP Admin' button, which gives access to the 'Links' page and allowed me to eliminate those irritating default links, as well as add new ones. So, I'm just getting started, but among the must-sees I stumbled across while starting out with links I knew I wanted to add right away are one discussing the coronavirus (haven't even read all of it myself yet) at Club Orlov;

https://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2020/05/gaslighting-coronavirus.html

and a great article, very much on point with this post, at Irrussianality, detailing the absolutely flabbergasting Joint Statement on the Anniversary of the End of the Second World War, on the USA's State Department website. The Nazis get one mention – the rest is non-stop Russia is evil.

https://irrussianality.wordpress.com/2020/05/08/joint-statement-on-the-75th-anniversary-of-the-end-of-the-second-world-war/ I'm not sure what Dmitry Orlov does for a living, but if he is exclusively a writer when he's not sailing around, I suppose he is entitled to charge a fee for his product, and I have found it consistently excellent and well-sourced, much like John Helmer's work (although that is still free). Orlov's blog is only $2.50 a month at the basic level of subscriber, and that's cheap enough for me. I encourage readers to subscribe at the same level, because it's an excellent resource. In this case, I had just skipped over it very quickly, because I wanted to add it to the blogroll. I read the first couple of paragraphs, divined that it was not only about the coronavirus, but vindicated many of my own beliefs, and went elsewhere to add another site. I did not notice until I came back to it that it was now subscription-only.

So I'll copy a few salient points for everyone, and they can judge for themselves if they are willing to pay a couple of bucks for that kind of content. It was not all about the coronavirus – it started out about that, and sort of segued into the precarious position the USA is now in economically. So that's why it may look like two different posts; I am just excerpting at random: the entire post is much too long to copy. Presuming you have read as much of the post as was already included as a teaser before it became subscriber-only

"First, let's handle the question of vaccination. There is a measles vaccine, yet it kills 140,000 a year. There is a pneumococcus vaccine, yet it kills between 2 and 2.5 million a year. There is a hepatitis B vaccine, yet it kills 140,000. There is a tetanus vaccine, yet it kills 89,000 annually. There is a rotavirus vaccine, yet it kills 800,000. There is a HPV vaccine, yet it kills 250,000. There is a tuberculosis vaccine, yet it kills 1.5 million. There is an influenza vaccine, yet it kills 650,000 to 1 million a year. None of these are considered pandemics, cause entire economies to be shut down, or call for any extraordinary measures at all.

And then there is the novel coronavirus which has killed 218,187 people to date (the vast majority of them very old and/or very sick) -- and this is considered to be a problem to be solved with all possible haste. Some infectious disease experts have suggested that the entire populace may be required to shelter in place until a vaccine becomes available. Meanwhile, deaths from the novel coronavirus largely fit within the usual mortality of the flu season. The northern hemisphere winter was warmer than usual, and some of the elderly and sick people who would have been killed off by any of the usual influenza viruses (including other coronaviruses) during any of the previous three flu seasons were claimed by the novel coronavirus.

But even this is uncertain because it is unclear whether these 218,187 deaths were actually caused by the coronavirus or whether the coronavirus just happened to be present in their bodies at the time of death. Furthermore, a lot of people were diagnosed as suffering from this coronavirus based on symptoms which are not too different from those caused by other viral agents. Lastly, the vast majority of those who have died from it had what are called comorbidities. Elderly immunocompromised morbidly obese diabetics with high blood pressure, cancer and other potential fatal ailments have been particularly susceptible. If you discard all fatal cases with comorbidities and only consider young healthy people, then the number of deaths where the new coronavirus is obviously the root cause may turn out to be as low as zero.

Confirmed novel coronavirus cases number less than 3,147,626 worldwide, which is 0.04% of the world's population. This barely adds up to a cough and a sneeze. As this virus has spread throughout the world the increase in cases has slowed, but the number of confirmed cases could yet double or even triple, adding up to as much as three coughs and three sneezes. But then the World Health Organization enters the fray. The WHO makes gratuitous use of appellations such as "world" and "health" but is actually a semi-private entity lavishly financed by Bill Gates and Big Pharma, which is owned by a handful of highly inbred oligarchic entities that include Vanguard, BlackRock, Capital Group, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Northern Trust and State Street, which in turn own each other in various convoluted ways. WHO's main function is to scare people into getting vaccinated and accepting expensive drug regimens (barely half of which do any good at all), thus funneling resources toward Big Pharma.

The World Health Organization establishes thresholds to determine whether to declare an influenza epidemic that range between 2.5% and 5%. The novel coronavirus misses the mark by a thousand-fold, yet the WHO has declared it to be the cause of a global pandemic. If this seems like an extreme overreaction, that is because this is an extreme overreaction. Some conspiratorially-minded people may surmise that this is a conspiracy, but it isn't. It is yet another blatant attempt to confiscate a chunk of the world's wealth by requiring it to buy something worthless, just like this same set of medical/financial interests did with the relatively worthless Tamiflu antiviral medication during the H1N1 swine flu pandemic of 2009-10 which caused a mere 18,036 deaths worldwide. This is a specific group pursuing its own group interests."

Then he went into how the Chinese and the Russians are respectively manipulating the coronavirus in their own countries for their own ends

"The Chinese have taken the novel coronavirus outbreak as a chance to train for repelling a biological warfare attack. To argue that this coronavirus is indeed the agent of a biowarfare attack is to argue for something extremely stupid because it just isn't effective as a biowarfare agent. It's almost as bad as Novichok, which was touted as being able to wipe out entire armies but only managed to sicken five people and kill just one of them. It doesn't matter whether this coronavirus leaked out of a dead bat or a biowarfare lab, or both -- it just isn't any good as a weapon. But the Chinese government imposed extreme, unprecedented controls over much of the population and the economy. The Russians followed suit, with the difference that while the Chinese saw these extreme measures as temporary, setting up makeshift hospitals, the Russians seized on them as a chance to fundamentally upgrade the entire health care system, setting it up to effectively handle any future biological warfare attacks.

In doing so, the Chinese and the Russians pursued different goals. The Chinese need to find a way to stop shipping actual physical manufactured goods to the US in exchange for pieces of paper or promises to pay, all of which are about to become worthless, without triggering a dangerous escalation. The need to do so with all necessary haste became obvious in mid-August of 2019, when it turned out that banks were no longer willing to accept US Treasury debt instruments as collateral for overnight loans. These were supposedly the safest investments in the world that made up the world's largest and most liquid financial market -- until it turned out that they weren't that at all."

And on the American economy

"There are two important global processes which, while they will affect the US particularly severely, go far beyond its geographic confines. One is the still relatively gradual process of dethroning the US dollar from its position of dominance. Until the coronavirus pandemic disrupted much of the global economy, most of its participants were interested in preserving some measure of stability to the dollar system. But now that trade has already been disrupted, an opening has been created to dump the dollar without necessarily causing economic damage significantly worse than already exists. The actions of the Federal Reserve, which is in the process of monetizing a large proportion of existing US government debt and virtually all of the new debt being issued to cover the ever-growing budget deficit, are undermining the dollar as well. Although the term "debt monetization" is being used to describe what's happening, issuing currency with which to buy up worthless promissory notes stretches the definition of "debt" beyond any reasonable limit, while "monetization" is far too dignified a term for such a desperate delaying tactic. As a consequence, some analysts do not see US dollar-based global financial system holding up too far beyond this year.

The other process is the rapid transition of the US from the world's largest producer of oil to one of the smallest, because the fracking bonanza has largely run its course. It has never really made any money, since fracked oil is, for technological reasons, always too expensive to sustain economic growth. And now, with an economic depression setting in, economies at a standstill and oil futures trading in the negative territory (where market participants are willing to pay producers to get out of having take delivery of the oil when the contract matures) the fracking industry is going bankrupt, production is falling, and in less than a year it is likely to be down by as much as 70%. At that point, any attempt at economic recovery in the US will involve having to start importing large quantities of oil from a world supply that, with the exception of fracked oil from the US, hasn't expanded much since 2005."

et Al May 10, 2020 at 1:50 am
My view is that despite this being all highly disruptive, it will prepare us all for the inevitable outbreak of a truly deadly virus that will also kill the young and healthy too (hopefully not cats). The world is becoming ever more globalized, transmission chains and time seriously shortened. There will be no escape even on the periphery. A biological version of Neville Shute's On the Beach.

Handling this well (in future) is eminently doable without even losing a (metaphorical) bollock. It is basic stuff and really shouldn't be 'a thing.' The WHO is a redirection nothing burger for those who are responsible for the abrogation of national competence. Decisions are still taken at the national level, no? The WHO is a spokesbody and therein it does have a role to play. It is neither free from political inteference or influence just like every other international organization.

Fortunately, Asia has shown the common-sense that we in the old world have lost through our own arrogance and self-importance. We should be humiliated, but we are not. We're too busy blaming others.

This CoVid-19 outbreak has provided everyone with a crystal clear warning of precisely how incompetent many nation states are over basic provision of health and pandemic planning in the 21st Century. This isn't 1918. Things are supposed to have moved on a bit but it has exposed the ideology of cuts, penny-pinching and not-give-a-f/kery over common-sense by those elected (by us) to provide responsible government. They've been warned multiple times about the risks, not to mention the series of other outbreaks in this century. Still, they're rather more interested in squeaking out ever leaner efficiencies to maximize profit.

I'm not worried about the planet, we'll knock ourselves off first.

Happy Mothers Day!

Patrick Armstrong May 10, 2020 at 10:01 am
My initial feeling was that the initial reaction of Putin, Trump and Johnson was to let the thing burn itself out and maybe put the effort into looking after the most at risk. The Imperial College thing seems to be the reason why Trump and Johnson went to lockdown and that left me puzzled why Putin did. Orlov's piece gave me the idea that maybe, after talking to Xi, Putin decided to use it as a test of Russia's ability to handle a bioattack. Notice that Russia is actually building specialised hospitals around the country rather than just (as in the West) temporarily re-purposing large facilities. We'll probably never know but it's a thought I will keep in the Maybe File.
Mark Chapman May 10, 2020 at 10:55 am
Agreed; I could think of no good reason for it, and consequently Orlov's speculation came as a revelation. Again, it's only speculation on his part, but it does make sense and fits with the Sino-Russian concept of every experience being a teachable moment, to be wrung for such lessons as it may yield.

It is fairly well-known that Johnson's initial plan was to go for herd immunity and just say bollocks to social distancing, but something caused him to abruptly reverse himself after the UK had already started a pretty respectable infection curve. I'm not familiar with the 'Imperial College thing'; could you enlighten me? I do know that impatience at being shut in with no job is increasingly unpopular with people everywhere it prevails, and governments are having a harder time keeping the lid on. I can only imagine it is the same for Putin's government.

Patrick Armstrong May 10, 2020 at 11:47 am
Imperial College model https://www.ft.com/content/16764a22-69ca-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75
Looks rather GIGO https://lockdownsceptics.org/code-review-of-fergusons-model/
Mark Chapman May 10, 2020 at 11:57 am
I see; thanks for that. I remember reading mentions of a study which forecast incredible death tolls, but didn't realize that was it. Well, no way they could have done anything else, in the face of that – 2.2 million deaths in the US, and more than half a million in the UK.

I don't suppose they will ever be called to account for their fearmongering quackery. To nobody's surprise, I'm sure, the Imperial College receives generous grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the most recent in March of this year – just shy of $80 Million, to develop a new tool for malaria control and elimination in sub-Saharan Africa.

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database/Grants/2020/03/OPP1210755

Nor was that the only one, by a long chalk; 80 donations between 2006 and 2018. This website does ask that a disclaimer be included that the data are preliminary; final development is not expected to be achieved until 2022. But at first glance, it looks like the full amount will run into quite a few decimal places.

https://donations.vipulnaik.com/donorDonee.php?donor=Bill+and+Melinda+Gates+Foundation&donee=Imperial+College+London

Patient Observer May 10, 2020 at 12:23 pm
An under-reported fact in the US is the abundance of empty ICUs and now a surplus of ventilators. A nearby city is laying off 2,500 medical personnel for lack of work (presumably mobilized for the pandemic).

IIRC, a local story blew the whistle on a staged waiting line for Covid-19 testing; most of the people in line (including medical volunteers who had nothing to do) were asked to to stand in line to provide video footage for a network news team.

Saw this clever play on words – plandemic.

Mark Chapman May 10, 2020 at 12:48 pm
Yes, that's correct: Cherry Health, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The article points out that Cherry Health stands to lose millions as a result of the crisis.

https://www.woodtv.com/news/grand-rapids/expert-accusations-of-staged-covid-19-test-line-fodder-for-doubters/

Patrick Armstrong May 10, 2020 at 12:47 pm
More fun to come, Mark https://metro.co.uk/2020/05/05/government-coronavirus-scientist-resigns-meeting-married-lover-lockdown-12659413/
Mark Chapman May 10, 2020 at 12:52 pm
Ha, ha!! Dear God. Well, I hope he doesn't lose his tasty bit on the side over this – he'll probably top himself. She looks quite yummy. But it's always the same, innit? Those who make up the rules get a great kick out of it, but feel free to disregard them themselves as soon as they get in the way.
Patrick Armstrong May 10, 2020 at 1:58 pm
And still more https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2020/05/httpsenwikipediaorgwikiavaaz.html
Patrick Armstrong May 10, 2020 at 1:58 pm
And still more https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2020/05/httpsenwikipediaorgwikiavaaz.html
Patient Observer May 11, 2020 at 5:07 am
Makes one wonder if the virus response is being managed at some level to cull the old and frail to reduce health care costs. The obvious vulnerability of nursing home residents combined with the apparent lack of resources specifically devoted to protecting those individuals suggests high level scheming in that regard.

It was only a few months ago that we exceptional people were told that masks were useless and unneeded (except for health care workers who desperately needed them for self-protection). It is likely that policy lead to a rapid spread in the vulnerable population.

It is remarkable how quickly the "masks are useless" directive has been officially forgotten. Now, it's all about how China allowed us to mishandle the situation.

Mark Chapman May 11, 2020 at 8:34 am
I would think not, only because no apparent effort has been made to ensure infection of the homeless in their cardboard cities, and wipe them out. Here, as I have mentioned before, Mayor Helps has given them a city park to use as their own squalid state, constantly refers to them tenderly as 'our most vulnerable', and provides them no end of services, all for free on the taxpayer. If your ambitions are modest, there is no real incentive to work.

If it were all part of a diabolical plan, you would think that plan would allow for taking out the 'useless eaters' among the poor and helpless, as well as the old.

Fern May 12, 2020 at 5:15 pm
It certainly looks that way but such a plot requires a competence that our political elites (at least in the UK) just don't have. Unfortunately, we're led by the shallow, ignorant and inexperienced who responded to a serious health problem with blind panic. It's common sense that a virus, which is particularly dangerous for the elderly, shouldn't be let out to play in care homes; that steps should have been taken to protect the vulnerable rather than putting everyone under house arrest while destroying their livelihoods. But common sense is a bit like common courtesy, not actually that common when you get right down to it.

Professor Neil Ferguson (he of the 500,000 deaths forecast) and his Imperial College team have a dire track record of forecasting in previous health crises, consistently wrong by an order of magnitude. Yet it seems that no-one in government or our once highly competent civil service had either the skills or time to query his forecasting model and the assumptions he made. The fact that he broke the lockdown, introduced as a result of his forecast, in order to dally with his mistress, does kind of suggest he doesn't believe in his own figures.

Mark Chapman May 12, 2020 at 6:04 pm
Yes, it sounds as if you are right. I suppose one reason it looks like a well-managed conspiracy is that it was such a startlingly stupid thing to do – it's difficult to imagine people would willingly cause such destruction without the slightest look to the future.

Johnson is an idiot, but his first instinct – or apparently so, I suppose it might have been just paralysis – was the correct one; proceed as normal, no reason to believe this is the Black Death.

et Al May 13, 2020 at 12:52 am
The phrase Never let a good crisis go to waste springs to mind.*
Mark Chapman May 11, 2020 at 8:28 am
It's almost like the 'pandemic' is just an excuse for something, and the rest is just going through the motions.

On relaxation of restrictions, it's mostly a game of feeling for the level of restriction the public will tolerate, because it is so grateful for the degree of freedom allowed it. I imagine when stores are opened, they're going to want Soviet-style lineups outside, social-distancing 6 feet apart, because only 50 people are allowed inside at any one time. So they can social-distance inside as well, as if that were somehow an effective contagious-virus countermeasure, the way grocery stores are now. And 50 seems to be the magic number no matter the size of the store, except for kiosks which are only allowed to serve one person inside at a time.

The local pizza hotspot, Romeo's, seems to be doing a land-office business, and is probably making money. They only serve take-out now, no inside service, so they only have to pay the cooks and perhaps two counter-service persons; no waitresses or waiters or busboys. And the line outside frequently is about a quarter-mile. But they still have to pay their rent based on the size of the building, which is wasteful – look for perhaps quite a few businesses switching to take-out only in the course of time, and renting smaller premises. Because of course The Authorities are going to want social-distancing inside restaurants as well as we emerge, to preserve the illusion that they knew what they were about.

[May 15, 2020] America has a surveillance state but it refuses to use it to save lives. Instead, it uses it to save Wall Street and protect the extractive elite from any TRUE REAL threat.

May 15, 2020 | www.unz.com

450.org , says: Show Comment May 14, 2020 at 12:29 pm GMT

Case in point. America has a surveillance state but it refuses to use it to save lives. Instead, it uses it to save Wall Street and protect the extractive elite from any TRUE REAL threat. I relish the notion of this virus running rampant across America until it ravages, and decimates actually, the Praetorian Guard Class, the managerial class if you will, that licks the ass of the extractive elite for some bread crust, discarded steak fat and a Tesla. I want to see them truly suffer for their sins.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/12/us/coronavirus-reopening-shutdown.html

After weeks cooped up at home following governors' orders to contain the coronavirus outbreak, U.S. residents appear eager to get moving again. As more states began to relax restrictions, about 25 million more people ventured outside their homes on an average day last week than during the preceding six weeks, a New York Times analysis of cellphone data found .

In nearly every part of the country, the share of people staying home dropped, in some places by nearly 11 percentage points.

As the death toll from this pandemic rises in America with no end in sight, Wall Street, as reflected in the DJIA, doesn't even blink and actually cheers. It doesn't get any sicker than that. Wall Street sees the carnage as an opportunity to make more profit off of death and the extractive elite see it as an opportunity to concentrate wealth even further and rid the world of burdensome useless eaters. It's sick. It's sadistic. It's malevolent. It's evil. It's our reality.

Damn them all to hell.

[May 15, 2020] I don't think we should coerce people to go back to work. But once people are given accurate information and this hysteria calms down, people will just go back to their lives as normal. No coercion will be needed.

May 15, 2020 | crookedtimber.org

Anthony T 05.11.20 at 11:53 am 1 ( 1 )

Hello Chris,

I certainly don't think that people should be coerced back to work if they don't want to, though I do think we need to end these lockdowns as soon as possible. What we need is more clear public messaging, from the government: making it clear to people that this disease isn't actually that dangerous and that unless they are in an at risk group they really have very little to be concerned about. Cards should be sent out with green, red, amber marking where people can fill it out with their BMI, their underlying health conditions, chronic diseases etc. and this will give them a picture for whether or not they and their household is actually at risk.

People are talking about this disease like its the black death; as though it threatens everyone and kills indiscriminately. This way of talking has created a completely unfounded mass hysteria in the population. We are talking about a disease which has a case fatality rate of 0.3% (according to the most detailed serological studies, such as the one carried out in Gangelt) so it's a little more deadly than the flu. Of course, it will be a significant killer for the next couple of years – but so is influenza, and nobody panics like this and announces crackers lockdowns during a bad flu season.

Part of the problem has been the medias failure to adequately contextualise the data they are presenting, so people just hear a large number of deaths and don't know what to make of that number. Reporters need to be more clear about the fact that 800,000 people die every year in the UK and that deviations of 5% on either side of this are not uncommon. We need to be reminded that at 43,000 the number of excess deaths in the UK is about the same as the number of excess deaths during the 2014/15 flu season – and still falls short of the number of excess deaths during the 2017/18 flu season (excess deaths then were around 50,000). That context allows people to make sense of the data they read about without panicking – how scared were you of going to work during the 17/18 flu season? Most people probably didn't even notice.

The other problem is that the government has completely failed to give a serious explanation for the lockdown to the public. They are spouting rubbish about "save lives" without actually explaining why the lockdown would "save lives". As a result the public have been given the wrong impression that just extending the lockdown on and on will save lives. This is nonsense. Eventually the lockdown will be lifted and then the same people who would have died before would die a bit later – so no lives would be saved apart from for a few months. There are two explanations that could have been given for why we were implementing the lockdown. Firstly, it could be to ensure that hospitals don't get overfilled as happened in Wuhan and Northern Italy. If that was the aim, then a short lockdown (or a local lockdown in London and some of the other cities with severe outbreaks) would have been sufficient. It has been clear for at least the last three weeks that the government has overestimated ICU needs, most hospitals around the country – including the Nightingale in London – are completely empty. There are no more concerns about shortages of ventilators as it is now clear they are not actually a good way to treat most cases. If there is another severe outbreak in another city in the UK we can always just announce a small local lockdown of that city. Secondly, it could be argued that lockdowns save lives because they give us time to build up a testing capactiy so we can trace down cases and stop really severe outbreaks from happening; but at 500,000 or so tests per week the UK is now testing a lot of people and has the capacity to test even more. Apart from that I can't really think of any other reason why a lockdown would "save lives".

So, no I don't think we should coerce people to go back to work. But once people are given accurate information and this hysteria calms down, people will just go back to their lives as normal. No coercion will be needed.

[May 14, 2020] What you *deliberately* have ignored and continue to ignore is the number of people who *are* at risk from re-opening the economy too soon.

May 14, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Richard Steven Hack , May 14 2020 2:26 utc | 254

Posted by: fairleft | May 14 2020 0:35 utc | 253 So because you didn't read the word "healthy" in my description of the truth about Covid-19 (which I note you do not deny), you've stupidly decided I'm a troll.

No, you've been pushing this "only the elderly are at risk" *crap* since forever. *Of course* healthy people are at limited risk. That's been known since almost day one from China. As soon as the first statistics came out, we knew that *most* people don't die from it.

What you *deliberately* have ignored and continue to ignore is the number of people who *are* at risk from re-opening the economy too soon. I have cited the *millions* of people who are at risk several times in these threads. The numbers aren't hard to find. And every expert who has written about risk factors since the first statistics came out have pointed that out.

But it doesn't fit your agenda, so you ignore it.

"And I'm not writing about Amerikkka moron."

Nice try. You were referring to the Galbraith piece in the top post which is explicitly referring to the US. Moron.

Typical troll behavior. Deflect, deny, make counter accusations, continually re-assert the same positions no matter how many times they are debunked.

Why b hasn't kicked your ass to the curb is beyond me. Few people here are posting more nonsense than you - and you have even less actual evidence.

[May 14, 2020] Stephan Kohn (who was fired immediately of course) assesses the German reaction as "Fehlalarm" (false alarm), claims that the lockdown has charged/will charge many more deaths than the virus itself. It was a grotesque overreaction, not only in Germany, but in many other countries.

May 14, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

mk , May 13 2020 19:40 utc | 241

In Germany a huge scandal is growing. I'm surprised that this didn't emerge here yet (as far as I can see).

An official in the Ministry for Interior has blown the whistle. After trying to forward a study about the effect of the lockdown measures to his superiors, including Minister for Interior Horst Seehofer, and being ignored, he leaked the study to a non-mainstream online magazine. The study has reached the mainstream meanwhile.

Stephan Kohn (who was fired immediately of course) assesses the German reaction as "Fehlalarm" (false alarm), claims that the lockdown has charged/will charge many more deaths than the virus itself. It was a grotesque overreaction, not only in Germany, but in many other countries.

I will just take one point, which the majority here, AFAICS, has never taken into account: collateral damage. In Germany, in March/April 2020, 90% of important, in part life-saving operations have not been conducted because the beds were reserved for the expected giant Corona wave that didn't arrive. This means between 1,5 Million and 2,5 Million people are affected, and it is only a matter of statistics how many lives have been lost or shortened due to the delayed operations. Cohn estimates between 5000 and 125000 premature deaths which easily outweigh the 7000 Corona deaths.

And this is just one point.

Like so many virologists, he says Corona is not worse than a strong flu.

Here's the document:

https://ichbinanderermeinung.de/Dokument93.pdf

[May 13, 2020] Shock at low US confidence in Trump's coronavirus narrative ignores decades of governments abusing Americans' trust by Helen Buyniski

Notable quotes:
"... In light of such a history of distrust – the president who'd promised to not only shutter the infamous Guantanamo Bay prison but also end the seemingly eternal wars in the Middle East had not only failed to deliver on those promises, but actually launched several new wars in Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan – it's no surprise Americans are reluctant to embrace the Trump administration's Covid-19 narrative. ..."
"... Like the fabled boy who cried wolf, it doesn't matter if the emergency is real this time – the government has simply worn out its welcome by making demands on false pretenses. ..."
May 12, 2020 | www.rt.com

Just over a third of Americans trust President Donald Trump's information about the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a new poll. But given decades of crises mishandled by the government, the only surprise is that it isn't lower. A CNN poll showing that just 36 percent of Americans trust Trump for reliable information about the coronavirus was held up triumphantly by the president's critics on Tuesday as proof his credibility is circling the drain. But it's more likely to be the fallout not just from Trump, but from the two preceding presidential administrations' misrepresentation of crises, that has created epidemic levels of distrust among the people.

Trump's own approval rating is hovering around 45 percent, according to the poll, conducted by CNN in conjunction with SSRS and released on Tuesday. While it's been presented as a scathing mass rejection of Trump, the same pollsters are actually seeing an uptick in support for the president – the approval rating last month stood at 44 percent, and the previous month's was 43. But Americans can't be faulted for distrusting the Trump administration's narratives, given prior presidents' tendencies toward crying wolf in ways that have invariably left the American people worse off.

The last time Washington tried to mobilize the US with the threat of an invisible enemy was during George W. Bush's 'War on Terror' after the September 11 attacks. While it soon became apparent that the many deaths that occurred on that day had nothing to do with the subsequent US invasions of Afghanistan and then Iraq, it was too late by the time Americans found out they had been lied to. Not only had the Afghan government willingly offered up Osama bin Laden, but Saddam Hussein was found to have had no 'weapons of mass destruction', and the entire narrative was the concoction of a secretive entity that had been set up to create a casus belli for war with Iraq despite the facts.

Bush's approval ratings declined steadily following 9/11, as the nation was forced into one war after another on false pretenses. At his lowest point, just 25 percent of Americans trusted him. The 'invisible enemy' of terrorism – supposedly lurking around every corner and requiring Americans to practically disrobe at entrances to airports – had lost its luster, and Bush's poor handling of real-life crises like Hurricane Katrina put the final nail in the coffin of his credibility.

While Barack Obama entered office on a high note with a promise of " hope and change ," his approval rating also plunged quickly – especially when he refused to stand in the way of the wildly unpopular 2008 'Wall Street bailout' – sinking to 41 percent in 2011 as Americans grew restive after years of recession with no change in sight. By 2014, 70 percent of respondents to an MSNBC poll stated the country was headed in the wrong direction, with 80 percent singling out the political system as the primary culprit. Congress enjoyed an appallingly low 14 percent approval rating.

In light of such a history of distrust – the president who'd promised to not only shutter the infamous Guantanamo Bay prison but also end the seemingly eternal wars in the Middle East had not only failed to deliver on those promises, but actually launched several new wars in Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan – it's no surprise Americans are reluctant to embrace the Trump administration's Covid-19 narrative.

Another invisible enemy that requires them to sacrifice their livelihoods – a third of Americans couldn't pay their rent last month, while even the paltry $1,200 stimulus checks supposedly heading to 130 million Americans have apparently not reached half their intended recipients yet – is reminding Americans of what happened last time they were told to put aside their real-life concerns and fall in line behind a narrative that turned out to be false.

Like the fabled boy who cried wolf, it doesn't matter if the emergency is real this time – the government has simply worn out its welcome by making demands on false pretenses.

[May 13, 2020] In Major U-Turn, NJ governer ordered 'Partial Reopening' Monday

May 13, 2020 | ussanews.com

Less than a day after he whined during his daily press briefing about having the worst mortality rate from the virus in the country (he doesn't), NJ Gov Phil Murphy has on Wednesday seemingly taken a major u-turn, moving ahead with a plan to partially reopen the state on Monday after pledging to wait for more testing.

Specifically, the state will allow construction workers and more 'non-essential' retail workers to report to work, with shoppers able to shop via 'curbside' pickup.

Holding a COVID-19 briefing. WATCH: https://t.co/JoDcRJysDp

Data shows that we are ready to begin to restart our economy. From the peak:
📉New hospitalizations down 2/3
📉Total hospitalizations down nearly 1/2
📉Patients in ICU are down
📉Patients on ventilators down
📉Positive cases down nearly 70%
📉Deaths have decreased more than 1/3 pic.twitter.com/CAl0kK31DC

-- Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) May 13, 2020

[May 13, 2020] A Pandemic of Know-Nothings

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The coronavirus reminds us that the gap between what we think we know and what we actually do know is enormous. ..."
"... American Journal of Public Health ..."
May 13, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The coronavirus reminds us that the gap between what we think we know and what we actually do know is enormous.

Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, shows off charts with members of the coronavirus task force during a briefing in response to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on Tuesday, March 31, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

May 13, 2020

|

12:01 am

Matt Purple St. Louis Federal Reserve watchers, rejoice! And yes, I'm talking to both of you. The St. Louis Fed is freshly relevant this week thanks to a paper it published back in 2007 that examined the economic effects of the 1918 Spanish flu. Drawing on old newspaper articles, local surveys, and other studies -- national data back then was scarce -- the report found that the damage done to businesses by the outbreak was both severe and short-lived. The impact on the next generation, however, was longer-lasting. Those in utero during the pandemic went on to attain less education and lower incomes than had previous generations.

What we wouldn't give for that kind of glimpse from the future today. The coronavirus has killed hundreds of thousands while sledgehammering the economy, leaving close to a quarter of working-age Americans either unemployed or underemployed. And we still have no idea how it will end. It may be that this recession is similar to the one in 1918, cutting deeply but easing rapidly. Or it may be that we're in for another lost decade of stubborn unemployment and stagnant growth. It may be that the virus is seen off this summer, remembered as a frightening but ultimately brief ordeal. Or it may be that it lurks into the autumn, whereupon it comes roaring back.

We don't know, and we hate that we don't know. Consequently a cottage industry has sprung up around our uncertainty, hawking models, projections, expert opinions. These things have valid scientific purposes, of course, but thrown down the rabbit hole of our popular discourse, they've taken on a kind of hysterical clairvoyance, supposedly able to tell us what's coming and how we should respond. With climate change, we grew accustomed to the idea that scientists could see into the future. Now we're demanding they do the same with the coronavirus. That's despite the fact that so far, none of these projections have demonstrated any greater predictive ability than your average call to Miss Cleo.

Take the government's official death toll projections. Back in January, the White House was largely complacent over the coronavirus, with President Trump comparing it to the seasonal flu and his health secretary saying that Americans need "not worry for their own safety." Then in late March, the pendulum swung towards apocalypse. Actually, the White House said, 200,000 Americans could die. Two weeks later, the death toll projection fell to a far rosier 60,000 , and the country breathed a sigh of relief ahead of Easter weekend. Then the projections ticked upwards yet again. Today, IHME, the White House's principal modeler, predicts that 147,000 Americans will be killed by August 4.

Some of the issue here may be the choice of models. IHME has been criticized by epidemiologists , as have the Imperial College modelers in Britain (who have lately been distracted by, er, more extracurricular activities ). But the bigger problem is best summed up in a quote to Politico by the head of IHME, explaining why his organization's projections were so wrong. "We had presumed, perhaps naively," he said, "that given the magnitude of the epidemic, most states would stick to their social distancing until the end of May." In other words, the models are premised on assumptions that can be scrambled by real-world events, whether political decisions or acts of God or the caprices of the virus itself. They aren't showing us the future so much as extrapolating off of a snapshot, one that can easily change. Yet we treat them as practically mystic. "200,000 could die!!" scream the headlines, with "could" ever the weasel word.

We don't just do this with the death toll. On the economy, too, we seem hopelessly confused. Here's a smattering of headlines from the past two months: "Unemployment rate could exceed 20% by June, top White House adviser says." "Economists see uneven jobs recovery, high U.S. unemployment through 2021." "Top JPMorgan investment advisor: It will take '10 to 12 years' for U.S. employment levels to return." "The coronavirus recession will be deeper and faster than the financial crisis." "Economists say quick rebound from recession is unlikely." "Trump's baseless claim that a recession would be deadlier than the coronavirus." "U.N. warns economic downturn could kill hundreds of thousands of children in 2020."

Stare into this blurry puddle long enough and you might conclude that no one has any idea what the hell they're talking about. Or you might fall back on your own biases, choosing to believe stories that buttress your political beliefs and speak to your own personal circumstances. Either way, this kind of confusion can have long-reaching effects. Consider, for example, a new study that was released last week, which found that there could be 75,000 so-called deaths of despair -- meaning suicides and drug and alcohol overdoses -- as a result of the coronavirus recession. It called to mind another social science finding , one of the most consequential of the last decade: that life expectancy among less educated, middle-aged, white Americans was declining, driven primarily by those deaths of despair.

That claim, courtesy of researchers Anne Case and Angus Deaton , made its way around the internet. It fed into the narrative of the populist right and Donald Trump. It provided an empirical grounding for "American carnage." But wait: a less noticed study a year later, which took Case's and Deaton's data and adjusted for age, found a more mixed picture. According to research from Columbia University , while middle-aged white women had indeed seen increased mortality rates, middle-aged white men had reversed this trend back in 2005. And then came another study, in the American Journal of Public Health , that challenged the very concept of "deaths of despair," warning that "the gap between deaths of despair as a claim and deaths of despair as a rigorously tested scientific concept is wide."

There is a Grand Canyon-sized gap between what we think we know and what we actually know. How to navigate this chasm? Two maxims can help.

The first comes from Friedrich Hayek: "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design." Hayek was concerned with what he called the "fatal conceit," which he defined as the belief "that man is able to shape the world around him according to his wishes." We might add a corollary: that man is able to anticipate the world around him according to his wishes. Because knowledge is complex and dispersed, Hayek argued, no one can ever marshal enough of it to centrally plan an economy. Likewise even a sophisticated model can't have enough data to foresee how a pandemic will play out. There are simply too many variables, drawing on too many areas of life.

The second maxim comes from a very different source: John Dickinson, perhaps our most conservative founding father. "Experience must be our only guide," Dickinson said. "Reason may mislead us." Of course, by reason, he didn't mean vast computer algorithms struggling to track contagion across seven continents; he was thinking of 18th-century rationalism, which he contrasted with the more reliable yardstick of historical experience. While what seemed philosophically sound in the abstract could be tainted by personal bias or disconnected from real life, precedent was far more settled. How something had worked in the past was a good indication of how it would work in the future.

Unfortunately we have very little precedent when it comes to the coronavirus, though the Spanish flu can perhaps offer some clues. The 1918 influenza, like the current pandemic, began in the spring, only to enter a second wave in the fall that killed more people than the first. A third wave then began that winter and stretched into the summer of 1919. That's chilling, yet there's good news too: the recession that followed was short and quickly blossomed into the 1920s, one of the most dizzying economic expansions in our history.

So top hats and flapper dresses all around? Who knows? It's called the novel coronavirus for a reason. The awful truth is that we have very little idea how long this will go on and how it will ultimately turn out. And the reason for that is that we know so very much less than we think we do.

[May 13, 2020] There may be no vaccine. What then?

May 13, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"Paul's challenge encapsulates the debate between elected officials eager to open up businesses and willing to accept the risk that more people will die, and public health experts committed to lowering infection rates and keeping the public as safe as possible.

" People are hurting and we're destroying our country ," Paul told reporters outside the hearing room. "We've got to open up business we got to let people vote, and we're not going to live in a perfect world without infectious disease, we're still going to have it, but we got to open the economy and that's the number one message I have."

The Kentucky senator, an opthamologist, told Fauci he didn't believe there would be a surge in cases if schools opened, which is not what public health experts say. Paul dismissed predictive models of the virus. "The history of this, when we look back, will be of wrong prediction after wrong prediction after wrong prediction ," Paul said.

Paul then targeted Fauci personally: "As much as I respect you Dr. Fauci, I don't think you're the end-all, I don't think you're the one person that gets to make the decision . We can listen to your advice. But there are people on the other side saying there won't be a surge and we can safely open the economy." CNBC

--------------

IMO, there may or may not be an effective vaccine developed against COVID-19. Some virus bugs are never countered effectively by vaccines. There are no vaccines for the common cold, the Spanish Influenza of 1918, and many other virus strains. Some diseases must burn themselves out in a population by establishing herd immunity. Bubonic Plague is a bacterial infection, but the same thing was true of it. It ravaged Europe, but eventually the fire of infection burned out in Europe and those of us who are descended from Europeans are the descendants of the herd survivors.

COVID-19 is nothing like the Black Death or the Spanish Influenza in lethality except for the old and infirm. Suck it up, people! Cowboy up! Grow a pair! Fauci is a techno dweeb who would keep the US shut down economically until the survivors of COVID-19 would be living in a post-apocalyptic world of small communities living in poverty, a dystopian nightmare.

Rand Paul is also a doctor, and a survivor of the disease.

The Democrats are having a good time playing with Trump while the country burns to the ground economically.

Biden? Pelosi? Juan Williams? Northam? You want them? If you do, and you want to hunker down until the country dies, well then, Bless You! You will deserve what you get.

SWMBO and I, and the doggies are unlikely to be here to share your pain. pl

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/12/dr-anthony-fauci-sen-rand-paul-spar-over-safety-and-death-rates-among-children-with-coronavirus.html

Posted at 06:29 PM in Health Care Permalink | Comments (8)


Jack , 12 May 2020 at 06:46 PM

Sir,

LA County apparently wants to extend the lockdown by another 3 months. This is just insane!

Old guys like me could hang out more at the ranch but the youth need to be out and about.

There's no perfect risk-free scenario as you point out. Unfortunately we have cultivated a nanny state of big government and big business that are quite rapacious in reality. Has any state actually passed legislation to enforce lockdowns? These are just executive orders at the state and local levels. It would appear that these orders suspends the constitution? I'm surprised no one has yet challenged these orders in state and federal courts.

We sure are an afraid lot. What happened to the derring-do?

james , 12 May 2020 at 06:55 PM
maybe they could do a special ufc - wrestling type show with paul and fauci.. the american public seem very keen on this sort of thing and would eat it up..

can someone explain how herd immunity works?? i've never heard of people being referred to as a herd... i missed that in school..

Keith Harbaugh , 12 May 2020 at 07:04 PM
BTW, notice how Ukraine has vanished from the national conversation.
Who needs to keep yapping about how Trump let down (one faction in) Ukraine when they can blame him for the economic calamity which, in point of fact, is due to the vast overreaction that has been pushed by the media and Dem politicians.
For example, failing to point out that New York has unique demographics, which directly and conclusively led to its high hospitalization and fatality rate.
turcopolier , 12 May 2020 at 07:21 PM
james

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity Idiot

Keith Harbaugh , 12 May 2020 at 08:02 PM
A key point the media doesn't adequately emphasize, IMO, is the sharpness of the dependency on age.
In Virginia, there have been, to date, roughly 900 deaths attributed to the virus.
Of those deaths, over half were to people over 80.
Roughly one quarter were people in their 70s.
About 15% were people on their 60s.
Less than 10% were people under 60.
There were ZERO deaths of people under 20.

To see a bar chart which shows the exact numbers, visit
https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/coronavirus/
Then click on "Demographics", then set "Select Measure" to "Deaths".

Fred , 12 May 2020 at 08:05 PM
"public health experts"
These folks appear to be expert only at guaranteeing thier jobs. The backpedaling, double speak and out right fraud is beyond shameless. I notice we aren't talking about the Georgia death count any longer but St. Travoon of the skittles accolyte. This thing is over but for NYC and the politicians in the democratic death traps being governed by fools. Ordering infected elderly patients back to nursing homes, which experts advised that to Cuomo and Whitmer? Suicide, drug overdoses, those deaths don't count?

"Biden? Pelosi? Juan Williams? Northam? You want them?" No, nor Whitmer nor Newsom. If we get them I won't be around much longer than your doggies and I'm much younger than you and SWMBO.

John Merryman , 12 May 2020 at 08:07 PM
I think a big part of the problem is the total lack of any deeper philosophic debate, as part of a normal social functioning. People want answers not truths, so there are plenty of politicians and priests, but philosophy is neutered and left to the back alleys of academia.
We are linear, goal oriented creatures in a cyclical, reciprocal, feedback generated reality, in which there is this organic interplay between competition and cooperation, as well as public and private functions of society, etc. So when we impose this goal oriented model on those facts of life, we end up with a bunch of absolutist ideologs running the world and using the other side as boogymen to rally their cultists. Rather than appreciating such interplay is fundamental to life.
When we have such a fundamentally primitive understanding of how reality functions, having nuanced discussion of life and death issues is not possible.
Eric Newhill , 12 May 2020 at 08:19 PM
The people won't stand for Fausti's nonsense, nor the Democrats'. They will just open their businesses and local governments - especially county level - will allow it. Already happening in PA. Heck even some states are doing it. As counties and states open up, the populations of those that do not will become increasingly agitated and begin to break "the rules". There will be a ripple effect. The cowards and social media magnates and leftists will call them names and wave fingers at them, but the people won't care. Actually they will continue to open with even more fervor just to give give these "elites" the finger.

As always, the socialist/dictator class ignores human nature and believes people can be programmed. As always, they are wrong. People are no longer buying the models and case rates BS, etc. that the "scientists" put out there. Geekery ain't cutting it any more.

Hopefully, this will all occur peacefully with the socialists/dictators just throwing up their hands. If they double down, then the tree of liberty gets watered. Probably the outcome that needs to happen, terrible as it is. Right now Pelosi is trying to develop a plan to bribe the people into staying locked down and vote democrat. It will fail.

Jack , 12 May 2020 at 06:46 PM
Sir,

LA County apparently wants to extend the lockdown by another 3 months. This is just insane!

Old guys like me could hang out more at the ranch but the youth need to be out and about.

There's no perfect risk-free scenario as you point out. Unfortunately we have cultivated a nanny state of big government and big business that are quite rapacious in reality. Has any state actually passed legislation to enforce lockdowns? These are just executive orders at the state and local levels. It would appear that these orders suspends the constitution? I'm surprised no one has yet challenged these orders in state and federal courts.

We sure are an afraid lot. What happened to the derring-do?

james , 12 May 2020 at 06:55 PM
maybe they could do a special ufc - wrestling type show with paul and fauci.. the american public seem very keen on this sort of thing and would eat it up..

can someone explain how herd immunity works?? i've never heard of people being referred to as a herd... i missed that in school..

Keith Harbaugh , 12 May 2020 at 07:04 PM
BTW, notice how Ukraine has vanished from the national conversation.
Who needs to keep yapping about how Trump let down (one faction in) Ukraine when they can blame him for the economic calamity which, in point of fact, is due to the vast overreaction that has been pushed by the media and Dem politicians.
For example, failing to point out that New York has unique demographics, which directly and conclusively led to its high hospitalization and fatality rate.
turcopolier , 12 May 2020 at 07:21 PM
james

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity Idiot

Keith Harbaugh , 12 May 2020 at 08:02 PM
A key point the media doesn't adequately emphasize, IMO, is the sharpness of the dependency on age.
In Virginia, there have been, to date, roughly 900 deaths attributed to the virus.
Of those deaths, over half were to people over 80.
Roughly one quarter were people in their 70s.
About 15% were people on their 60s.
Less than 10% were people under 60.
There were ZERO deaths of people under 20.

To see a bar chart which shows the exact numbers, visit
https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/coronavirus/
Then click on "Demographics", then set "Select Measure" to "Deaths".

Fred , 12 May 2020 at 08:05 PM
"public health experts"
These folks appear to be expert only at guaranteeing thier jobs. The backpedaling, double speak and out right fraud is beyond shameless. I notice we aren't talking about the Georgia death count any longer but St. Travoon of the skittles accolyte. This thing is over but for NYC and the politicians in the democratic death traps being governed by fools. Ordering infected elderly patients back to nursing homes, which experts advised that to Cuomo and Whitmer? Suicide, drug overdoses, those deaths don't count?

"Biden? Pelosi? Juan Williams? Northam? You want them?" No, nor Whitmer nor Newsom. If we get them I won't be around much longer than your doggies and I'm much younger than you and SWMBO.

John Merryman , 12 May 2020 at 08:07 PM
I think a big part of the problem is the total lack of any deeper philosophic debate, as part of a normal social functioning. People want answers not truths, so there are plenty of politicians and priests, but philosophy is neutered and left to the back alleys of academia.
We are linear, goal oriented creatures in a cyclical, reciprocal, feedback generated reality, in which there is this organic interplay between competition and cooperation, as well as public and private functions of society, etc. So when we impose this goal oriented model on those facts of life, we end up with a bunch of absolutist ideologs running the world and using the other side as boogymen to rally their cultists. Rather than appreciating such interplay is fundamental to life.
When we have such a fundamentally primitive understanding of how reality functions, having nuanced discussion of life and death issues is not possible.
Eric Newhill , 12 May 2020 at 08:19 PM
The people won't stand for Fausti's nonsense, nor the Democrats'. They will just open their businesses and local governments - especially county level - will allow it. Already happening in PA. Heck even some states are doing it. As counties and states open up, the populations of those that do not will become increasingly agitated and begin to break "the rules". There will be a ripple effect. The cowards and social media magnates and leftists will call them names and wave fingers at them, but the people won't care. Actually they will continue to open with even more fervor just to give give these "elites" the finger.

As always, the socialist/dictator class ignores human nature and believes people can be programmed. As always, they are wrong. People are no longer buying the models and case rates BS, etc. that the "scientists" put out there. Geekery ain't cutting it any more.

Hopefully, this will all occur peacefully with the socialists/dictators just throwing up their hands. If they double down, then the tree of liberty gets watered. Probably the outcome that needs to happen, terrible as it is. Right now Pelosi is trying to develop a plan to bribe the people into staying locked down and vote democrat. It will fail.

[May 13, 2020] Prager The Worldwide Lockdown May Be The Greatest Policy Mistake In History

Notable quotes:
"... The forcible prevention of Americans from doing anything except what politicians deem "essential" has led to the worst economy in American history since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It is panic and hysteria, not the coronavirus , that created this catastrophe. And the consequences in much of the world will be more horrible than in America. ..."
"... That would be enough to characterize the worldwide lockdown as a deathly error. But there is much more. If global GDP declines by 5%, another 147 million people could be plunged into extreme poverty, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute. ..."
"... Foreign Policy magazine reports that, according to the International Monetary Fund, the global economy will shrink by 3% in 2020, marking the biggest downturn since the Great Depression, and the U.S., the eurozone and Japan will contract by 5.9%, 7.5% and 5.2%, respectively. Meanwhile, across South Asia, as of a month ago, tens of millions were already "struggling to put food on the table." Again, all because of the lockdowns, not the virus. ..."
May 13, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Prager: The Worldwide Lockdown May Be The Greatest Policy Mistake In History by Tyler Durden Wed, 05/13/2020 - 13:15 Authored by Dennis Prager via PJMedia.com,

The idea that the worldwide lockdown of virtually every country other than Sweden may have been an enormous mistake strikes many - including world leaders; most scientists, especially health officials, doctors and epidemiologists; those who work in major news media; opinion writers in those media; and the hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people who put their faith in these people - as so preposterous as to be immoral.

Timothy Egan of The New York Times described Republicans who wish to enable their states to open up as "the party of death."

That's the way it is today on planet Earth, where deceit, cowardice and immaturity now dominate almost all societies because the elites are deceitful, cowardly and immature.

But for those open to reading thoughts they may differ with, here is the case for why the worldwide lockdown is not only a mistake but also, possibly, the worst mistake the world has ever made. And for those intellectually challenged by the English language and/or logic, "mistake" and "evil" are not synonyms. The lockdown is a mistake; the Holocaust, slavery, communism, fascism, etc., were evils. Massive mistakes are made by arrogant fools; massive evils are committed by evil people.

The forcible prevention of Americans from doing anything except what politicians deem "essential" has led to the worst economy in American history since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It is panic and hysteria, not the coronavirus , that created this catastrophe. And the consequences in much of the world will be more horrible than in America.

The United Nations World Food Programme, or the WFP, states that by the end of the year, more than 260 million people will face starvation -- double last year's figures. According to WFP director David Beasley on April 21:

"We could be looking at famine in about three dozen countries...

There is also a real danger that more people could potentially die from the economic impact of COVID-19 than from the virus itself " (italics added).

That would be enough to characterize the worldwide lockdown as a deathly error. But there is much more. If global GDP declines by 5%, another 147 million people could be plunged into extreme poverty, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute.

Foreign Policy magazine reports that, according to the International Monetary Fund, the global economy will shrink by 3% in 2020, marking the biggest downturn since the Great Depression, and the U.S., the eurozone and Japan will contract by 5.9%, 7.5% and 5.2%, respectively. Meanwhile, across South Asia, as of a month ago, tens of millions were already "struggling to put food on the table." Again, all because of the lockdowns, not the virus.

In one particularly incomprehensible act, the government of India, a poor country of 1.3 billion people, locked down its people. As Quartz India reported on April 22, "Coronavirus has killed only around 700 Indians a small number still compared to the 450,000 TB and 10,000-odd malaria deaths recorded every year."

One of the thousands of unpaid garment workers protesting the lockdown in Bangladesh understands the situation better than almost any health official in the world:

"We are starving. If we don't have food in our stomach, what's the use of observing this lockdown?"

But concern for that Bangladeshi worker among the world's elites seems nonexistent.

The lockdown is " possibly even more catastrophic (than the virus) in its outcome : the collapse of global food-supply systems and widespread human starvation" (italics added).

That was published in the left-wing The Nation, which, nevertheless, enthusiastically supports lockdowns. But the American left cares as much about the millions of non-Americans reduced to hunger and starvation because of the lockdown as it does about the people of upstate New York who have no incomes, despite the minuscule number of coronavirus deaths there. Or about the citizens of Oregon, whose governor has just announced the state will remain locked down until July 6. As of this writing, a total of 109 people have died of the coronavirus in Oregon.

An example of how disinterested the left is in worldwide suffering is made abundantly clear in a front-page "prayer" by a left-wing Christian in the current issue of The Nation: "May we who are merely inconvenienced remember those whose lives are at stake."

"Merely inconvenienced" is how the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, a Protestant minister and president of the North Carolina NAACP, describes the tens of millions of Americans rendered destitute, not to mention the hundreds of millions around the world rendered not only penniless but hungry. The truth is, like most of the elites, it is Barber who is "merely inconvenienced." Indeed, the American battle today is between the merely inconvenienced and the rest of America.

Michael Levitt, professor of structural biology at Stanford Medical School and winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry, recently stated, "There is no doubt in my mind that when we come to look back on this, the damage done by lockdown will exceed any saving of lives by a huge factor."

To the left, anyone who questions the lockdown is driven by preference for money over lives. Typical of the left's moral shallowness is this headline on Salon this week:

"It's Time To Reject the Gods of Commerce: America Is a Society, Not an 'Economy,'" with the subhead reading, "America Is About People, Not Profit Margins."

And, of course, to smug editors and writers of The Atlantic, in article after repetitive article, the fault lies not with the lockdown but with President Donald Trump. The most popular article in The Atlantic this week is titled "The Rest of the World Is Laughing at Trump." The elites can afford to laugh at whatever they want. Meanwhile, the less fortunate -- that is, most people -- are crying.

[May 13, 2020] The Chilling Return of 'Papers Please'

May 13, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The Chilling Return of 'Papers Please'

So-called immunity passports would bring back the worst civil liberties abuses of the past and result in a crime wave. Credit: M.Moira/Shutterstock

May 13, 2020

|

12:01 am

Bill Wirtz The coronavirus lockdown drags on, yet only a few fringe fanatics (and France, but I repeat myself) support continuing complete shutdowns of the world's economies. However, even those countries that have opted to end forced quarantines still present a range of worrying responses. One of these ongoing debates surrounds the so-called "Corona apps," with which authorities intend to track and trace the movements of their own citizens. In Poland, the government is mandating that those infected with COVID-19 install an app and use it to send a selfie on a regular basis. If they do not comply, they face a visit from the law enforcement.

The nightmarish infringements on civil liberties are set to continue with "immunity passports." The German Robert Koch Institute, along with other researchers and blood donation services, is working on a large-scale study to establish immunity in COVID-19 patients. Those found to have built immunity, either because they've already had the disease or through antibody testing, could be issued paperwork that exempts them from lockdown restrictions.

CNN's medical analyst Saju Mathew counts himself as convinced by the concept, and quotes a noted beacon of human freedom to back it up: "In China, for example, QR codes have been used to loosen restrictions in Wuhan, where the pandemic originated. People assessed to be healthy have been given a green QR code, indicating they can travel within the province."

From a law enforcement level, the existence of immunity passports would extend indefinitely the practice of questioning citizens without reasonable suspicion at any time. "Papers please" wouldn't be experienced only because one is crossing a border, but merely because one is outside. If you were worried about rogue police abusing power before, wait until stop and frisk becomes the norm all across the United States, at any time of the day.

In the United Kingdom, Professor Peter Openshaw, a member of the government's new and emerging respiratory virus threats advisory group, told The Guardian that "people granted the passports would have to be kept under close observation to ensure they were not becoming reinfected." In practice, this would amount to daily identification checkpoints and mandatory home visits. Any pretense of individual liberty and fundamental rights would go out the window.

But beyond that, on a more practical level, the measure would be inoperable. In a scientific brief published at the end of April , the World Health Organization (WHO) -- known to be warm on authoritarian measures such as those used by China -- preliminarily rejected the idea of these passports. Current antibody tests, the WHO warned, could confuse immunity with one of the six existing coronaviruses, four of which cause the common cold. The WHO also noted that such paperwork would give citizens the impression that they do not need to abide by social distancing guidelines, giving them a false sense of security. Professor Openshaw adds that immunity passports would incentivize people to try and deliberately catch coronavirus, which could end up overwhelming the health sector, exactly the scenario that the lockdowns are meant to prevent.

There's also a massive opportunity for crime under such a proposal. In 2015, 50 million travel documents were either lost or stolen. In 2014, the UK recorded a five-year high of counterfeit passport seizures. Fake passports fuel organized crime and have long been available on the black market. Immunity passports would be far more valuable, since they would grant not just the ability to go to other countries, but other basic freedoms of movement, going into shops or meeting friends. The idea that people would pay a pretty price for their freedom would be an understatement. In turn, the government could only react to such a flood of false documentation by becoming more authoritarian, casting us into yet another spiral of increasing state control.

There is no instance in which the systematic control of citizens has not ended in police abuse, or plain and simple authoritarianism. There is a genuine fear about the coronavirus. That said, we cannot allow such fear to rid us completely of our fundamental rights. States of emergency were and are designed to be temporary, and in that, to be short.

If the debate is over whether to radically overturn the Bill of Rights and human rights conventions, then let us have that debate. Let us talk about rewriting the rules, instead of just plain ignoring them.

Bill Wirtz comments on European politics and policy in English, French, and German. His work has appeared in Newsweek , the Washington Examiner , CityAM, Le Monde , Le Figaro , and Die Welt .

[May 12, 2020] We need a radically different model to tackle the COVID-19 crisis By James K. Galbraith Defend Democracy Press

May 12, 2020 | www.defenddemocracy.press

We need a radically different model to tackle the COVID-19 crisis | By James K. Galbraith 12/05/2020

The Current Situation in the United States: May 2020
James K. Galbraith

Two weeks ago week the US death toll from Covid-19 exceeded that of US soldiers in Vietnam, 1955-1974. On May 1 the one-day toll reached a new high, greater than that in New York City on September 11, 2001. Meanwhile economic output has collapsed and over thirty million Americans had filed unemployment claims as of April 30, 2020. On the public health front, testing remains inadequate, contact tracing non-existent, treatment options appear stalled and millions remain uninsured. The federal bailouts have worked well in one way only: to spur a modest revival of stocks and to forestall massive defaults on bonds.

The failures of the public health system border on sabotage. Test kits were available from the WHO in January; the US elected not to use them. The first production of tests from the CDC was botched. Testing was deliberately limited as community transmission grew, so that the virus escaped from early containment that might have been possible. Lockdowns and quarantines came late, were poorly organized and weakly enforced. Supplies of PPE were not allocated to hospitals and health care providers according to need; the Defense Production Act was not deployed in timely and effective manner to ramp up home production; no effective federal system to manage international medical supply chains exists to this day. While some firms have no doubt done their best, reports of profiteering and scams are rampant.

The push to reopen the economy is a further mark of failure. As food supply workers were not properly protected, unacceptable levels of sickness and workplace contamination have occurred, notably in meat. Food banks are in crisis, while milk, eggs and other perishables are wasted. State governments facing fiscal catastrophe press businesses to reopen on terms that cannot be profitable, because capacity is constrained for health reasons. The openings are calculated to force workers off of unemployment insurance, which can be revoked if they decline to return to risky jobs. Many smaller businesses are deciding not to reopen; they will face bankruptcy instead and disappear. Although evictions and foreclosures are technically deferred, many landlords have ignored this and in any event rent, mortgages, utility bills and other debts continue to accrue.

Models of the pandemic now openly predict infections rising further as lockdowns are relaxed, to the point of testing the capacity of health care systems even in parts of the country not yet severely affected. Whether this will happen or not is not yet clear; the public may continue, as a general rule, to practice safe contact behavior, and if the transmission rates hold below 1, as they presently are estimated to be in almost all of the American states , the pandemic may continue to decline. But if the models are borne out, death rates will rise by many multiples of their current values. These events are projected to lead to further lock-downs on a rolling basis, until such time as a vaccine or therapy is available. There is no guarantee of either.

Read also: Brazil's Haddad Extends Support to 23% of Voter Intent

Even if the pandemic is now contained the economy will not revert to "normal." The United States is a premier producer of energy, aerospace, advanced information technologies and financial services. It assembles many million automobiles, appliances and other consumer durable goods every year. The oil sector has suffered a price collapse and borders now on mass bankruptcy; when fracking wells are capped they will sand up and become very costly to reopen, so the US energy-based economic expansion is over. Airplanes are lined up in parking spaces; no new civilian passenger airliners will be needed indefinitely. Households who are either unemployed or working from home (and therefore not commuting) or that face deferred rent and mortgages will not soon be in the market for new cars; in any event the old ones will last longer as they are being driven much less. As office buildings remain empty, new ones will not be built. Similarly for retail stores, already driven to the wall by on-line ordering and deliveries. The banking sector is on the hook for energy loans gone bad, and for household debts, and for corporate loans that will be at risk once the bailout money runs low. The debts built up during the pandemic will be defaulted in many cases, ruining credit for the households affected. All of which foretells a long depression even under the best foreseeable public health conditions. A cycle of infections and lock-downs will make all of this that much worse.

There is an illusion about, that the recent prosperity can be revived by "reopening." But many industries – aircraft, airlines, hotels, automobiles, appliances, commercial construction, energy – will definitely shrink, whatever happens now and no matter how much money they receive. The bailouts were a measure predicated on the idea that these industries were facing just a temporary interruption. But it is difficult to see how bankruptcies and liquidations can be avoided if there is no revival in the demand for product. And large-scale production relies on interlinked supply-chains, so that if a single major producer (for example one of the majors in the automotive sector) fails, there is a risk of cascading liquidations (for example in auto parts), making operations difficult – perhaps impossible – for the survivors. In these industries the supply chains and subcontractors are much larger in the aggregate than the assembly operations of the final production firm.

Higher education, a large sector in America, faces a crisis of high costs, collapsing enrollments and the actual alternative of cheap on-line instruction in many fields. This was already in the works for demographic reasons, and is now being accelerated by the loss of household wealth. Health care, ten times larger, also faces financial difficulties as millions are losing their insurance and – for the moment anyway – as accidents, other infectious diseases and such are down, depriving doctors and hospitals of reimbursements. Service industries from restaurants to retailers cannot function profitably at one-quarter of capacity; bars, nightclubs, and most sporting venues cannot reopen at all.

Read also: America's Painful Self-delusion

Federal decision-making has failed at every level. In the executive branch, it has been at best a complex of incompetence, denial, and political motivation. At worst, decisions were taken and are still being taken in full knowledge of the projected death rates and potential for private profiteering, both in the medical sector and in the larger financial economy. It is known that some private speculators made over three hundred billion dollars shorting the stock market before the February collapse, and that some Members of Congress sold their holdings based on information provided in intelligence briefings. Congressional action has been slow, marred by politics, lobbies, regional rivalries, poor judgment and a misdiagnosis of the economic issues, as Congress reached for legislative models used in past business downturns, especially the crisis of 2007-2009, which had no quarantine or other public health component.

The specific policies implemented were plagued by problems. To calculate payments under the first CARES Act, the IRS had to use filings from tax year 2018, and also ran into printing bottlenecks for paper checks that had to be mailed to those without direct deposit. Unemployment insurance benefits were made relatively generous, and the state unemployment insurance web-sites could not handle the crush, so they crashed, leaving many without the ability to access the program. Instead of simple wage replacement (which would have protected health insurance and union membership) the Small Business Administration issued rules that appeared unusable for many firms, banks gave preference to favored clients, and in the first round also the money soon ran out. In short, the effort to save the economy by pouring money into it through conventional channels was inadequate, ill-considered, inefficient, and in some respects corrupt. The best that may be said is that it was much better than doing nothing at all.

As events progress, the usual pattern of property sales and purchases cannot proceed. So property values will collapse, leaving millions of homeowners without equity; as this happens, mass foreclosures and property seizures are inevitable under the present legal rules. Predatory private investors will buy distressed assets at firesale prices and the American population will revert, largely to renter status. For those with means, private tutors and doctors will remain available; the others will manage as they can. Needless to say, depression, despair, drug abuse and suicide will prevail.

Or maybe they won't . In the wake of the Great Financial Crisis, it was possible – barely possible, but possible – to shift the blame from the bankers to the victims, from those who built a massively fraudulent financial system to those who took out the loans that they could not repay. But there was no viral element, no public health trigger, to that crisis. This one is different. Every development described above is a consequence, direct or indirect, of the coronavirus. Those who were laid off, and who went home, and who broke the transmission of the disease, did their part, just as health-care professionals and grocery clerks did theirs. Their legal case for relief remains weak. But the moral case is strong and the economic case is beyond dispute. Even the incumbent Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, a foreclosure-predator of the first water after 2008, has stated that the economic crisis "is no fault of American business, it is no fault of American workers, it is the fault of a virus." This is true but it does not mean that things will return to the past if the virus can be made to go away.

Read also: IMF issues warning over growing Chinese debt problems

To move forward, first of all, debts incurred before and during the pandemic will have to be written down. The energy sector and transport sectors will have to be rebuilt, based far more on renewables and sources other than oil. A large share of basic industries – especially in the health sector – will have to be repatriated so that basic sufficiency exists in this country. Millions of people will be needed to monitor and support public health; jobs for them must be organized and funded by the government. State and local governments will have to be federally-funded, in substantial part, to provide basic public services. New and sustainable housing must be built, in new community structures. High speed broadband must be provided to all. A new financing model – cooperative, with public support – will be required to re-establish small businesses. Local, decentralized cultural and sporting venues will have to replace mass-based experiences; these too will require cooperative structures and public support. In short, the only way out, remotely acceptable to the population at large, will require a comprehensive restructuring of the economy on a cooperative foundation, with the government stepping up to guaranteed funding, employment, and public investments.

Disaster capitalism is being tried, and the worst case is now the likely case. But there is a scale beyond which disaster capitalism cannot go. At a certain point, the carnage becomes too great to neglect, impossible to avoid and lethal to overlook. At a certain point, ordinary people will stand up and refuse to be bullied any more. That point has not quite arrived; we are still in the mind-set of "getting back to normal," even as the pandemic continues. The contradiction between normality and public health is on people's minds; the impossibility of returning to the previous abnormal-normal has not yet settled in. It will, in due course. At that point, the question of alternatives will have to be faced.

[May 12, 2020] One month later the first pacient was detected in Seatle Fauci was still proclaiming in public that the evil virus was less of a problem than the annual influenza. Someplace there is a video of Fauci saying this, right around Feb 15.

May 12, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Trailer Trash , May 12 2020 14:58 utc | 113

>Patient #1 was a 35 year old male who presented at a Seattle (WA) clinic on Jan 15, 2020

A month later Fauci was still proclaiming in public that the evil virus was less of a problem than the annual influenza. Someplace there is a video of Fauci saying this, right around Feb 15.

I can not understand how even complete incompetents manage to make exactly the wrong decision at every opportunity. In the UK there was a policy to send elderly patients, both suspected and known to have the virus, to care homes, without even warning the care home people. Supposedly it was to make room for corona patients who were even sicker than the ones going into care homes. This is straight-up criminal negligence.

Here are sordid details from the New York Post :


The governor -- who himself has described nursing homes as a "feeding frenzy'' for the deadly coronavirus -- said that the facilities can't challenge a state regulation forcing them to admit patients with the contagion .

The CEO of a hard-hit Brooklyn nursing home, where 55 patients have died from the coronavirus, told The Post last week that he'd been warning state Health Department officials for weeks he had staffing and equipment issues -- yet received little help.

"There is no way for us to prevent the spread under these conditions,'' the head of the Cobble Hill Health Center, Donny Tuchman, wrote in an e-mail to the department on April 8.

He said he asked to move some patients to the makeshift wards at Manhattan's Javits Center and aboard the city-docked USNS Comfort amid the pandemic, only to be told those two spots were receiving only patients from hospitals.

"I made specific requests to transfer patients, and it didn't happen,'' Tuchman told The Post. "There weren't options."

Deliberate policy decisions have killed and continue to kill people. That is perfectly clear, even while the origins of the virus and the intent of decisions are hiding in the muck. Will relatives of the dead just accept this as "an act of god", or will they come to understand these events as "acts of dear leaders"?

For two months Dear Leaders have claimed that destroying the economy, house arrest, and no care home visitors are for the express purpose of protecting ... care home residents. But most of the dead were care home residents, along with plenty of their care workers.

Yes it sounds melodramatic but I keep seeing black-and-white images of people being herded into shower rooms in order to get showered with Zyklon B. Please tell me why we are not witnessing state-sanctioned murder.

[May 12, 2020] 'I don't think you are the end-all' Rand Paul calls out Fauci over Covid-19 policy based 'one wrong prediction after another'

Notable quotes:
"... Paul, who also has a medical degree, called for "a little bit of humility in our belief that we know what's best for our economy," questioning Fauci's support for a prolonged economic shutdown during a Senate hearing on the government's coronavirus response on Tuesday. ..."
"... With all due respect I don't think you're the end-all, I don't think you're the one person who gets to make a decision. ..."
"... "I hope that people who are predicting doom and gloom and saying oh we can't do this there's going to be a surge will admit they're wrong if there isn't a surge," the senator continued, calling for the Trump administration to listen to experts who disagreed with the "doom and gloom" predictions of Fauci and his ilk. ..."
"... Paul added that continuing the lockdown would widen the class divide, explaining that if children are kept out of school for months on end, then "the poor and underprivileged kids who don't have a parent that's able to teach them at home aren't going to be able to learn for a full year." He also said that the catastrophic narrative painting Covid-19 as a killer necessitating mass shutdowns had gotten started with "wrong prediction after wrong prediction," starting with the British scientist Neil Ferguson's apocalyptic forecasts – even as the British scientist had been meeting secretly with his mistress in violation of the lockdown he'd been championing. ..."
May 12, 2020 | www.rt.com

Republican Senator Rand Paul has challenged National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr Anthony Fauci on the nation's Covid-19 policy, suggesting the US is waiting too long to reopen. Paul, who also has a medical degree, called for "a little bit of humility in our belief that we know what's best for our economy," questioning Fauci's support for a prolonged economic shutdown during a Senate hearing on the government's coronavirus response on Tuesday.

Sen. Paul argues school decisions should be made district by district, tells Dr. Fauci: "I don't think you're the end all."Fauci: "I'm a scientist... I think we better be careful if we are not cavalier in thinking that children are completely immune to the deleterious effects." pic.twitter.com/dIjXwkM5AU

-- NBC News (@NBCNews) May 12, 2020

With all due respect I don't think you're the end-all, I don't think you're the one person who gets to make a decision.

"I hope that people who are predicting doom and gloom and saying oh we can't do this there's going to be a surge will admit they're wrong if there isn't a surge," the senator continued, calling for the Trump administration to listen to experts who disagreed with the "doom and gloom" predictions of Fauci and his ilk.

" In rural states, we never really reached any sort of pandemic levels in Kentucky and other states ," Paul pointed out, even as he acknowledged that " New England " had been hit hard by the virus. " We have less deaths in Kentucky than we have in an average flu season. "

Antibody tests show Ohio had first Covid-19 cases as early as JANUARY – state health director

" We don't know everything about this virus ," Fauci countered, challenging that children in some parts of the country were turning up with " a very strange inflammatory syndrome " similar to Kawasaki syndrome.

" You're right in the numbers that children do much much better .but I am very careful, and hopefully humble, in knowing that I don't know everything about this disease, and that's why I'm very reserved in making broad predictions ," Fauci continued.

Paul added that continuing the lockdown would widen the class divide, explaining that if children are kept out of school for months on end, then "the poor and underprivileged kids who don't have a parent that's able to teach them at home aren't going to be able to learn for a full year." He also said that the catastrophic narrative painting Covid-19 as a killer necessitating mass shutdowns had gotten started with "wrong prediction after wrong prediction," starting with the British scientist Neil Ferguson's apocalyptic forecasts – even as the British scientist had been meeting secretly with his mistress in violation of the lockdown he'd been championing.

Fauci's supporters took to social media to slam his opponent, noting that Paul had gone to the Senate gym while infected with the coronavirus and perhaps infected others. They also cited high numbers of Covid-19 cases in Paul's home county of Warren County, Kentucky.

Watching Republicans cheer on Rand Paul "taking on" Dr. Fauci almost perfectly characterizes the anti-intellectual, anti-reason, anti-fact, and frankly degenerate state of the Republican Party.

-- Devin Duke (@sirDukeDevin) May 12, 2020

Warren County, Kentucky – where Rand Paul lives – has more COVID-19 cases per capita than 51 of the 67 counties in New England states.Senator Paul is wrong and the ignorant message he is peddling is dangerous. There is no special immunity to this virus based on where you live. https://t.co/l9u5RBYR2J

-- Rep. Don Beyer (@RepDonBeyer) May 12, 2020

Meanwhile, the senator's backers took the exact same exchange as proof that Paul had " destroyed " Fauci.

Rand Paul saves the day! Calls out the "experts" and says you are not the "end all" to make all decisions. GAME, SET, MATCH.

-- Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) May 12, 2020

Rand Paul absolutely destroys Dr. Fraudci. "I don't think you're the end all. I don't think you're the one person who gets to make the decision." pic.twitter.com/nvljuGAy5u

-- LivePDDave 🇺🇸 🚨 🥊 (@LivePDDave1) May 12, 2020

Federal 'social distancing' guidelines were lifted at the end of April, but hotspots like New York and California have extended their economic shutdowns as lesser-hit states have begun to relax restrictions.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!

[May 12, 2020] You re Not The End All Rand Paul Slams Fauci In Heated Exchange Over Lockdowns

Notable quotes:
"... X22 Report Fauci's Connections To Wuhan Ready To Be Exposed - Episode 2171c ..."
"... I don't remember Fauci ever apologizing his remarks concerning - you don't need to worry, you don't need masks - masks are bad, the virus can't be spread easily, his models predicting millions would die in the US. ..."
May 12, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

"The history of this when we look back will be wrong prediction after wrong prediction after wrong prediction... As much as I respect you, Dr. Fauci, I don't think you're the end all, I don't think you're the one person that gets to make a decision," said Paul - who added that we need to "observe with an open eye what happened in Sweden, where the kids kept going to school."

"The mortality per capita in Sweden is actually less than France, less than Italy, less than Spain, less than Belgium, less than the Netherlands, about the same as Switzerland. But basically I don't think there's anybody arguing that what happened in Sweden is an unacceptable result. I think people are intrigued by it, and we should be."

"I don't think any of us are certain when we do all these modelings - there have been more people wrong with modeling than right. We're opening up a lot of economies around the US, and I hope that people who are predicting doom and gloom and saying 'oh, we can't do this, there's going to be a surge' - will admit when there isn't a surge."

Watch:

Sen. Rand Paul:

"The history of this when we look back will be wrong prediction after wrong prediction after wrong prediction... As much as I respect you, Dr. Fauci, I don't think you're the end all, I don't think you're the one person that gets to make a decision." pic.twitter.com/SP9T638y2B

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) May 12, 2020

Fauci responded, (25 seconds in below), saying "Sen. Paul, I have never made myself out to be the end-all & only voice of this. I'm a scientist, a physician, and a public health official."

He then offered a 'but, the children!' argument - latching onto Paul's comment that we don't know everything about the virus, and that "we really better be very careful, particularly when it comes to children."

"Because the more and more we learn - we're seeing things about what this virus can do that we didn't see from the studies in China. Or in Europe. For example, right now children presenting with COVID-19 who actually have a very strange inflammatory symdrome, very similar to Kawasaki syndrome. I think we better be careful that we are not cavalier in thinking that children are not immune to the deleterious effects.

"I never made myself to be out the end all. I’m a scientist, a physician, and a public health official. I give advice according to the best scientific evidence. "

Dr. Fauci responds to @RandPaul pic.twitter.com/gxOWB9BTQ4

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) May 12, 2020

I have not promoted the #FireFauci movement. I've defended him. But now...

Fauci responded to a factual-based inquiry by @RandPaul w/an egregious allusion to some mystery Kawasaki-like disease & tripled-down on his aversion to a 2020-21 school session.

I'm done.#FIREFAUCI

— Justin Hart (@justin_hart) May 12, 2020

mikesap, 3 minutes ago

Why isn't anyone asking directly about the 'gain of function' studies that NIH was doing on the US prior to outsourcing the experiments to Wuhan and illegally funding it via the NIH....why is there a need to lockdown 300m people for a relative small number of deaths which in turn are focused on the elderly with prior illnesses...what is the relationship betwe3n the CDC and the European CDC... does the European CDC pay European hospitals for every diagnosis and every ventilator use.... its all BS...hopefully people are beginning to smell a rat and through these bums out....

Al Agent, 3 minutes ago

True. Fauci wasn't elected to make policy; in fact, he wasn't elected at all! He was employed to advise on what happens under different scenarios. Trump's economic advisors weren't elected to make policy; in fact, they weren't elected at all! They are employed to advise on what happens under different scenarios.

Congress and The President decide on policy. They were elected to do that.

Templar X, 16 minutes ago

There will never be a vaccine for COVID-19 which is safe, effective, and worthwhile.

The fastest a vaccine has ever been developed in the past was four years after the first appearance of a new infectious disease.

Four years from now people will either have herd immunity or they will be dead.

Within a year or two, the COVID-19 virus will likely mutate itself to death, or it will weaken and become no worse than a regular flu virus.

COVID-19 is, apparently, less harmful to people under 65 years of age and those with no underlying health conditions, which, of course, is also true of the common flu.

theWHTMANN, 32 minutes ago

How come no one asks Fauci straight to his face regarding all the deaths that will happen because of the lockdown (missed surgeries, suicide, famine, et al.). What is this con man's response? He doesn't care? What if non-COVID deaths because of the lockdown are 3x or 4x the COVID deaths? What then? Does anyone ask this fool Fauci whether he will take responsibility for anything?

mrpc, 30 minutes ago

Like Fauci says himself, in the interview, he gives advice. He doesn't make the decisions.

sun tzu, 34 minutes ago (Edited)

Where's the carnage in Georgia, Florida, Texas, and South Carolina from reopening? I see no massive surge in the hospitals or deaths. The only carnage I see is in the nursing homes in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts all states run by Democrats

PerilouseTimes, 8 minutes ago

I made an appointment for a procedure this week and had to go in for covid pretesting today. It was my second test in three months. I worked with and personally interacted with, people that tested positive for covid in mid March. I was unusually sick in January and have talked to many others that was strange sick in January as well. After speaking with the health professionals and the people I know in and around this, I am convinced that this is all a load of ****. I had covid in Jan, and so did many of the others I worked with. The nurse I just talked to said to me that her and her family along with many people that she is testing was convinced that they had it between Dec. and Feb. I'm in GA and it is long past time to get this show on the road.

Roger Casement, 37 minutes ago

X22 Report Fauci's Connections To Wuhan Ready To Be Exposed - Episode 2171c

NumbNuts, 39 minutes ago

Fauci is dangerous:

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/05/10/is-there-a-vaccine-for-coronavirus.aspx

Those experiments were going on in the United States until 2014. They were Dr. Anthony Fauci's projects. President Obama ordered that to stop because they had a lot of lab escape problems in 2014 from three different labs

Instead of stopping as he was ordered, Fauci moved those operations to the Wuhan lab in China and continued to do those experiments right up until the time that the coronavirus [pandemic occurred]. In fact, [infectious disease expert] Ian Lipkin was doing those experiments over there when [COVID-19] exploded. And I'll tell you exactly what happened because it's very suspicious."

---ZerooreZ---, 56 minutes ago

I am genuinely impressed with the American spirit, that everything covid related has happened at double the speed in the USA compared to the UK - you were the last to get this thing and seem to be the first to open back up (well done!). I guess because you guys have lived with guns your whole lives, you are braver than the average UK citizen who literally have been the most obedient and most scared bunch I have experienced. People literally throw themselves off the pavements into the road to avoid someone walking the other way, they would rather be

sun tzu, 1 hour ago

Epidemic indeed

ToWo, 1 hour ago

I don't remember Fauci ever apologizing his remarks concerning - you don't need to worry, you don't need masks - masks are bad, the virus can't be spread easily, his models predicting millions would die in the US.

[May 11, 2020] Boomerang returned

May 11, 2020 | caucus99percent.com

Newsweek reveals that as recently as last year, the US funded scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 'gain of function' research on bat coronaviruses.

The source of that funding? The National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease, headed by.....(drumroll please)....Dr Anthony Fauci, lead medical expert for America's Covid-19 task force.

[May 11, 2020] Angry Bear " Fauci No scientific evidence the coronavirus was made in a Chinese lab

May 11, 2020 | angrybearblog.com
  1. likbez , May 11, 2020 1:53 am

    run75441

    I would be wary of Fauci.

    It looks like it was Fauci who financed Wuhan lab continuation of very dangerous "gain of function" experiments started at UNC Dr. Baric lab.

    https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/apr/27/anthony-fauci-should-explain-37-million-wuhan-labo/

    President Donald Trump's legal counsel, Rudy Giuliani, in a recent chat on "The Cats Roundtable" on New York AM 970 radio, suggested a good U.S. attorney general move about now would be to investigate key members of the past Barack Obama administration on the Wuhan, China, laboratory, to see what they knew and when they knew it.

    And then he mentioned Dr. Anthony Fauci specifically.

    And then he accused the prior Team Obama of sending $3.7 million to the lab in 2014 -- at a time when that same Team Obama had banned the funding of any lab that was involved in virus experimentation.

    And then he named Fauci as the guy who gave the money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

    Ouch. Politically speaking, the perception of one of this administration's loudest voices on the coronavirus front -- the one calling for shutdowns and shut-ins and contact tracing-slash-government-tracking of American citizens -- well, it doesn't look good to have him tied financially to Wuhan.

    Giuliani, as RedState noted, said this:

    "Back in 2014, the Obama administration prohibited the U.S. from giving money to any laboratory, including in the U.S., that was fooling around with these viruses. Prohibited. Despite that, Dr. Fauci gave $3.7 million to the Wuhan laboratory.

    And then even after the State Department issued reports about how unsafe that laboratory was, and how suspicious they were in the way they were developing a virus that could be transmitted to humans, we never pulled that money."

    Giuliani said if he were attorney general, he'd open an investigation.

[May 10, 2020] Bubble-Wrapped Americans How The US Became Obsessed With Physical Emotional Safety

May 10, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Bubble-Wrapped Americans: How The US Became Obsessed With Physical & Emotional Safety by Tyler Durden Sat, 05/09/2020 - 22:20 Via Ammo.com,

"In America we say if anyone gets hurt, we will ban it for everyone everywhere for all time. And before we know it, everything is banned."

- Professor Jonathan Haidt

It's a common refrain: We have bubble-wrapped the world . Americans in particular are obsessed with "safety." The simplest way to get any law passed in America, be it a zoning law or a sweeping reform of the intelligence community, is to invoke a simple sentence: "A kid might get hurt."

Almost no one is opposed to reasonable efforts at making the world a safer place. But the operating word here is "reasonable." Banning lawn darts , for example, rather than just telling people that they can be dangerous when used by unsupervised children, is a perfect example of a craving for safety gone too far.

Beyond the realm of legislation, this has begun to infect our very culture. Think of things like "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces." These are part of broader cultural trends in search of a kind of "emotional safety" – a purported right to never be disturbed or offended by anything. This is by no means confined to the sphere of academia, but is also in our popular culture, both in " extremely online " and more mainstream variants.

Why are Americans so obsessed with safety? What is the endgame of those who would bubble wrap the world, both physically and emotionally? Perhaps most importantly, what can we do to turn back the tide and reclaim our culture of self-reliance , mental toughness , and giving one another the benefit of the doubt so that we don't "bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security," as President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about ?

Coddling and Splintering: The Transformation of the American Mind

Two books published in 2018 provide parallel insights into the problems presented by the safety obsession of American culture: The Splintering of the American Mind by William Egginton , focused on the tendency of Americans to tunnel themselves off into self-selected bubbles, and The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt , which deals more with the tendency to avoid any uncomfortable or unpleasant information.

There is an interesting phenomenon involved in coddling: Australian psychologist Nick Haskam first coined the term "concept creep." Basically, this means that terms are often elastic and expand past the point of meaning. Take, for example, the concept of "trauma." This used to have a very limited meaning. However, "trauma" quickly became expanded to mean even slight physical or emotional harm or discomfort. Thus the increasing belief among the far left that words can be "violence" – not "violent," mind you, but actual, literal violence.

In the other direction, the definition of "hero" has been expanded to mean just about anything. Every teacher, firefighter and police officer is now considered a "hero." This isn't to downplay or minimize the importance of these roles in our society. It's simply to point out that "hero" just doesn't mean what it used to 100 or even 30 years ago.

Once this expansion of a term occurs, there is never any kind of retraction. Trauma now means just about anything, and violence will soon be expanded to include lawful, peaceful speech that one disapproves of. Once this happens, there will be no going back. In the words of Sam Harris :

"We (as a society) have to be committed to defending free speech however impolitic, or unpopular, or even wrong because defending that is the only barrier to violence. That's because the only way we can influence one another short of physical violence is through speech, through communicating ideas. The moment you say certain ideas can't be communicated you create a circumstance where people have no alternative but to go hands on you."

It is extremely dangerous to begin labelling everything as violence for reasons of free speech, but perhaps even more dangerous is the notion that when anything is violence, nothing is violence. Redefining words as "violence" means that we have little recourse for when actual violence occurs.

The Coddling of the American Mind notes some other concepts that are important as we speak of America's obsession with "safety" above all else. First, that coddling combined with splintering means that people's political views are much more like fanatical religious views than anything. They don't see themselves as having to debate ideas or seek common ground. Rather, the opposing side and its proponents are seen as "dangerous" and must be discredited at all costs. It is worth noting that this is much more common among the left than the right or the center, which has now become more the place where "live and let live" types congregate.

The problem with this goes beyond simply being irritated by irrational people barking at you or at someone else: There is an entire generation of people who are seriously lacking in critical thinking skills . They think that labelling people and name-calling are excuses for a reasoned argument. In the words of Voltaire, "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

These problems are hardly confined to political radicalism or academia. Indeed, the corporate sector is no stranger to this kind of safety obsession. There is the phenomenon of "woke capital," where the corporations find the latest celebrity cause-du-jour and use it as a marketing strategy.

There is currently an extreme risk aversion in management science. Companies will now do basically anything to avoid "a kid getting hurt" or someone's delicate sensibilities being offended.

Education from kindergarten up to the universities is increasingly about teaching doctrines and ideology, rather than critical thinking and problem solving skills. All of this is a dangerous admixture that combines the full weight of the academic, cultural and business elites in this country. And its consequences are far reaching.

Trigger Warnings and Safe Spaces

For those unaware, a "trigger warning" is a person's advisory that disturbing content is going to be posted. However, in an example of concept creep, the meaning of "disturbing" has become expanded to mean, well, just about anything that might offend a leftist. It is also sometimes known as a "content warning," "TW" or "CW."

A similar concept is that of a "safe space." What used to be a term used for a place where people in actual danger of physical harm could express themselves, a "safe space" now means a place where there is no room for disagreement or questions because language is literally violence.

This might all sound very silly and we definitely agree that it is. However, it is quickly becoming de rigeur not just in academia, which is increasingly functioning as a bizarre combination of a daycare center for 21 year olds and an indoctrination program, but also in the corporate world and in the media.

It's not surprising that such foolishness has reached our corporate elites, because so many figures within that world come from the Ivy League. Harvard Law, for example, was the center of a controversy where they were urged not to teach rape law or even use the word "violate" (which makes it pretty hard to talk about violations of the law). A Harvard professor argued that greater anxiety among students to discuss complicated and nuanced séxual assault cases was impeding the ability of professors to adequately teach their students. This in turn would lead to poorly prepared attorneys for rape victims in the future.

Beyond a simple discussion in the academic sphere, there are student groups on campus who urge students not to attend or participate in class discussions focused on séxual violence. The same student groups advocate for warning students in advance so they can skip out on class and even to exclude "triggering" material from tests. Once again, the real victims here are the victims of séxual assault whose attorneys will be ill-prepared to advise them, to say nothing of the cumulative effect on the prosecutorial environment.

Northwestern University professor Laura Kipnis was subject to a lengthy investigation by a kangaroo court and frivolous Title IX complaints over an article she wrote for The Chronicle of Higher Education about campus séx panics. Top comedians like Chris Rock now refuse to perform on college campuses , a place that has typically been their bread and butter.

Another key term to understand here is "microaggressions" which means just about anything. Offensive statements under this umbrella include things like "I don't see race," "America is the land of opportunity" and "I believe the most qualified person should get the job."

To readers of Generation X or older, this all might sound like a resurgence of political correctness and, indeed, to some extent it is. However, there is something different about the current anti-speech craze sweeping not just campuses, but also boardrooms: Political correctness was, at least in theory, about the elimination of so-called "hate speech" (for example, using "mentally disabled" instead of "retarded" or "little person" instead of "midget") and also about broadening the canon of literature to include more women and minorities.

One doesn't need to agree with either objective or be as generous as we are to see that the West has entered a new, accelerated and intensified version of the old political correctness that is qualitatively more dangerous. The "safe spaces" phase of this is about eliminating anything and everything that might be emotionally troubling to students on campus.

This assumes a high degree of fragility among American college students. But perhaps this assumption isn't totally off base.

The Road to Safety Obsession

If you were born before 1985 or so, your childhood was vastly different than of those born after you. As a child, you probably came and went as you pleased, letting your parents know where you were going, who you would be with and when you might be home. You rode your bike without a helmet and if you were bullied at school there's a good chance that you view this as a character-building experience, not one of deep emotional trauma.

So what happened?

A few things. First, in 1984, the "missing child" milk carton was introduced. America became obsessed with child abduction in response to several high-profile child kidnappings over the period of a few years. Etan Platz , Adam Walsh and Johnny Gosch are just three of the names known to Americans during this time period. In September 1984, the Des Moines, Iowa-based Anderson Erickson Dairy began printing the pictures of Johnny Gosch and Eugene Martin on milk cartons. Chicago followed suit, then the entire state of California. In December 1984, a nationwide program was launched to keep the faces of abducted children front and center in the American mind.

The milk cartons didn't find many kids, but they did create the panic of "stranger danger," where children were taught to fear strangers even though the lion's share of child abduction, molestation and abuse comes from friends, family and other trusted figures such as public school teachers or camp counselors. Most missing children in America are runaways and in 99 percent of all child abductions, the perpetrator is a non-custodial father. There is at least one case of "stranger danger" being harmful – a lost 11-year-old Boy Scout who thought his rescuers were looking to kidnap him.

Some of the protocols established out of this were useful, such as AMBER Alerts and Code Adam . Awareness of child abduction in general was raised and as a result there's significantly fewer child abductions today than there were in 1980. Indeed, stranger abduction is incredibly rare in the United States . But this has come with a dark side.

You might be familiar with the myriad of cases in suburban America where children playing alone are arrested by the police because they don't have adult supervision. The parents are then questioned by the police or, in some cases, the state's Child Protective Services .

There was also the panic after the mass shooting at Columbine High School , which led to the bubble wrapping of schools alongside the home. "Zero tolerance" policies were implemented alongside school-wide peanut butter bans .

And so the result is that there are at least two generations of American children raised in a protective net so tight that they not only have trouble expressing themselves, but also being exposed to failure and discomfort . What began as a good-faith effort to prevent child abduction and increase overall child welfare has ended up, as a side effect, creating a world where children were raised in such safety that they can't even handle being upset.

This has not only insulated children from the consequences of their own actions and the normal pains of growing up, but also gives the impression that no matter what their problems, "adults" are ready to step in and save the day at any moment.

It's worth noting that, in recent years, there has been a sharp rise in mental illness among young people , both on campus and off, including those with severe mental health problems.

Cops and the 24-Hour News Cycle

There are two other cultural phenomena worth exploring: The television series Cops and the 24-hour cable news cycle. As of April 2020, Cops is still on the air, having moved from Fox to Spike TV in 2013.

Cops was more than just a TV series, it was a cultural phenomenon that changed television. The cinéma vérité style used by the show was to be copied in the 90s by virtually every reality show you can name. Curiously, it came out around the same time that crime rates had plummeted comparatively to the 70s and 80s. And just at that time, people started having the worst in human behavior beamed into their homes for entertainment every Saturday night.

At the same time, CNN was bringing news into your home 24 hours a day without end. This meant they had to fill programming around the clock – and most news is bad news. So in addition to a hugely popular program centered around chasing criminals in the act, Americans also had a constant stream of bad news and dangerous events pumped into their homes. The result was the end of the "free range child," the kind who learned through play and discovered risk management through trial and error. This was replaced with children whose entire existence was micromanaged by adults, with little to no unsupervised play time.

The ability to learn through failure is a well-established principle going back to the Greeks, who called it pathemata mathemata ("guide your learning through pain"). The knowledge and wisdom gained through failure and pain are arguably more lasting and valuable than those learned in school.

The Generation Gap: Millennials and Gen Z

Older generations (Generation X and Baby Boomers) have a tendency to conflate Millennials and Gen Z (also known as "Zoomers"). However, there are two key differences, one cultural and one clinical: First, Zoomers are much more digital natives than their Millennial counterparts. They didn't get constant internet access or mobile access at college. They've had it since they were in middle school in many cases.

While this is bound to create secondary cultural differences, we know of one clinical difference between Millennials and Zoomers: Zoomers are much more prone to mental illness , specifically depression, anxiety, alcoholism and self-harm.

Depression and anxiety in particular are through the roof for girls , with moderate increases for boys. While self-reported cases are up, we also have harder clinical data: There has been a 62 percent increase in hospital admissions .

The Baby Boomers and Gen Xers created an environment where it is safer than ever to be a child , but at what cost? There has been widespread and verifiable psychological damage done to the younger generation, which is likely being compounded by the coddling taking place in our nation's universities.

Screen Time and Social Media

"Screen time" is the new obsession for parents, especially among, ironically, those who work in high-tech Silicon Valley jobs such as Steve Jobs, father of the iPhone . But there seems to be an emerging consensus among those who have actually studied the topic that the problem isn't "screen time" per se, but rather the more specific use of it in the form of social media . This has been identified as the cause of depression and anxiety, particularly among girls.

Why is social media usage particularly impactful among girls? Dr. Haidt and others postulate that it's because they are more sensitive to the "perfect" lives being lived by beautiful social media influencers – at least the lives that they lead online. What's more, there is a lot of exclusion and bullying taking place on social media. In days past, you only heard about the party you didn't get invited to, but now you get to watch it unfold in real time on Snapchat or other platforms. And cyberbullying is much harder to track and police than its real world equivalent.

There's a related bubble wrapping going on with regard to a different sort of screen time: Kids today are often forbidden from playing with plastic guns or even finger guns. There is the notorious case of the 7-year-old child who was suspended for biting a Pop Tart toaster pastry into the shape of a gun . But millions of children come home (from the same schools where finger guns can warrant a suspension) to play Grand Theft Auto for hours on end.

Indeed, there is some evidence that suggests that violent movies and video games can trigger violent thoughts in some, but not all, people who view them. The National Institute of Mental Health has done an extensive study detailing the impact that violent media has on those who view it.

A Nation Divided

There's not much hyperbole in saying that America is barely a single nation anymore. We talk about "red states" and "blue states," but the divide is much deeper than that. Even the coastal states largely have an urban college-educated Democratic population and a rural non-college-educated Republican population.

While some animosity between different areas of the political spectrum, or even resentment of cities by the countryside and vice versa, is nothing new , the rancor took off sharply in the early 2000s following the controversial election of George W. Bush and his expanded imperial presidency after 9/11 .

Social media makes it easier for extremes to amplify their anger. What's more, it's much easier for people to become part of an online crusade – or witch hunt – than it is for them to do so without it.

This is a big part of what is behind the string of disinvitations and protests on American college campuses. No one, especially young people (where "young" means "under 30"), can bear to listen to the opinions of someone they don't agree with. Disinvitations aren't limited to highly controversial figures like MILO and Richard Spencer, or even the decidedly much more vanilla Ann Coulter. Condoleeza Rice , the first black female Secretary of State, was disinvited in 2014, as was the first female head of the IMF and the first female finance minister of a G8 nation, Christine Lagarde .

Because Americans increasingly refuse even to listen to arguments from the other side, inserting instead a strawman in favor of reasoned debate , there is no reason to believe that the American political and ideological divide will not increase.

The Evolution of Victimhood Culture

America and the West have largely adopted a victimhood culture. It is worth taking a minute to trace this radical transformation of values in the West from its origins.

The earliest societies in the West were honor cultures. While it sounds like a no-brainer that we should return to an honor culture, we should unpack precisely what this means. An honor culture usually means a lot of interpersonal violence. Small slights must be dealt with through dead violence – because a gentleman cannot take any kind of stain on his honor. Dueling and blood feuds are common in these kinds of cultures.

This is superseded by dignity culture. Dignity culture is different, because people are presumed to have dignity regardless of what others think of them. In a dignity culture, people are admired because they have a "thick skin" and are able to brush off slights even if they are seriously insulting. While we might find ourselves offended, even rightfully so, it is considered important to rise above the offense and conduct ourselves with dignity. Everyone heard some variant of "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" growing up as a child. This is perhaps the key phrase of a dignity culture.

Victimhood culture is concerned with status in a similar manner to honor culture. Indeed, people become incredibly intolerant of any kind of perceived slight, much in the manner of an honor culture. However, in a victimhood culture, it is being offended, taking offense, and being a victim that provides one with status.

Victimhood culture means that people are divided into classes, where victims are good and oppressors are bad. There is an eternal conflict with eternal grievances that can never fully be corrected or atoned for. People feel the need to constantly walk on eggshells and censor themselves. This leads to an overall emphasis on safety, as even words become "violence" – we need trigger warnings and safe spaces to protect us.

Victimhood culture is closely associated with safety culture. Safety culture is, above all else, debilitating . Those who choose a marginalized identity – and in the contemporary West, a marginalized identity is almost always a choice – become more fragile and more dependent on the broader society. At the same time, the powerful elements in society gain a stake in reinforcing this marginalized identity. The Great Society provides a case study in this dynamic.

Those who do not receive the so-called "benefits" of safety culture are frequently more prepared for the real world. Who would you rather hire? Someone who studied hard in a rigorous discipline for four years or someone who spent four years being coddled in what is basically a day care center for twentysomethings? With this in mind, it's not too big of a leap to see that straight white men might actually have become "privileged" through the process of not having access to the collective hugbox in higher education.

The Role of Lawyers and Litigation

There is a relationship with the litigious society in which we live with warning labels everywhere, often for hazards that would seem incredibly obvious to most observant people. In previous generations, even power tools didn't come with warnings to roll your sleeves up or take off your watch. This information was either common sense or passed along in high school shop classes or on the job.

However, the American legal system has no penalty for frivolous lawsuits, which has led to an explosion in the number of lawsuits. There is a massive army of lawyers in the United States (which has a surplus of some 40 percent ) whose profession revolves around finding aggrieved parties who weren't properly "warned" – or indeed to be able to help write the warning labels themselves. These labels do not even exist for actual safety. The same type of person who is going to do the thing being warned against is likely the same type of person who doesn't read warnings. The labels are simply there as a form of "CYA" for the firms who make them.

That said, to a certain degree, the "litigious society" is a myth. The oft-cited McDonald's coffee burn is actually more reasonable than people are aware : The elderly woman in question who was burned simply wanted McDonald's – who kept their coffee extra hot to prevent people from taking part of their "free refills" policy – to pay for her skin graft resulting from the burn. When McDonald's refused to settle this out of court and the case went to trial, they were rewarded for their efforts at stonewalling with punitive damages.

So the main example of frivolous lawsuits is a big strawman. But to be clear – frivolous lawsuits are real . One great example of an actually frivolous lawsuit was the man who sued his dry cleaner for $67 million because they delivered his pants to the wrong person . There was no actual damage here and it's difficult to express just how ridiculous the dollar figure claimed was. This case was thrown out of court, as most of these types of cases are. Still, litigants pursue them either to get media attention or to harass the defendant or both, a phenomenon known as "lawfare." And these cases clog up genuine claims in the courts.

Civil trials are long and drawn-out things. And with 40 million of them in the United States every year and over a million lawyers , it's unsurprising that the system has become clogged with lawsuits, many of which are either totally frivolous (remember – there's no penalty for filing a frivolous lawsuit in America) or just the type of thing that should be either settled or handled through binding arbitration.

While the litigious society exists in parallel to the "safe spaces" of college campuses, it is worth noting because it is part of the larger bubble wrapping of the American landscape. The same kids who were raised with helicopter parents and a general sense that they had a "right" to never be offended were likewise raised in an environment where people could be sued for anything or, at the very least, this was the public perception. It is just another factor of risk aversion in American life.

There are other consequences of having too many lawyers around and having them congregate within our political class: Words are chosen to obfuscate and laws proliferate, as legislation becomes a sort of "jobs program" for lawyers. The more laws we have, the less free we are and the less social trust we have. As laws, regulations, and agencies take the place of civil society , the state grows at the expense of everything else and the less trust we have in our society.

Overreacting to the Wuhan Coronavirus

In 2020, the Wuhan Coronavirus broke out of China and spread all around the world. The world had not seen a deadly, contagious virus with such scope since the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 to 1920 . At first, the response was denial and apathy. However, this quickly gave way to what could be considered a massive overreaction: Shutting everything down.

There was a certain logic to this: If people gathering together were what was spreading the virus, then simply keep people apart until the whole thing blows over. However, this is also potentially a huge overreaction. It is a medical solution in the driver's seat without any nod to the economic, social or military consequences that flow from it. Even if one agrees that medical solutions are to be the primary driver, it does not follow that they are the only driver.

Because of the lopsided and often hysterical reaction, many of the proposed solutions don't even make sense: For example, telling everyone they can go to the supermarket while prohibiting them from going to small offices, or shutting down the border between the United States and Canada – two countries with highly infected populations and a sprawling border that is largely unpatrolled.

A brief disclaimer: None of us are epidemiologists or virologists. And we defer to their superior knowledge on this subject.

However, during the Spanish flu pandemic, life did not shut down quite so completely as it has during the Coronavirus pandemic. The methods used during the Spanish flu were isolation of the sick, mask wearing in public, and cancellation of large events. In places where these were practiced rigorously, there was a significant decline in the number of infections and death. St. Louis in particular is known as an exemplar of what to do during an easily transmissible epidemic.

"The economy" has been cited as a reason the total shutdown of life during the Coronavirus pandemic was a poor idea. This might sound frivolous, but the mass unemployment not only leads to destitution for those when the economy is so paralyzed that there are no other jobs forthcoming. It also leads to a spike in the suicide rate . There is a certain calculus that must be done – how much unemployment is worth how much death from Wuhan Coronavirus?

The reaction to this virus is noteworthy, because it is the first major pandemic of this new, insulated and coddled age. Rather than reasonable measures to mitigate death, the choice made was to do anything and everything possible to prevent death entirely. Not only might this be an unwise decision, it might be a fool's errand: The virus seems to be much more contagious than was previously thought, as well as much less lethal .

More than one reasonable person has asked what would happen if we all just went about our lives making reasonable precautions, such as hand washing, mask wearing, social distancing, and the cancellation of large events like sports and concerts. This is effectively what Sweden has done and it appears to work, especially when contrasted with their neighbors in Finland who have done basically the same as America. How much sense does it make to have the entire community converge upon its grocery stores while not allowing anyone to go into an office, ever? Compare this with what has passed for reasonable reaction: Closing down every school, every dine-in restaurant, and the government dictating which businesses are essential and which aren't.

A big motivator of this is a compulsion to not lose a single life to the Wuhan Coronavirus, which is a totally unreasonable goal. People are going to die. The question isn't "how tightly do we have to lock the country down to ensure no one dies," but rather "what are reasonable measures we can take to balance public safety against personal choice and social cohesion?"

The splintering and division of America in practice has meant that the establishment conservative media was largely in denial over the virus for weeks . It is not a liberal smear to say that the amount of denialism from establishment conservative media, pundits, think tanks, bureaucrats and elected officials has in practice meant that America responded much more slowly and conservatively than it might have with a more unified America body politic.

At the beginning of spring 2020, the virus seemed poised to devastate the American South , which largely stuck with the early conservative media denialism, eschewing social distancing, shuttering of certain public places and mask wearing. Again, a more united body politic and the media and trust in the media that goes along with that might have prevented a lot of illness and death.

Imagine the impact of Walter Cronkite or Edward Murrow going on television and telling the American public to mask up and maintain distance versus the impact of Rachel Maddow and Tucker Carlson doing it.

What Is Vindictive Protectiveness?

"Vindictive protectiveness" was a term coined by Haidt and Lukianoff to describe the environment on America's college campuses with regard to speech codes and similar. However, it can refer more broadly to the cultural atmosphere in the United States and the West today. From the college campus to the corporate boardroom to the office, Americans have to watch what they say and maybe even what they think lest they fall afoul of extra-legal speech and thought codes.

Perhaps worst of all, an entire generation is being raised to see this not only as normal, but as beneficial . This means that as this generation comes of age and grows into leadership positions, that there is a significant chance that these codes will be enforced more rigorously, not less. And while there may be ebbs and flows (political correctness went into hibernation for pretty much the entire administration of George W. Bush – though to be fair, there was an imperfect replacement in the form of post-9/11 jingoism), the current outrage factory is much more concerning than the one that sort of just hung around in the background in the 1990s.

Put plainly: the next wave will be worse. We may not have Maoist-style Red Guards in America quite yet, but we're not far off and the emphasis should be on "yet."

[May 10, 2020] I wonder if the average age of our government was say 30, do you think they would have chosen to lock down the country? No.. Its because the average age of our government is more like 68.

Notable quotes:
"... "Our outcomes are similar to the state of Pennsylvania, where the median age of death from COVID-19 is 84 years old. ..."
"... "COVID-19 is a disease that ravages those with preexisting conditions – whether it be immunosenescence of aging or the social determinants of health. We can manage society in the presence of this pathogen if we focus on these preexisting conditions. ..."
May 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

jack lockwood , May 10 2020 9:36 utc | 52

This lock down stupidity needs to end now.

i wonder if the average age of our government was say 30, do you think they would have chosen to lock down the country? No.. Its because the average age of our government is more like 68.. We are sacrificing ourselves to protect the old, the least productive part of our society.
Im 33, i have had the virus, it was mild.i have had worse colds. Im running out of money! unlike pensioners who get there cash regardless i need to earn it. Furthermore the pension these people currently draw i will never see, we realise now that pensions as they were cannot be sustained, but yet they still have them. If they are like my grandparents they retired over 20 years ago.. 2/3 of my life, and have drawn private/public pensions since, they consume the vast majority of the NHS resources so they can stay alive another day and continue drawing pensions. The old people of my country also own the majority of the property, i rent my house of a couple in there 70s, i pay them over £1000 per month to live here. i cannot afford to buy.

When i do get a little bit of work at the moment i head out to find the roads and shops populated with fucking pensioners, all driving around in there stupid tall and narrow cars doing 40mph in a 60 oblivious to the world and economy that is around them paying them their pensions and protect them.

my attitude is simple.. if you dont want to catch it, dont go out.. no need to lockdown everybody, just the ones who fear this.. like you B. Its my right to live or die as i chose, not under the kosh of the fucking gray mafia.

ive already given up following the 'rules' fuck em all.


fairleft , May 10 2020 10:05 utc | 54

"Our outcomes are similar to the state of Pennsylvania, where the median age of death from COVID-19 is 84 years old. The few younger patients who died all had significant preexisting conditions. Very few children were infected and none died. Minorities in our communities fared equally as well as others, but we know that this is not the case nationally. In sum, this is a disease of the elderly, sick and poor. ...

"COVID-19 is a disease that ravages those with preexisting conditions – whether it be immunosenescence of aging or the social determinants of health. We can manage society in the presence of this pathogen if we focus on these preexisting conditions.

"What we cannot do, is extended social isolation. Humans are social beings, and we are already seeing the adverse mental health consequences of loneliness, and that is before the much greater effects of economic devastation take hold on the human condition."

- Dr. Steven Shapiro, University of Pennsylvania Medical Center chief medical and scientific officer

https://inside.upmc.com/shapiro-economy-roundtable/

Richard Steven Hack , May 10 2020 12:03 utc | 61
@Circe | May 10 2020 11:07 utc | 57

"people with proven underlying conditions not returning to work yet"

You mean the...

William Gruff , May 10 2020 12:21 utc | 62
Pretty easy to spot the tattoo-sleeved, cranial-pierced, hipster baristas with no productive skills in here as they are manically demanding that everyone else go to work. After all, they cannot go back to slinging idiot-proof pre-measured lattes until real working people are out and about, so they shriek for everyone else to go back to normal.

But isn't the current situation just a huge basket of opportunities for real bold entrepreneurs? If one is some hero type like the guy above who has "given up following the 'rules'" , then the marketplaces are theirs for the taking, what with all of the competition shut down. If one wants the capitalists' economy to be "re-opened" , then they need to be like the fabled entrepreneurs that worked for their wealth and take the initiative oneself instead of demanding that others do it for them.

Or are the whiners demanding that the economy be "re-opened" really just kids wishing their parents would go back to work because that is who actually pays the rent on their hipster apartments?

Something these individuals will have to confront is that things are never "going back to normal" . A new normal is being born, and it ain't very normal.

[May 10, 2020] Do Masks and Respirators Prevent Viral Respiratory Illnesses

Something strange here: virions do not travel as single units. They travel "en mass" within water droplets. They also prevent spread of aerosol from sick people. So the professor is barking on a wrong tree.
May 10, 2020 | dissidentvoice.org

Moreover single virion is so small that it will be affected by Brownian movement which make it impossible for it to travel in a given direction at all -- it will he chaotic movement. So this physics professor looks like very weak in physics

Interview with Professor Denis Rancourt

by Kim Petersen / May 8th, 2020

A health professional told me back in March that face masks were ineffective but that respirators (the N95) were. Because of the source, I thought there must be validity to this. However, it seemed counterintuitive. I reasoned that there would be differentials between using any type of mask versus no mask because no mask usage would allow aerosols to penetrate unabated, whereas a mask should capture much of the aerosol and reduce risk of spread to others and presumably should also function to mitigate breathing in viral-laden droplets. Because of the greater density of respirator material, the prophylactic would be reasoned to be greater.

However, what I had not considered was how extremely small the virion was in relation to the porosity of the material in the masks and respirators. I also had not looked at the scientific literature on the subject until now.

Denis Rancourt, an eminent physics professor , former anarchist, and author, examined the scientific evidence for using face masks and respirators as preventative of contracting respiratory influenza-like disease, or respiratory illnesses believed to be transmitted by minuscule droplets.

What I have noticed is that Rancourt is wedded to the evidence, and he is unafraid to make known his conclusion even though it goes against the mainstream consensus. His article, " Masks Don't Work: A review of science relevant to COVID-19 social policy ," is Rancourt at his iconoclastic finest. He concludes,

No RCT [randomized control trial] study with verified outcome shows a benefit for HCW [health care workers] or community members in households to wearing a mask or respirator. There is no such study. There are no exceptions.

The virions are super tiny, tinier than the pores in the respirators. Rancourt writes,

if anything gets through (and it always does, irrespective of the mask), then you are going to be infected. Masks cannot possibly work. It is not surprising, therefore, that no bias-free study has ever found a benefit from wearing a mask or respirator in this application.

Rancourt's article is fascinating and anyone curious abut the efficacy of masks should read it.

*****

Kim Petersen : Recently, American vice-president Mike Pence was criticized for walking around the Mayo clinic accompanied by mask-wearing staff although he did not wear a mask. He excused his refusal to don a mask based on the frequent testing he undergoes, so presumably he would not be a danger to others. Given what the science reveals on mask wearing, how do you view the reaction to Pence's refusal to wear a mask?

Denis Rancourt : In my article " Masks Don't Work: A review of science relevant to COVID-19 social policy ", I show that there have been many randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and meta-analyses of RCTs, which were designed to detect any benefit from wearing a mask, in terms of reducing the risk of being infected by a viral respiratory disease.

In the many studies, in which the known bias of self-reporting is eliminated by using laboratory-confirmed infection detection, no statistically meaningful advantage is ever found, in either health-care or community settings, with either surgical masks or N95 respirators. No study, and there have been many, has been able to establish any advantage of wearing a mask or respirator, with viral respiratory diseases.

This means that, even in controlled professional health-care settings, any benefit is too small to be detected by science, and that other factors must be overwhelmingly more important.

Regarding all viral respiratory diseases -- which are both known to be transmitted by small aerosol particles (i.e., "droplets" of less than a few microns in diameter) and known to be highly infectious in terms of the so-called minimum-infective-dose (i.e., the number of virions that will likely be sufficient to cause illness or detectable infection) -- in plain language, this means "masks don't work". (A "virion" is a single virus unit, the RNA and its shell.)

Therefore, any societal debate about the virtue or responsibility of wearing a mask to reduce the risk of infection, whether it involves Pence or anyone else, is occurring in a science vacuum. It is a political and psychological debate, not one that is science-based.

Likewise, no unbiased RCT has ever shown any advantage for a confirmed-infected person to be less likely to transmit a viral-respiratory-disease infection to susceptible (i.e., not immune) persons if the infected person wears a mask.

Studies that show that cough and sneeze droplets are physically intercepted by masks are irrelevant in this regard, because they do not represent the reality of actual person to person transmission, nor do they measure actual transmission.

In my article, which has been read more than 70 K times on Research Gate, I also review what is known about the physics and biology of transmission of this class of diseases. I argue that, on this basis, one should not expect masks to work. Likewise, if masks cannot stop inward transmission (into the lung), then, by the same physics, they cannot stop outward transmission.

However, it is important to distinguish a RCT that evaluates risk of actual person-to-person transmission of confirmed infection, as one class of study, and the necessarily simplistic arguments based on hypothetical scenarios using physics and biology. And the "masks intercept droplets" studies are useless in the relevant context. Masks intended to stop a surgeon's spit from impacting an incision area are a completely different question.

Coming back to Pence, a face mask is a powerful psychological symbol of submission (to both the invisible disease and any State policy directives), such that it is understandable that many political leaders would not want to wear masks in front of media cameras.

KP : You write that there has been no randomized controlled trial that shows a benefit for anyone (doctors, nurses, regular folks, et al.) wearing a mask or respirator. The reason proffered is because the mask/respirator material is too porous for virion particles. The N95 respirator blocks at least 95 percent of very small (0.3 μm) test particles, but the virion particles (from 0.06 μm to 0.14 μm) (See Na Zhu et al., " A Novel Coronavirus from Patients with Pneumonia in China ," 20 February 2020, NEJM, 382:727-733.) can pass through.

I am trying to visualize this on a larger scale. If I kick a soccer ball at a chain-link fence, all soccer balls will be blocked. But if I throw a handful of sand at the chain-link fence, almost all grains of sand will pass through. Is this an apt analogy for the mask and the virion?

DR : The many RCTs show no statistically valid benefit from wearing a mask or N95 respirator, and show no differences in RCT comparisons between surgical masks and N95 respirators, regarding risk of infection from this class of diseases. That is a separate question from any hypothetical mechanistic explanation as to why any benefit from wearing a mask would be so small as to be undetected. In other words, that masks don't work must be discerned from the question of why masks don't work. The former is a scientific outcome of the studies, irrespective of what we believe or infer about the latter.

Nonetheless, regarding a discussion of the hypothetical mechanisms, one can say the following things:

Thus, it is not difficult to conclude that mask and respirators should not work, even leaving out the complex particle-mask-material interactions that can occur, mask aging and wear considerations, and so on.

KP : You cite possible harm from dictates requiring the wearing of masks. Could you elaborate?

DR : My answer is in two parts. First, there is potential medical harm to the individual from the wearing of a mask. Second, there is societal and psychological harm from being forced to wear a mask in public.

In one large RCT in Japanese health centers, health-care workers who wore respirators suffered significantly more headaches than the cohort of workers who did not wear respirators. This was a statistically significant outcome. Furthermore, professional health-care workers self-report significant discomfort from wearing respirators, and therefore often adjust them or remove them, contrary to protocol. If healthcare workers, in circumstances in which there is no scientific basis for wearing respirators, suffer headaches and discomfort, then this can only negatively impact the intended health care.

More broadly, the potential health hazards of population-scale extended personal mask use have not been studied. Potential health hazards include such factors as:

Such factors have not been studied, yet population-scale policies of extended mask-wearing are being implemented.

From a societal perspective, what are the consequences of government coercion ("education" and enforcement) to wear masks in public, given that there is no scientific basis for any benefit from mask wearing, in terms of reducing the risk of being infected by a viral respiratory disease?

How is this not an arbitrary application of power, which directly infringes or denies personal freedom? What are the long-term consequences of habituation to arbitrarily applied violations of personal freedom?

The recent scientific study of Hickey and Davidsen (2019) (" Self-organization and time-stability of social hierarchies ") in my view provides a theoretical foundation that such habituation to arbitrarily applied power is part of a progressive degradation towards an extreme totalitarian state, depending on the degree of authoritarianism (whether contestation is effective) and the degree of violence (magnitude of the penalty for disobeying).

We should rollback arbitrary State powers. I would say: If an individual evaluates or believes that a mask constitutes health or privacy or religious protection in public, then the individual should be free to wear a mask, but how can forcing all individuals to wear masks be justified, beyond government pronouncements? Security cannot be based on arbitrarily forced behaviour of everyone. This is the classic recipe for totalitarian rule.

In fact, the present case of pandemic mask laws or policies is a case where a health pretext and stoked fear are being exploited by governments, in a globalized corporate environment in which there are billions to be made from vaccines and other treatments, and where legal liabilities for the treatments have largely been socialized. Regular vaccination, for diseases that have always been kept in check by the human immune system, are a hard method of creating dependence on the State, involving seasonal violations of bodily integrity, which could become forced.

KP : You point a finger at governments, monopoly media, and institutional propagandists for deciding "to operate in a science vacuum, or select only incomplete science that serves their interests." Which institutional propagandists do you refer to?

DR : The main institutional propagandists here are the arms and legs of the pharma-medical complex, from the WHO and CDC, through the medical schools, to every hospital, research laboratory, clinic, community health center, and doctor's office. The medical establishment is a major network of the high-priests that structure and control modern society. In their book, "health" is a dependence on the health system, not healthy living conditions, contrary to all the science regarding the determinants of public health. I mean, Pharma and medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the Western world, after heart disease and cancer, and that is not a "pandemic"? It is not even on the radar, except in specialized conferences and journals.

As another example of institutional and professional alignment with top-down directives and recommendations, John Ioannidis showed in 2005 (" Why Most Published Research Findings Are False ") that most of the scientific research that finds marginal benefits for expensive and dangerous treatments is incorrect.

In the case of the on-going COVID-19 saga, several top researchers and experts have broken rank, and these professionals have been profiled in a series of three articles in Off-Guardian , for example. Generally, these contrarians who insist on practicing science, have been avoided by the mainstream media, and have had to be featured in the alternative media, and on YouTube. John Ioannidis and Knut Wittkowski are just two of the names that stand out for me.

KP : Given that the conclusion of your review of meta-analyses is accurate, why would so many health care professionals, who presumably have been trained in evidence-based practice, disregard the absence of evidence for the efficacy of masks and respirators?

DR : It is a myth that medicine is an evidence-based practice. This myth is propagated by the medical establishment. It has never been the case in the history of medicine, and it is not the case today. In practice, medicine is whatever the profession can get away with and profit from.

From a political perspective, the public-relations statement about being "science-based" is a propagandist mantra applied in training those initiated into the profession. It is designed to deliver legitimacy in the public's mind and among other professions, and means that the profession will attack, destroy or capture competitors that are not in the profession, such as homeopaths, nutritionists, acupuncturists, chiropractors, psychologists, councillors, life coaches, etc.

There is a large litigation record of this reality. If you litigate against or attempt to discipline an MD or a medical specialist for a practice that is not science based, then you find that the in-court or administrative-tribunal argument will never be about the science itself or whether a scientific basis exists. None of the actual medical researchers will be called as expert witnesses, and they would be seen as irrelevant and thus inadmissible. Instead, a complete defence will be based on whether or not the hired expert witnesses for the defendant will be of the opinion that the impugned practice is within the spectrum of actual practice in the field, irrespective of whether there is a scientific basis. In order to win, you will need to prove that the impugned act or practice is egregiously contrary to what is generally done or officially recommended by a certifying body; again, irrespective of any scientific-basis consideration. "Scientific basis" is given lip service, nothing more.

For example, when a drug or procedure is convincingly and unavoidably proven to be unacceptably harmful after being put into practice, and this harm is reported in the mainstream media, and there is organized public outcry, then the practice is changed but no practitioners are ever found to have been at fault. This means that the practitioners are not responsible to evaluate and establish a scientific basis for their prescriptions and treatments. They are only bound to do what one does in the profession. If mechanical ventilators are the treatment for critical COVID-19 patients, then we kill those patients with those mechanical ventilators until the proverbial shit hits the fan (" New study finds nearly all coronavirus patients put on ventilators died ," The Hill , 23 April 2020).

The history, to this day, of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is exhibit-one regarding the extent to which medical practice is distinct from any scientific basis. The said Manual is the pseudo-scientific organizational pretext for a large pharmaceutical project of managing the mind, which relies on heavy-handed "precautionary" prescriptions, made by any army of medical practitioners. For example, see Gary Greenberg (2013) ( The Book of WOE: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry ).

I could go on for days. Coming back to the masks, medical commentators, like politicians, will say whatever seems advantageous at the time, in terms of propping up their own legitimacy and popularity, and in terms of avoiding public-perception liability. If it is politically risky to recommend masks, then masks are out, and there is no evidence that they work. If it becomes risky to go against masks, then masks are in, and we must all do our part to protect those who are most vulnerable, etc.

KP : Since there is evidence that viruses flourish during dry periods, might the use of a humidifier be a recommended preventative measure during seasons when humidity is low?

DR : There is conclusive evidence that viral respiratory diseases and flu-like diseases predominantly propagate via small aerosol particles, which are stabilized in dry air, and that this is why these diseases are seasonal in mid-latitude regions. The reproduction number, R 0 , can vary four-fold during a season, in accordance with absolute humidity of the atmosphere. This oft-confirmed discovery was initiated with the landmark work of Shaman et al . (2010) .

Closed buildings such as hospitals, residences for the elderly, and day-care centers are proven to have large densities of virion-laden aerosol particles suspended in the air, in the dry season. In addition, air-flow has been shown to play a role regarding transmission, in restaurants and airplanes.

Therefore, it is not unreasonable to examine the use of controlled absolute humidity, and air-flow management in critical facilities housing many persons at risk of severe complications if infected. A high humidity would in-principle draw-out virtually all the aerosol particles, by condensation, particle growth, and gravitational removal. In principle, what was an environment of high-density of aerosol particles, would become an environment of low-density of aerosol particles. Only a true RCT comparative study, with laboratory-confirmed infection determinations, could demonstrate whether such measures can be effective.

Kim Petersen is a former co-editor of the Dissident Voice newsletter. He can be reached at: [email protected] . Twitter: @kimpetersen . Read other articles by Kim .

This article was posted on Friday, May 8th, 2020 at 9:56am and is filed under COVID-19 (coronavirus) , Interview , Science/Technology .

[May 10, 2020] There is an evidence of Dr Fauci's involvement and Gates Foundation vaccine program problems in India and Kenya

May 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

PJB , May 6 2020 20:25 utc | 100

Montreal @67

...The evidence of Dr Fauci's involvement and Gates Foundation vaccine program problems in India and Kenya - both of which are well documented.

I also expressed concern about the patent for bio-monitoring and Bill Gates call for digital passports.

[May 10, 2020] Neil Ferguson was caught admitting that he regards his entire agenda as nothing but a Big Lie

May 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Russ , May 8 2020 19:24 utc | 11

Literally every human concern - every social, psychological, spiritual concern; every political, constitutional, rule-of-law concern; every concern of human and civil rights, civil liberties, human freedom; every concern of children's healthy development; and literally every health concern except for this flu - have been eradicated from the propaganda and evidently from the minds of the police-statists.

Their minds have been scoured clean of literally every thought except for a threadbare fanatical obsession with quantity of life (an obsession they pursue in defiance of all the evidence; their lockdowns don't work even according to their own terms, let alone according to the terms of ecology, biodiversity, sound epidemiology; even their arch-ideologue and high priest Neil Ferguson was caught admitting that he regards his entire agenda as nothing but a Big Lie), and a grossly reductive notion of "opening the economy", which they deploy in order to slander the rapidly increasing number of people who are questioning, criticizing, and rejecting the lockdowns for a vast diversity of reasons I only briefly surveyed above.

The fact that the police-statists are utterly unwilling to meet any of these concerns except for the economic, and are willing to meet that one only in the most reductive, fraudulent, slanderous way which expresses total contempt for the vast numbers of people being economically destroyed beyond any hope of recovery (which is a major purpose and goal of the terror campaign and lockdowns), says it all about the total bankruptcy of their position. As in every other case, police-state authoritarianism has nothing but brute thug force, including in its ideas.

[May 10, 2020] On initial Fauci pushing of Ferguson estimates of COVID-19 mortality. He should have known better as Ferguson track record was already well known

May 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Ken Garoo , May 10 2020 1:21 utc | 44

As an aside, here are the batting averages of Neil 'lockdown for you but not me' Ferguson.

https://off-guardian.org/2020/05/09/who-controls-the-british-government-response-to-covid-19/

2001 His predictions on the Foot & Mouth Epidemic led to the needless 'voluntary' slaughter of 12 million animals. This in turn led to countless bankruptcies and suicides amongst small farmers. It also helped accelarate the concentration of farming into the hands of Big Farmer.

2002 He predicted 'up to' 50,000 would die from aka variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease aka 'Margaret Thatcher disease'. The total from 1990 to 2017 was actually 178.

2005 He predicted 'up to' 200 million people worldwide would be killed by H5N1 aka 'bird flu'. By 2006, WHO had reported 78 definite fatalities out of 147 eported cases.

2009 He predicted 'up to' 65,000 deaths in the UK from H1N1 aka 'swine flu'. In reality, 457 died from it in the UK.

2020 He predicted 'up to' 500,000 deaths in the UK (and 2.2 million in the US) from Covid-19, used by the UK government to justify the lockdown. UK to date ~31,000 (probably ~85% exhibiting multiple comorbidities and dying 'with' Covid-19 rather than 'from' it). Still it is early days, and ignoring the new death rate has been decreasing since ~ April 15, give it another 4 years and we will be there!

So his score is 0 out of 5. Truly impressive.

The underlying question remains, why did the UK government take his advice when he has been proven grossly wrong time after time?


[May 10, 2020] Was flattening the curve really nessesary or this was just Fauci hallucination?

It looks like Fauci is a political hack. But that not all. He also helped to deepen the current recession.
Notable quotes:
"... Perhaps one way to help see through the professional obfuscation, and identify just exactly how political Dr. Fauci is, would be to: compare and contrast Dr. Fauci under President Obama in September 2009 after 3,000 to 4,000 H1N1 deaths in the USA -vs- Dr. Fauci under President Trump in March 2020 after 200 to 300 COVID-19 deaths. ..."
May 10, 2020 | theconservativetreehouse.com

Perhaps one way to help see through the professional obfuscation, and identify just exactly how political Dr. Fauci is, would be to: compare and contrast Dr. Fauci under President Obama in September 2009 after 3,000 to 4,000 H1N1 deaths in the USA -vs- Dr. Fauci under President Trump in March 2020 after 200 to 300 COVID-19 deaths. WATCH:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/hsXEgJqR_vY?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

.

Now, to better absorb the information . According to the CDC final estimate of 2009 U.S. H1N1 cases ( published in 2011 ): from April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010 approximately 60.8 million U.S. cases, 274,304 U.S. hospitalizations, and 12,469 U.S. deaths occurred due to H1N1. That's the empirical data.

The concept of "flattening" the virus curve; the presumptive reason for social distancing and shutting down the U.S. economy; is based on a theory to extend the spread of COVID-19 to a lesser incident rate over a longer duration, thereby lessening the burden on the U.S. healthcare system. Hence, 'flatten' the spike in infections.

Put another way: "Flattening" means the same number of people eventually contract the virus, only they do so over a longer period of time, and the healthcare system can treat everyone because the numbers do not rise to level where the system is overloaded. In theory that seems to make sense.

However, no-one is asking: what is the current stress level on the healthcare system right now? Where are we in that capacity? and what is normal capacity level during a high-level flu outbreak? and Where are we when compared against that baseline?

♦ Remember in 2009 there were over 61 million cases of H1N1, more than 274,000 hospitalizations and 12,469 additional deaths specifically attributed to that strain of flu virus in the U.S. [ DATA HERE ]

The premise to extend the virus duration in an effort to lower the infection rate and spread the virus over a longer period of time needs to measured against: (a) where the healthcare system is at any given moment; and (b) under traditional high-flu seasons where are we during those historic events.

♦ STRESS LEVEL – The healthcare 'system' per se, is expending an awful lot of time on mitigation efforts. As Dr. Birx noted: the current negative test rate for coronavirus among those showing symptoms who are tested is 94 to 98 percent. That means of all the people taking coronavirus tests, 94/98 out of 100 are symptomatic (they are sick) but they are not infected with coronavirus. They are normal flu cases.

Our healthcare "system" is expending an incredible amount of resources on a mitigation effort. According to Dr. Birx and the current U.S. test results, 94 to 98 percent of those mitigation efforts are not engaging with coronavirus. They are dealing with regular flu (perhaps a strong flu).

If you extract the mitigation effort from the overall effort, the current stress level on the healthcare system doesn't seem to be overwhelming. What is stressing the system is a coronavirus mitigation effort with a rate of 94 to 98 percent testing negative.

♦ Dr. Fauci's theory is self-fulfilling .

If the viral spread never exceeds the capacity of the healthcare system to deal with it, he can claim success. Look, our flattened curve worked.

However, when contrast against flu outbreaks, no-one knows what the COVID-19 capacity threshold is within the healthcare system. There's no way to disprove Fauci's theory.

Given the nature of the baseline for overall U.S. sanitation and hygiene, which is significantly higher than Italy, S-Korea and China; and given the higher standards of food safety (U.S. is the world leader); again significantly higher than Italy, S-Korea and China; and given the nature of the U.S. healthcare system (more capacity per person); is it really a fair comparison to overlay a COVID-19 outbreak, without also overlaying a traditional flu outbreak?

Any theory that cannot be scientifically tested; and is simultaneously self-fulfilling; is, by its nature, a false theory.

This is not to say that Dr. Anthony Fauci is intentionally misleading anyone; however, it is absolutely true that no-one will be able to quantify if trillions of dollars of economic wealth lost; and trillions more in economic activity lost; and trillions more in deficit spending; and that might all be done just to follow the fantastical whims of a doctor who is directing the mitigation of an ordinary flu-virus/season, and appears to be quite full of his own sense of self-importance.

You decide .

I think I already have.

[May 09, 2020] Is Fauci corrupt? The story of Remdesevir approval suggest that YES.

Does Dr Fauci enjoy indirect financial ties to Gilead? Does he own the stock?
Notable quotes:
"... Basically, this was a negative trial. Of the 255 patients screened, 237 met the eligibility criteria, and 158 were assigned to the remdesivir group, with 79 assigned to placebo control. Unfortunately, remdesivir treatment was not associated with a shorter time to clinical improvement, and mortality was not different between the two groups. ..."
"... It does look very fishy to me. Endpoint or outcome switching, particularly late in a clinical trial is a huge red flag. ..."
"... There are also other reasons to question this trial, including how no confidence intervals were reported, that not even an abstract was published, just a press release with, as Heathers put it, "two results in four lines": ..."
"... I remain very suspicious that the NIH study was announced the same day that a negative study out of China of remdesivir was published. It just seems too convenient. Maybe I'm being overly suspicious. Maybe I'm too suspicious. Maybe I'm falling prey to conspiracy mongering. However, in the Trump era, when the Trump administration has politicized previously (mostly) apolitical government agencies as never before, it's hard not to wonder. ..."
"... He was unimpressed by remdesivir's modest benefit. "It was expected to be a whopping effect," Topol added. "It clearly does not have that." ..."
"... Indeed, given that the pre-test probability of remdesivir having a significant effect was low, meaning that this trial is probably just noise: ..."
"... But Gilead will make billions and billions of dollars ..."
"... Could Anthony Fauci explain why the investigators of the NIAID remdesivir trial did change the primary outcome during the course of the project (16th April)? Removing "death" from primary outcome is a surprising decision. ..."
"... The most common adverse effects in studies of remdesivir for COVID-19 include respiratory failure and blood biomarkers of organ impairment, including low albumin, low potassium, low count of red blood cells, low count of platelets that help with clotting, and yellow discoloration of the skin. Other reported side effects include gastrointestinal distress, elevated transaminase levels in the blood (liver enzymes), and infusion site reactions. ..."
"... So, if it does shorten duration, is it worth potential liver damage, respiratory failure and organ impairment? In other words is the cure potentially as bad as the disease. ..."
"... For yet another drug that was supposed to be a game changer, I am unimpressed by its results. The whole mechanism is wrong. A drug with this mechanism would need to be almost a prophylactic for it to be hugely effective. ..."
"... Fauci didn't seem to have any problem cautioning against unwarranted optimism for CQ/HCQ even while DJT was championing the stuff. What is different about this? . ..."
"... So, what did Fauci say about chloroquine? ""We've got to be careful that we don't make that majestic leap to assume that this is a knockout drug. We still need to do the kinds of studies that definitely prove whether any intervention is truly safe and effective," Fauci, who is also a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said during an interview on "Fox & Friends. . . "We don't operate on how you feel, we operate on what evidence and data is," Fauci said, adding that it was "not a very robust study" or "overwhelmingly strong."" (Concha, 2020 Apr 3) ..."
"... Now, what did he say about Remdesivir: "Speaking to reporters from the White House, Fauci said he was told data from the trial showed a "clear-cut positive effect in diminishing time to recover." Fauci said the median time of recovery for patients taking the drug was 11 days, compared with 15 days in the placebo group. He said the mortality benefit of remdesivir "has not yet reached statistical significance." ..."
"... Disappointingly, the lock down seems to have made a number of people irrational. Just a quick post to expound on my Fauci post for those who see the world as binary – ie: black or white. These people think you either support Fauci 100% or 0% and a single criticism of any Fauci statement means 0% support of Fauci. I do not happen to worship at the altar of Fauci or any scientist and recognize all are subject to errors – including myself. I view the world in a more nuanced manner than those with the black/white delusion. I find I can disagree with some things a person says or stands for and agree with some other things they say or do. ..."
"... I am of the opinion that Fauci made a mistake here. The evidence for Remdesiver is nowhere near good enough for it to become the standard of care. ..."
"... On the other hand, watching the White House performance from afar, I can see the administration is dysfunctional and is run by a narcissistic bully, who will publicly turn on anyone who disagrees with them. ..."
"... I believe that is the main thrust of this Orac article – that the evidence for Remdesiver efficacy is sorely lacking. ..."
May 09, 2020 | respectfulinsolence.com
Remdesivir: Gilead wins with unimpressive results announced by press release On Wednesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci announced positive results for the antiviral drug remdesivir treating COVID-19. They were unimpressive and, suspiciously, announced by press release rather than scientific paper. It's all very fishy, but one thing's for sure. Gilead Sciences will make boatloads of money. I've been writing a lot about the unjustified and premature hype over hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug with mild immunosuppressive activity that is also used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases and how the drug probably doesn't work against COVID-19, despite its being hyped by President Trump and his sycophants, toadies, and lackeys on Fox News, Dr. Mehmet Oz , Dr. Phil , Dr. Didier Raoult , and a bevy of irresponsible fame seeking doctors who have no idea how to do a proper clinical study.

There are, however, other drugs being hyped out there, drugs that might actually have a better chance of turning out to be effective treatments for COVID-19. Chief among these is remdesivir, the experimental antiviral drug being tested by Gilead Sciences.

Remdesivir is an adenosine (a nucleotide) analog that inhibits viral RNA polymerases. It is incorporated into RNA made by the virus, causing the premature termination of the RNA molecule, thus interfering with viral replication. The drug was originally developed to treat Ebola and Marburg but was ultimately found to be ineffective against these viruses . Because it inhibits the replication of a number of RNA viruses, it was only natural that it would be considered as a possible treatment for COVID-19, and Gilead has been relentlessly promoting it as such as the company has been working to carry out clinical trials.

What prompted me to write about remdesivir were headlines like Dr. Anthony Fauci says Gilead's remdesivir will set a new 'standard of care' for coronavirus treatment that started popping up on Wednesday afternoon:

White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday that data from a coronavirus drug trial testing Gilead Sciences' antiviral drug remdesivir showed "quite good news" and sets a new standard of care for Covid-19 patients.

Speaking to reporters from the White House, Fauci said he was told data from the trial showed a "clear-cut positive effect in diminishing time to recover."

Fauci said the median time of recovery for patients taking the drug was 11 days, compared with 15 days in the placebo group. He said the mortality benefit of remdesivir "has not yet reached statistical significance."

The results suggested a survival benefit, with a mortality rate of 8% for the group receiving remdesivir versus 11.6% for the placebo group, according to a statement from the National Institutes of Health released later Wednesday.

"This will be the standard of care," Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, added. "When you know a drug works, you have to let people in the placebo group know so they can take it."

My skeptical antennae started twitching immediately, because on the same day a study from China was published in The Lancet that was far less impressive. In fact, it was a negative trial. What also got my skeptical antennae all aflutter twitching away was how the results of the remdesivir trial were announced. Normally, when a study is announced to the press, it's upon publication of the paper, and the press release is issued either the same day or the evening before publication. As of last night, as I wrote this, however, the actual paper reporting the results of the clinical trial had not yet been published. As I perused Twitter on Wednesday, I found even more reasons for skepticism.

So, before I get to the study touted by Dr. Fauci, let's review some history.

Remdesivir: The early days versus COVID-19 (like, you know, three weeks ago)

The first data published on remdesivir was a single-arm uncontrolled trial that somehow got published three weeks ago in The New England Journal of Medicine . This was peak COVID-19 publishing, when an uncontrolled case series of patients with severe COVID-19 treated with remdesivir under compassionate was published in a super high impact journal like NEJM and made headlines as a result. Be that as it may, the case series examined 61 patients with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection who had an oxygen saturation of 94% or less while they were breathing room air or who were receiving oxygen support. They received a 10-day course of remdesivir, consisting of 200 mg given intravenously on day 1, followed by 100 mg daily for the remaining 9 days of treatment. (Remdesivir is an intravenous drug.) The authors reported clinical improvement in 68% of evaluable patients:

Of the 61 patients who received at least one dose of remdesivir, data from 8 could not be analyzed (including 7 patients with no post-treatment data and 1 with a dosing error). Of the 53 patients whose data were analyzed, 22 were in the United States, 22 in Europe or Canada, and 9 in Japan. At baseline, 30 patients (57%) were receiving mechanical ventilation and 4 (8%) were receiving extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. During a median follow-up of 18 days, 36 patients (68%) had an improvement in oxygen-support class, including 17 of 30 patients (57%) receiving mechanical ventilation who were extubated. A total of 25 patients (47%) were discharged, and 7 patients (13%) died; mortality was 18% (6 of 34) among patients receiving invasive ventilation and 5% (1 of 19) among those not receiving invasive ventilation.

The case series also did not collect viral load data to confirm potential antiviral activity in humans or any association between declines in viral load and clinical improvement. Basically, when you get right down to it, this study was not really much better than Didier Raoult's crappy study of his hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin combination, but that didn't stop the authors from concluding that comparisons with contemporaneous cohorts "suggest that remdesivir may have clinical benefit in patients with severe Covid-19." In reality, like Raoult's trials, this trial said nothing about the efficacy of remdesivir against COVID-19 other than that the drug could be given to COVID-19 patients with a reasonable safety profile.

Less than week later, as related by Derek Lowe , came news that two clinical trials of remdesivir in China, one for severe disease and one for moderate disease had been suspended. (They still are.) Lowe noted that both trials had the notice: "The epidemic of COVID-19 has been controlled well at present, no eligible patients can be recruited." The apparent explanation was "the stringent inclusion criteria for the trials – apparently patients had to have no previous therapy with any other experimental agent to enroll, and that eliminates a lot of people." Around the same time, Adam Feuerstein and Matthew Herper published a story in STAT, Early peek at data on Gilead coronavirus drug suggests patients are responding to treatment :

The University of Chicago Medicine recruited 125 people with Covid-19 into Gilead's two Phase 3 clinical trials. Of those people, 113 had severe disease. All the patients have been treated with daily infusions of remdesivir.

"The best news is that most of our patients have already been discharged, which is great. We've only had two patients perish," said Kathleen Mullane, the University of Chicago infectious disease specialist overseeing the remdesivir studies for the hospital.

Her comments were made this week during a video discussion about the trial results with other University of Chicago faculty members. The discussion was recorded and STAT obtained a copy of the video.

Derek Lowe discussed this story in depth, and I largely agree with him that the leak of the video to STAT was a serious breach of clinical trial ethics and protocol. (I'm not alone in suspecting that it was almost certainly intentional to jack up Gilead's stock price, a result that was achieved.) Lowe also noted:

But now that it's out there, let's talk about what's in the leak. Gilead stock jumped like a spawning salmon in after-market trading on this, and one of the reasons was that that 113 of the 125 patients were classed as having "severe disease". People ran with the idea that these must have been people on ventilators who were walking out of the hospital, but that is not the case. As AndyBiotech pointed out on Twitter, all you had to do was read the trial's exclusion criteria : patients were not even admitted into the trial if they were on mechanical ventilation. Some will have moved on to ventilation during the trial, but we don't know how many (the trial protocol has these in a separate group).

Note also that this trial is open-label; both doctors and patients know who is getting what, and note the really key point: there is no control arm. This is one of the trials mentioned in this post on small-molecule therapies as being the most likely to read out first, but it's always been clear that the tradeoff for that speed is rigor. The observational paper that was published on remdesivir in the NEJM had no controls either, of course, and that made it hard to interpret. Scratch that, it made it impossible to interpret. It will likely be the same with this trial – the comparison is between a five-day course of remdesivir and a ten-day course, and the primary endpoint is the odds ratio for improvement between the two groups.

Again, these data, such as they are, are no more useful than Didier Raoult's data on hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to treat COVID-19, but this brings us to the Chinese trial published in The Lancet on Wednesday.

The Chinese randomized clinical trial

The Chinese trial published two days ago is the first randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial of remdesivir to treat COVID-19, but it was also one of the studies halted. Eligible patients were adults admitted to the hospital with laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 whose symptoms had lasted less than 12 days before enrollment and who had an oxygen saturation on room air of 94% or less or a ratio of arterial oxygen partial pressure to fractional inspired oxygen of 300 mm Hg or less (another measure of hypoxia), and radiologically confirmed pneumonia.

Patients were randomly assigned in a 2:1 ratio to intravenous remdesivir at the same dose as the NIH trial touted by Dr. Fauci or the same volume of placebo infusions for 10 days and were permitted concomitant use of lopinavir–ritonavir, interferons, and corticosteroids. The primary endpoint was time to clinical improvement up to day 28, defined at the time from randomization to the point of a decline of two levels on a six-point ordinal scale of clinical status (from 1=discharged to 6=death) or discharged alive from hospital, whichever came first. An intention-to-treat analysis was carried out.

Basically, this was a negative trial. Of the 255 patients screened, 237 met the eligibility criteria, and 158 were assigned to the remdesivir group, with 79 assigned to placebo control. Unfortunately, remdesivir treatment was not associated with a shorter time to clinical improvement, and mortality was not different between the two groups. Subgroup analysis looking for hypotheses found that there was a trend towards a shorter duration of symptoms (not statistically significant) in patients treated with remdesivir who had had symptoms for less than ten days. Most disappointingly, there was no detectable difference in viral load between the remdesivir groups and the placebo controls. Again, basically this was a negative study with only the barest hint that remdesivir might -- I repeat, might -- work if administered earlier in the course of COVID-19. That's some pretty thin gruel.

Which brings us to the NIH trial of remdesivir touted by Anthony Fauci.

The NIH press release for its remdesivir trial.

The results of the NIH remdesivir trial can, unfortunately, only be gleaned from the press release and news stories so far:

For the first time, a major study suggests that an experimental drug works against the new coronavirus, and U.S. government officials said Wednesday that they would work to make it available to appropriate patients as quickly as possible.

In a study of 1,063 patients sick enough to be hospitalized, Gilead Sciences's remdesivir shortened the time to recovery by 31% -- 11 days on average versus 15 days for those just given usual care, officials said. The drug also might be reducing deaths, although that's not certain from the partial results revealed so far.

"What it has proven is that a drug can block this virus," the National Institutes of Health's Dr. Anthony Fauci said.

"This will be the standard of care," and any other potential treatments will now have to be tested against or in combination with remdesivir, he said.

Here is the press release , posted to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases website:

Hospitalized patients with advanced COVID-19 and lung involvement who received remdesivir recovered faster than similar patients who received placebo, according to a preliminary data analysis from a randomized, controlled trial involving 1063 patients, which began on February 21. The trial (known as the Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial, or ACTT), sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, is the first clinical trial launched in the United States to evaluate an experimental treatment for COVID-19.

An independent data and safety monitoring board (DSMB) overseeing the trial met on April 27 to review data and shared their interim analysis with the study team. Based upon their review of the data, they noted that remdesivir was better than placebo from the perspective of the primary endpoint, time to recovery, a metric often used in influenza trials. Recovery in this study was defined as being well enough for hospital discharge or returning to normal activity level.

Preliminary results indicate that patients who received remdesivir had a 31% faster time to recovery than those who received placebo (p<0.001). Specifically, the median time to recovery was 11 days for patients treated with remdesivir compared with 15 days for those who received placebo. Results also suggested a survival benefit, with a mortality rate of 8.0% for the group receiving remdesivir versus 11.6% for the placebo group (p=0.059).

More detailed information about the trial results, including more comprehensive data, will be available in a forthcoming report. As part of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's commitment to expediting the development and availability of potential COVID-19 treatments, the agency has been engaged in sustained and ongoing discussions with Gilead Sciences regarding making remdesivir available to patients as quickly as possible, as appropriate. The trial closed to new enrollments on April 19. NIAID will also provide an update on the plans for the ACTT trial moving forward. This trial was an adaptive trial designed to incorporate additional investigative treatments.

As you can see, the difference in mortality was not statistically significantly different, although that could just be because of inadequate numbers. It's also very important to note the part about the adaptive trial design of this trial, which puts Dr. Fauci's comment about how remdesivir will become the "standard of care" going forward into the proper context. In this particular trial , multiple different drugs can be compared to placebo or standard of care. The idea is that, if a signal of efficacy is found with one drug, that drug becomes "standard of care" and the trial is adapted to study how adding other experimental drugs compares to the "standard of care." So what Dr. Fauci meant was that, based on the finding, going forward remdesivir will become the "standard of care" arm for the trial and the experimental arm will become remdesivir plus another experimental therapeutic. However, given that the FDA is on the verge of issuing an emergency use authorization for remdesivir to treat COVID-19, it looks as though remdesivir will become standard-of-care in general soon.

But back to the results. Derek Lowe observed:

it's worth noting that had there been "clear and substantial evidence of a treatment difference" during the trial that the DSMB was to have halted the study at that point. We can infer that nothing rose to that level, then: we have a difference, but not substantial enough to have ended the trial prematurely.

It's also worth noting some things posted on Twitter about the trial. For instance, Waller Gellad noted:

Since NIH remdesivir trial is in the news

was there an explanation about why the primary outcome (now positive) was changed last month to 'time until clinical recovery?' @matthewherper https://t.co/fCTc1EGI1d pic.twitter.com/W1hAACnO1r

-- Walid Gellad, MD MPH (@walidgellad) April 29, 2020

It's very odd that the primary endpoint was changed:

Thread that summarizes my concerns with Remdesivir press release (not science) as well.

Changing the endpoint midtrial this way is like hosting a race for one destination then declaring wherever you end up after running for an hour is the finish line. https://t.co/XMUXYW3njp

-- Mark Hoofnagle (@MarkHoofnagle) April 30, 2020

This long Twitter thread explains:

Here's Fauci talking about it. Give him a listen, sharpen your ears at about 0.30.

"The primary endpoint was the time to recovery, namely the ability to be discharged."

He's right, it was.

On April 16th. https://t.co/U6Cx3XSOJ6

-- 🏴James Heathers 🏴 (@jamesheathers) April 30, 2020

I'll summarize, so that you don't have to scroll through a Twitter thread if you don't want to. As James Heathers and Waller Gellad noted, the original primary outcome of the trial when it was registered on March 20. The original primary endpoint of the trial was an 8-point severity scale (death, on ventilator, hospitalized with oxygen, all the way down to discharged with no limits on activity) but was changed to time to recovery. There's still a similar scale for the secondary endpoints, but no numbers for that were reported. (Any bets on whether the results are negative?) This change was apparently made on or around April 16.

Gellad also notes:

last thing:
Here is the results table for the negative lancet trial of remdesivir. The highlighted results are what the primary outcome for the NIH trial was until 2 weeks ago. https://t.co/niQ65zgLF2

We need to see that outcome, in addition to time until recovery. pic.twitter.com/ptXGhPx13N

-- Walid Gellad, MD MPH (@walidgellad) April 30, 2020

It does look very fishy to me. Endpoint or outcome switching, particularly late in a clinical trial is a huge red flag. Don't get me wrong. There can be legitimate scientific reasons to switch primary endpoints of a trial. as James Heathers puts it:

Sometimes it becomes clear after you start that the registration is incomplete or wrong. Sometimes you have a better idea after you start. Sometimes your thinking changes.

Other times, you're trying to cherry-pick the results.

-- James Heathers 🏴 (@jamesheathers) April 30, 2020

There are also other reasons to question this trial, including how no confidence intervals were reported, that not even an abstract was published, just a press release with, as Heathers put it, "two results in four lines":

(2) the results in the press release. I call this 'two results, four sentences' – press releases describe the results in incredibly brief terms, usually the two most positive outcomes w the briefest explanation possible. He's me bitching about it earlier. https://t.co/FQlaAQaytG

-- James Heathers 🏴 (@jamesheathers) April 30, 2020

Basically, if you have two "good" results and twenty "bad" or uninterpretable results, what do you do? What are you going to tell people? The two "good" results, of course!

Gary Schwitzer has a nice summary of the negative reactions to the trial and how it was announced.

The bottom line

I remain very suspicious that the NIH study was announced the same day that a negative study out of China of remdesivir was published. It just seems too convenient. Maybe I'm being overly suspicious. Maybe I'm too suspicious. Maybe I'm falling prey to conspiracy mongering. However, in the Trump era, when the Trump administration has politicized previously (mostly) apolitical government agencies as never before, it's hard not to wonder.

Adding to my suspicion is the fact that the study was reported in a press release, rather than being published, which makes me wonder if the press release was written to counter the negative study from China that would certainly have tanked Gilead's stock prices. Yes, I know that the press release reported that this decis, apparently the announcement was decided upon after April 27 meeting of the data and safety monitoring board overseeing this trial, but the outcome switching so late in the trial makes me very suspicious. Yes, the explanation, which should have been in the press release, along with an acknowledgment that the primary outcome/endpoint had been changed, but wasn't is not unreasonable:

NIAID explains why endpoint of remdesivir trial was changed: pic.twitter.com/Zpl08nd4PL

-- Meg Tirrell (@megtirrell) April 30, 2020

Then there was this news report in which Fauci claimed that concerns about leaks fueled the announcement:

He expressed concern that leaks of partial information would lead to confusion. Since the White House was not planning a daily virus briefing, Fauci said he was invited to release the news at a news conference with Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards(D). "It was purely driven by ethical concerns," Fauci told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"I would love to wait to present it at a scientific meeting, but it's just not in the cards when you have a situation where the ethical concern about getting the drug to people on placebo dominates the conversation."

An independent data safety and monitoring board, which had looked at the preliminary results of the NIAID trial, determined it had met its primary goal of reducing hospital stays.

On Tuesday evening, that information was conveyed in a conference call to scientists studying the drug globally.

"There are literally dozens and dozens of investigators around the world," Fauci said. "People were starting to leak it." But he did not give details of where the unreported data was being shared.

I smell bullshit here. What probably really happened is that he was under enormous pressure to release the results. It was also unwise to discuss the results with so many scientists until the manuscript reporting the results of the trial had at least been submitted for publication. I agree with the scientists who had "expected it [the trial data] to be presented simultaneously in a detailed news release, a briefing at a medical meeting or in a scientific journal, allowing researchers to review the data." I also agree with Dr. Eric Topol, referring to the Chinese RCT and this one:

"That's the only thing I'll hang my hat on, and that was negative," said Dr. Eric Topol, director and founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, California.

He was unimpressed by remdesivir's modest benefit. "It was expected to be a whopping effect," Topol added. "It clearly does not have that."

Indeed, given that the pre-test probability of remdesivir having a significant effect was low, meaning that this trial is probably just noise:

Unfortunately, by the time you are symptomatic with a virus, you are usually already high/peak viral load. So, when you give an antiviral to someone who is already ill, the damage from the virus is largely done. It's there in big numbers and in the cells.

-- Mark Hoofnagle (@MarkHoofnagle) May 1, 2020

Indeed, I'm not only unimpressed with the modest benefit reported, I question whether there really was any benefit at all, particularly in light of the Chinese trial, which found zero difference in viral load in the remdesivir group.

The whole thing looks damned fishy, and we can't judge the study until it's actually published. Meanwhile, whatever the true reasons for releasing the study results this way, mission accomplished. The negative effect of the Chinese study on Gilead's stock price was successfully countered and remdesivir becomes a de facto standard of care for patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Worse, no further trials of remdesivir versus placebo will be possible, because it's been declared that remdesivir "works" against COVID-19 and is the new standard of care! As Mark Hoofnagle put it in a great Twitter thread, that echoes my thoughts:

By the end of the day, reports that FDA is going to emergently approve remdesivir for treatment of COVID.

Gilead gets what they want. No one will want to be in a control arm in further trials and they will argue all future trials must be noninferiority.

-- Mark Hoofnagle (@MarkHoofnagle) May 1, 2020

Absolute genius. You have to salute them. On the day a negative trial of their drug is reported, based on a press release they took over the news cycle, and with some midstream edits to their endpoints their now "positive" trial wins them FDA approval and a halted trial.

-- Mark Hoofnagle (@MarkHoofnagle) May 1, 2020

It's worse than that. If remdesivir is now the "standard of care" for hospitalized COVID-19 patients, it now becomes unethical to randomize them to a placebo group testing ANY new drug for COVID-19. Trials will now have to compare remdesivir alone to remdesivir plus experimental drug. We'll probably never know now for sure if remdesivir is truly effective against COVID-19.

But Gilead will make billions and billions of dollars.

Related The FDA's emergency use authorization of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19: Dangerous politics, not science

Yesterday, the FDA issued emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroqine and chloroquine to treat COVID-19. Politics, not science, is why.

By Orac Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski ...

John Kane says: May 2, 2020 at 8:52 am

In long twitter exchange mainly led by James Heathers, has anyone noticed that there are a series of tweets by Didier Raoult ?

One tweet reads:

Could Anthony Fauci explain why the investigators of the NIAID remdesivir trial did change the primary outcome during the course of the project (16th April)? Removing "death" from primary outcome is a surprising decision.

In a quick search of the web I found the following two:

WHAT ARE SIDE EFFECTS OF REMDESIVIR (RDV)?

In the Ebola trial, researchers noted side effects of remdesivir (RDV) that included:

Typical antiviral drug side effects include:

Nausea
Vomiting

Found at: https://www.rxlist.com/consumer_remdesivir_rdv/drugs-condition.htm

Side effects

The most common adverse effects in studies of remdesivir for COVID-19 include respiratory failure and blood biomarkers of organ impairment, including low albumin, low potassium, low count of red blood cells, low count of platelets that help with clotting, and yellow discoloration of the skin. Other reported side effects include gastrointestinal distress, elevated transaminase levels in the blood (liver enzymes), and infusion site reactions.

Other possible side effects of remdesivir include:

Infusion‐related reactions. Infusion‐related reactions have been seen during a remdesivir infusion or around the time remdesivir was given.[8] Signs and symptoms of infusion‐related reactions may include: low blood pressure, nausea, vomiting, sweating, and shivering.

Increases in levels of liver enzymes, seen in abnormal liver blood tests. Increases in levels of liver enzymes have been seen in people who have received remdesivir, which may be a sign of inflammation or damage to cells in the liver.

Found at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remdesivir

So, if it does shorten duration, is it worth potential liver damage, respiratory failure and organ impairment? In other words is the cure potentially as bad as the disease.

And, as Orac and many commenters have made more than clear, one more example of Trump's government, ignoring science, and jumping to conclusions.

And once more I suggest reading the following:

Jeanne Lenzer and Shannon Brownlee (April 28, 2020). Pandemic Science Out of Control. Issues in Science and Technology. Available at: https://issues.org/pandemic-science-out-of-control/

Joel A. Harrison, PhD, MPH says: May 2, 2020 at 7:05 pm
ADDENDUM

I found the following: "Particular laboratory features have also been associated with worse outcomes (table 2). These include: Elevated liver enzymes"

Found at: https://www.uptodate.com/contents/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19-epidemiology-virology-clinical-features-diagnosis-and-prevention?search=coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19- demiology-virology-clinical-features-diagnosis-and-prevention&source=search_result&selectedTitle=1~150&usage_type=default&display_rank=1

So, one of the side-effects has been associated with worse outcomes. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Remdesivir.

Chris Preston says: May 2, 2020 at 6:52 pm
For yet another drug that was supposed to be a game changer, I am unimpressed by its results. The whole mechanism is wrong. A drug with this mechanism would need to be almost a prophylactic for it to be hugely effective.
Tim says: May 3, 2020 at 11:33 am

One thing they discovered is that the proteins involved have zinc atoms incorporated into their structure. This won't surprise any biochemists, as zinc-containing proteins are common. But there's been a steady flow of fringe treatments for the disease -- including some involving chloroquine derivatives -- in which zinc was a key component. We'll have to see whether that changes now that it's clear that zinc is needed to make copies of the virus (assuming that fact registers at all with the people prone to promoting fringe therapies).

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/scientists-get-an-atomic-level-look-at-how-a-drug-blocks-the-coronavirus/

What is that saying about zinc? I've always heard that zinc was a good thing to have a high intracellular level of it to protect against viruses besides also being needed to make NO.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/nih-cuts-coronavirus-funding-amid-trump-comments-and-conspiracy-theories/

Joel A. Harrison, PhD, MPH says: May 4, 2020 at 1:11 pm
@ Reality

So: "Fauci just dropped down a level or two in my estimation of his commitment to rationality."

Let's look at the "Reality": "America needs a federal government that assertively promotes and helps to coordinate that, not one in which experts like Tony Fauci and Deborah Birx tiptoe around a president's tender ego."

I wouldn't want to be in Fauchi's shoes. If he openly criticizes Trump, he is out and staying in allows him to have some effect. Damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. So, he has to balance his "committment to rationality" to trying to modify/reduce the insanity of Trump. If he resigned or was fired, could he have more of an influence? Maybe, maybe not. I would not want to be in his shoes! ! ! Personally, I would probably resign and try to get our media to listen to me. Just standing next to Trump would turn my stomach.

So, maybe you should live up to your "name" and evaluate "reality" not an idealistic world.

Reality says: May 4, 2020 at 2:22 pm
So you wouldn't say what Fauci said and would quit, eh, Joel?
I wouldn't say what Fauci said about "standard of care" which is basically his endorsement of this.
I believe Orac wouldn't make that statement endorsing Remdesivir as the "standard of care".
I don't know of any self-respecting scientist who would make such a statement no matter what the pressure.
If I was pressured by DJT I would object but maybe agree to not make any statement pro or con about the subject – so as to keep my position and influence but if someone asked me to say something I thought was not true I would not do it and refuse.
.
Fauci didn't seem to have any problem cautioning against unwarranted optimism for CQ/HCQ even while DJT was championing the stuff. What is different about this?
.

That is the Reality of this Fauci statement.

A. Harrison, PhD, MPH says: May 4, 2020 at 4:31 pm
@ Reality

You write: "Fauci didn't seem to have any problem cautioning against unwarranted optimism for CQ/HCQ even while DJT was championing the stuff. What is different about this?"

Yep; but the only studies promoting CQ/HCQ was a fraudulent one in France and an in vitro study.

What about Remdesivir? First it is a nucleic acid analogue designed to directly disrupt replication of the viral genome. Chloroquine/Hydroxychloroquine were not even remotely designed to target viruses, though they have a moderate dampening effect on immune reactions, so they work for autoimmune diseases (e.g., lupus, rheumatoid arthritis); but, as I wrote in a previous exchange, the immune response in an autoimmune disease compared to a cytokine storm is like comparing 20 mile per hour winds to a category 5 hurricane, 160 mph winds. In addition, chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine have a large number of mild side-effects and some really serious major ones.

So, what did Fauci say about chloroquine? ""We've got to be careful that we don't make that majestic leap to assume that this is a knockout drug. We still need to do the kinds of studies that definitely prove whether any intervention is truly safe and effective," Fauci, who is also a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said during an interview on "Fox & Friends. . . "We don't operate on how you feel, we operate on what evidence and data is," Fauci said, adding that it was "not a very robust study" or "overwhelmingly strong."" (Concha, 2020 Apr 3)

Now, what did he say about Remdesivir: "Speaking to reporters from the White House, Fauci said he was told data from the trial showed a "clear-cut positive effect in diminishing time to recover." Fauci said the median time of recovery for patients taking the drug was 11 days, compared with 15 days in the placebo group. He said the mortality benefit of remdesivir "has not yet reached statistical significance."

The results suggested a survival benefit, with a mortality rate of 8% for the group receiving remdesivir versus 11.6% for the placebo group, according to a statement from the National Institutes of Health released later Wednesday. "This will be the standard of care," Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, added. "When you know a drug works, you have to let people in the placebo group know so they can take it." "What it has proven is a drug can block this virus," he said. (Lovelace, 2020 Apr 29)

"The data shows that remdesivir has a clear-cut, significant, positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery," Fauci said at the White House on Wednesday. The data he referred to is from a large study of more than 1,000 patients from multiple sites around the world. Patients either received the drug, called remdesivir, or a placebo.

Dr. Michael Saag, associate dean for global health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said the results seemed promising. Antiviral drugs such as remdesivir tend to work earlier in the course of an illness, so "the thing that I think is important in this study is the patients had advanced disease," said Saag, who is not involved with any remdesivir trials. (NBC News (2020 Apr 29)

Hospitalized patients with advanced COVID-19 and lung involvement who received remdesivir recovered faster than similar patients who received placebo, according to a preliminary data analysis from a randomized, controlled trial involving 1063 patients, which began on February 21. The trial (known as the Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial, or ACTT), sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, is the first clinical trial launched in the United States to evaluate an experimental treatment for COVID-19.

An independent data and safety monitoring board (DSMB) overseeing the trial met on April 27 to review data and shared their interim analysis with the study team. Based upon their review of the data, they noted that remdesivir was better than placebo from the perspective of the primary endpoint, time to recovery, a metric often used in influenza trials [my emphasis]. Recovery in this study was defined as being well enough for hospital discharge or returning to normal activity level. . .

Results also suggested a survival benefit, with a mortality rate of 8.0% for the group receiving remdesivir versus 11.6% for the placebo group (p=0.059). the group receiving remdesivir versus 11.6% for the placebo group (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (2020 Apr 29).

So, first I'd bet you don't understand how nucleic acid analogues work?
Second, though I tend not to rely on one study, this one was fairly large and the shortening of time to recovery was clinically significant, "defined as being well enough for hospital discharge or returning to normal activity level." And Dr. Michael Saag: "Antiviral drugs such as remdesivir tend to work earlier in the course of an illness, so "the thing that I think is important in this study is the patients had advanced disease,"

Standard of Care is more a legal definition than a clinical one. Basically it reduces risk of malpractice lawsuits.

While I probably would not have called it "standard of care", instead clearly stating that based on the recent trial, it is currently the best we have to offer or something to that effect.

So, Fauci didn't call it a cure, didn't claim it reduced mortality, though indications it did, and based on over 1,000 patients, found it reduced hospitalization and return to normal life by a clinically significant margin, the standard used for flu studies. Again, I would have been more cautious in my working; but your rank attack on a man who knows more about infectious diseases that you, I, and many others, a man who has dedicated his life to preventing and dealing with them is just plain sickening. Your black and white view of Fauci is how antivaccinationists and other adherers to unscience see the world. And an MPH probably means a couple of lower level epidemiology courses. So, the old saying: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, coupled with a personality that prefers a dichotomous world is very very problematic.

Only time and further studies will tell if Remdesivir really does shorten recovery time and, perhaps, also lowers mortality. Right now, we have nothing else and I wouldn't jump on something because of this; but the over 1,000 patient study isn't nothing.

Just to be clear, Orac's critique is valid; but, as he says, by this time one becomes perhaps overly skeptical given Trump's insanity. How cautious should Fauci have been? People are becoming desperate. The risks from Remdesivir are extremely low, so currently, either use it or continue as is.

If there were significant risks and the one study had been one a much smaller group, the scales would be different. And, though Orac is right they changed the outcome points, as mentioned, shortening of recovery time is a criterion used for treatment of flu, so, though not, perhaps, the best end-point, it is certainly not the same as some studies using endpoints such as lowered cholesterol without looking at deaths. They did look at deaths and though not significant, in the right direction. By the way, do you even understand significance levels? Though only one study, p=0.059 isn't far from p=0.05.

References:

Reality says: May 5, 2020 at 10:58 am
Disappointingly, the lock down seems to have made a number of people irrational. Just a quick post to expound on my Fauci post for those who see the world as binary – ie: black or white. These people think you either support Fauci 100% or 0% and a single criticism of any Fauci statement means 0% support of Fauci. I do not happen to worship at the altar of Fauci or any scientist and recognize all are subject to errors – including myself. I view the world in a more nuanced manner than those with the black/white delusion. I find I can disagree with some things a person says or stands for and agree with some other things they say or do.

My criticism of Fauci in regard to his remdesivir endorsement does not mean I have 0% support for Fauci it means that with that statement and some others my positive view of him is now ~80% but not 100% and I will have to check up on what he is endorsing to make sure that I agree with it just like I do with any other scientist/person.

BTW – If some were to check my Disqus account history (Reality022) you would find posts strongly defending Fauci against the Loony Libertarians who seem to think he is the debil.
.
Now to a second point:

There appears to be a group of Fauci apologists who, to excuse Fauci's statement, say it is due to 'pressure from Trump/the administration'.
I do not subscribe to this excuse and think it is a horrible thing to say for 2 reasons:

1) There is absolutely no evidence that this statement was made under pressure. That idea is totally invented in the minds of the Fauci apologists in their attempt to exonerate Fauci.

2) It is a horrible thing to say about Fauci. I take him at his word. If he said it he meant it. The excuse actually means that Fauci's word is so untrustworthy that he can be pressured into being dishonest about his scientific opinions and only the apologists can tell us when he is lying or actually relating his honest view. The apologists are basically saying Fauci is dishonest.

I have much more respect for the man and believe he is honest but in this case merely wrong.
.
That is all I'm going to say about this subject as some people are going off the rails with their binary view of the world. (snicker)

A. Harrison, PhD, MPH says: May 5, 2020 at 11:06 am

@ Reality

And you continue to miss the point that "Standard of Care" is mainly a legal term. Are you that dense? It is you who stated your opinion of Fauci sank, so your binary view of the world. Try reading my other comments, closely, maybe you will learn something; but I doubt it. "Reality", lacks reality testing. Reply

Preston says: May 5, 2020 at 8:18 pm

I tend to agree. I am of the opinion that Fauci made a mistake here. The evidence for Remdesiver is nowhere near good enough for it to become the standard of care. But then I am not the one having to make these decisions under difficult circumstances. I don't pretend to understand why Fauci might have made the comment, so don't see a lot of point in speculating about it.

On the other hand, watching the White House performance from afar, I can see the administration is dysfunctional and is run by a narcissistic bully, who will publicly turn on anyone who disagrees with them. I also see there are people within and around the White House who are happy to tell whatever lies they think Trump wants to hear, either through fear or hope for advancement. I understand why people would add 2 and 2 and come up with 5.

Reality says: May 5, 2020 at 9:28 pm
Chris Preston said, "I am of the opinion that Fauci made a mistake here. The evidence for Remdesiver is nowhere near good enough for it to become the standard of care."

I believe that is the main thrust of this Orac article – that the evidence for Remdesiver efficacy is sorely lacking.

Quoting Orac's article above: "In reality, like Raoult's trials, this trial said nothing about the efficacy of remdesivir against COVID-19 other than that the drug could be given to COVID-19 patients with a reasonable safety profile."
.
I agree with your 2nd paragraph and think that Fauci is not one of those administration toadies and is being honest and has merely made a mistake perhaps brought about through grasping-at-straws desperation as described in a current SBM article.

I, as well, do not know why Fauci made the statement but to me it is very disrespectful of the man to use as an excuse that he is dishonest enough to lie like a toady when pressured by Trump.

I think we are essentially in agreement about this matter.
Have fun.

Denice Walter says: May 5, 2020 at 10:05 pm
re dysfunctional administration.. narcissistic bully et al

It seems that the aforementioned will now " wind down" the Covid task force ( The Hill reports) but Drs Fauci and Birx will still be involved in some capacity.

AS though the battle is already won. Hah! CA and the NY area are reporting lower numbers of deaths and hospital admissions BUT whilst
other areas are increasing theirs.

Maybe the Orange One imagines that if we discuss Covid less, people will think it's gone, go back to work, buy stuff and the economy will flourish. Ignore it and it'll go away. Wishful thinking as usual.

Joel A. Harrison, PhD, MPH says: May 5, 2020 at 10:55 pm
@ Chris Preston

Apparently you lack understanding of English. As I explained even grandfathered in medical treatments with no hard scientific evidence are considered the standard of care, that is, if a doctor uses them he/she lessens risk of lawsuits. Standard of care doesn't mean a high level of scientific validity.

I guess I am wasting my time. Think of it this way, if allowed for compassionate use advised by ones doctor, then doctor may not be protected against lawsuits. Unfortunately, as something I read a long time ago, even in Colonial times Americans would rather sue than eat breakfast. Just one more sickness of American exceptionalism, so maybe, just maybe, all Fauci was doing was trying to reduce this risk.

Tim says: May 5, 2020 at 10:56 pm
No shit???

https://www.youtube.com/embed/KzRhcjOG1es?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

At least, he had the googles on; Wouldn't want him to get fibres in his eyes.,

Aarno Syvänen says: May 6, 2020 at 12:34 am
Not to mention that CDC closed the lab. So CDC is not part of great vaccine conspiracy, after all. Huge news, I would say. One could mention, too, that Johnson & Johnson get COVID vaccine contract. So Dorit Reiss' plots are not very effective, ater all. Reply
Natalie White says: May 6, 2020 at 10:30 am
Aarno, you made me curious about how much $$$$ and how many companies. A list of the Convid19, oops, I mean Covid19 cash! https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/04/07/here-are-all-the-companies-working-on-covid-19-vac.aspx
Natalie White says: May 9, 2020 at 10:20 am
@Aarno- Sometimes the CDC gets it right and sometimes, well .. sometimes you can't truss it. https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/cdcs-failed-coronavirus-tests-were-tainted-with-coronavirus-feds-confirm/

https://www.youtube.com/embed/am9BqZ6eA5c

Natalie White says: May 9, 2020 at 11:47 am
Aarno writes, "Not to mention that CDC closed the lab." Yes, sometimes they get it right. Then, they fail miserably like this https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/cdc-lab-contamination-delayed-coronavirus-testing-67438

Confidence meter less than zero.

Natalie White says: May 6, 2020 at 9:40 am
Hmm . Problems with the Wuhan Lab and those nasty bats back in 2018. Just another coincidence, I suppose. Weird. So many coincidences. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-department-cables-warned-safety-issues-wuhan-lab-studying-bat-coronaviruses/ Reply
Joel A. Harrison, PhD, MPH says: May 6, 2020 at 2:18 pm
@ Natalie White

You write: Hmm . Problems with the Wuhan Lab and those nasty bats back in 2018. Just another coincidence, I suppose. Weird. So many coincidences."

From a recent article in the Atlantic:

scientists have also identified about 500 other coronaviruses among China's many bat species. "There will be many more -- I think it's safe to say tens of thousands," says Peter Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance, who has led that work. Laboratory experiments show that some of these new viruses could potentially infect humans. SARS-CoV-2 likely came from a bat, too.

It seems unlikely that a random bat virus should somehow jump into a susceptible human. But when you consider millions of people, in regular contact with millions of bats, which carry tens of thousands of new viruses, vanishingly improbable events become probable ones. In 2015, Daszak's team found that 3 percent of people from four Chinese villages that are close to bat caves had antibodies that indicated a previous encounter with SARS-like coronaviruses. "Bats fly out every night over their houses.

Some of them shelter from rain in caves, or collect guano for fertilizer," Daszak says. "If you extrapolate up to the rural population, across the region where the bats that carry these viruses live, you're talking 1 [million] to 7 million people a year exposed." Most of these infections likely go nowhere. It takes just one to trigger an epidemic.

Ed Yong (2020 Apr 29). Why the Coronavirus Is So Confusing. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/pandemic-confusing-uncertainty/610819/

Note. he links to peer-reviewed journal articles. So, as the second paragraph makes clear, antibodies to bat coronaviruses exist in the population, etc. Add this to the sequencing of the genome that shows just how close it is to the 2003 SARS corona virus and to bat coronaviruses and, as usual, your moronic "coincidences" just lacks any validity.

Note also that his article links to many other good ones.

As I've written before, nature is quite capable of creating really nasty microbes.

Natalie White says: May 6, 2020 at 10:17 am

Oh this guy needs a dishonorable mention, Harvard traitor, Charles Leiber. "has received more than $15,000,000 in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Department of Defense (DOD)." Our tax dollars hard at work for this POS.

Dude is still collecting a paycheck. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/harvard-university-professor-and-two-chinese-nationals-charged-three-separate-china-related Reply

Aarno Syvänen says: May 6, 2020 at 11:00 am

This is our guy:
Charles M. Lieber
Semiconductor nanowires: A platform for nanoscience and nanotechnology
MRS Bulletin
Volume 36, Issue 12 (Laser micro- and nanofabrication of biomaterials)December 2011 , pp. 1052-1063
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/mrs.2011.26
So COVID 19 was not involved. One should indeed not serve two masters, DOD and a Chinese university Reply
Joel A. Harrison, PhD, MPH says: May 6, 2020 at 4:48 pm
@ Natalie White

You write: "Hmm . Problems with the Wuhan Lab and those nasty bats back in 2018. Just another coincidence, I suppose. Weird. So many coincidences."

From a recent article by Ed Yong (2020 Apr 29). "Why the Coronavirus Is So Confusing: A guide to making sense of a problem that is now too big for any one person to fully comprehend." The Atlantic. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/pandemic-confusing-uncertainty/610819/

Note that he links to a number of excellent articles, including the two that the following is based on:

"scientists have also identified about 500 other coronaviruses among China's many bat species. "There will be many more -- I think it's safe to say tens of thousands," says Peter Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance, who has led that work. Laboratory experiments show that some of these new viruses could potentially infect humans. SARS-CoV-2 likely came from a bat, too.

It seems unlikely that a random bat virus should somehow jump into a susceptible human. But when you consider millions of people, in regular contact with millions of bats, which carry tens of thousands of new viruses, vanishingly improbable events become probable ones. In 2015, Daszak's team found that 3 percent of people from four Chinese villages that are close to bat caves had antibodies that indicated a previous encounter with SARS-like coronaviruses. "Bats fly out every night over their houses. Some of them shelter from rain in caves, or collect guano for fertilizer," Daszak says. "If you extrapolate up to the rural population, across the region where the bats that carry these viruses live, you're talking 1 [million] to 7 million people a year exposed." Most of these infections likely go nowhere. It takes just one to trigger an epidemic."

So, 3 percent of people had antibodies to bat corona viruses. As the above explains, it is quite probable that the current virus came from someone infected by a bat. Now, since sequencing of the current SARS-Cov-2 has found its genome quite close to the 2003 SARS virus and to several bat coronavirus genomes, goes against your sick need to blame the Chinese. A coincidence is not even close to any type of proof, except in the mind of a moron like you looking to place blame. And there is a great book on "coincidences": David J. Hand (2014). "The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day." Basically, what someone might think is a rare coincidence isn't.

And, the major blame for what is happening in the U.S. is a combination of Trump and overall American unappreciation for Public Health and, thus, pandemic preparedness. When it comes to cutting funding, first to go.

I realize that real research, logic, etc. have NO effect on moron's like you; but, hopefully, others monitoring this exchange are open-minded.

And as Aarno pointed out, you attacked someone who had nothing to do with COVID. He worked with the Wuhan Institute of Technology; yep, in Wuhan and that's it. It's a large city dimwit. More importantly, he has been charged, not found guilty. I realize that the old adage innocent until proven guilty doesn't apply to anyone you chose to attack. You just don't know when to stop. YOU ARE DESPICABLE! Reply

[May 09, 2020] Censors crack down on 'Plandemic' conspiracy documentary. What's so dangerous about it

Notable quotes:
"... "misinformation." ..."
"... Dr. Judy Mikovits is the central figure of 'Plandemic,' which basically claims that "billionaire patent owners" are stoking the spread of the coronavirus, all in the name of forcing "experimental poisons" on the population in the form of vaccines. ..."
"... Mikovits claims Fauci personally "paid off" ..."
"... "activates your own virus" ..."
"... Mikovits' central argument – that an eventual vaccine for coronavirus will kill "millions of people" ..."
"... "donated the entire amount to charity." ..."
"... However, amid the half-baked theories, Mikovits touches on some truth. The federal government does in fact pay hospitals a set amount of money to treat coronavirus patients, about $13,000. This amount rises to $39,000 if the patient is placed on a ventilator. Mikovits insists that ventilation is the wrong treatment for coronavirus patients, and is only carried out to boost revenues – something the ER doctors would disagree with. ..."
"... It doesn't help that many of the claims are disjointed, and rather than working towards its main goal of demonstrating a sinister plan by Fauci and vaccine evangelist Bill Gates to poison the masses, the documentary instead just lumps together anything critical of the mainstream consensus on the virus to paint Fauci in a bad light. ..."
"... For instance, it's been widely reported that Fauci's organization did give millions of dollars to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to finance its study of coronaviruses, after the federal government banned such research in the US. However, no smoking gun linking Fauci to the current outbreak is provided. ..."
"... "When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say." ..."
"... "bypass the gatekeepers of free speech," ..."
"... "overlords of big tech" ..."
May 09, 2020 | www.rt.com

Pulled from YouTube, censored in internet searches, and denounced by every single mainstream media outlet, what kind of information could make everyone so mad about 'Plandemic'? We watched it to find out. A 23-minute teaser clip of the documentary went viral on Wednesday evening, notching up tens of millions of views across multiple platforms. However, a media outcry soon followed, with mainstream media outlets deploying their 'fact-checkers' to debunk its claims, and Facebook and YouTube removing the video, citing their new rules on Covid-19 "misinformation."

Yet censorship is also a sure-fire way to generate interest in the very thing you're trying to censor – and multiple copies and versions of 'Plandemic' began to appear like mushrooms. So who's behind it and what's in there?

A doctor with quite a reputation

Dr. Judy Mikovits is the central figure of 'Plandemic,' which basically claims that "billionaire patent owners" are stoking the spread of the coronavirus, all in the name of forcing "experimental poisons" on the population in the form of vaccines.

The claims are quite bold, but it doesn't help that Mikovits herself is far from an unbiased source on the subject. She's been active in anti-vaccine and fringe circles for years, even while insisting she's not "anti-vax" herself.

Once an active cancer researcher and (mainstream) virologist, Mikovits was disgraced in 2011 for publishing what others in the scientific community called false research into Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The dramatic events that followed – a search and arrest in her California home – are used in 'Plandemic' to establish her alleged conflict with Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and President Donald Trump's coronavirus adviser.

Also on rt.com 'I never said it was a hoax!' Trump unloads on media in fiery rant, says coronavirus briefings 'not worth the time and effort'

Mikovits claims Fauci personally "paid off" law enforcement officials to arrest her and detain her without trial. She was indeed arrested in November 2011, but for allegedly stealing lab materials from the Nevada laboratory she worked at before her dismissal (which Mikovits claims were "planted" in her house). Criminal charges brought against Mikovits were later dismissed – but this has been tied to the legal troubles of her former employer, Harvey Whittemore.

Evidence-free claims galore

Of course, the central part of the video – something being discussed in every 'Plandemic' piece and review – is made up of an array of Covid-19-related claims that Mikovits makes.

These range from claims that wearing face masks "activates your own virus" (there's no evidence of that) to the assertion that the devastating coronavirus outbreak in Northern Italy can be linked to the uptake in flu vaccination the year before (a claim which appears to be based on a misleading interpretation of one tangentially-related study, not any fresh research).

Mikovits' central argument – that an eventual vaccine for coronavirus will kill "millions of people" – is unprovable, and her assertion that Fauci will personally profit from any vaccine is outright false. Mikovits accuses Fauci of profiteering from royalties on an AIDS treatment he patented in the 1990s, but Fauci only placed his name on the patent because regulations required him to, and "donated the entire amount to charity."

However, amid the half-baked theories, Mikovits touches on some truth. The federal government does in fact pay hospitals a set amount of money to treat coronavirus patients, about $13,000. This amount rises to $39,000 if the patient is placed on a ventilator. Mikovits insists that ventilation is the wrong treatment for coronavirus patients, and is only carried out to boost revenues – something the ER doctors would disagree with.

Also on rt.com Is Covid-19 our new religion, and the face mask its cross?

It doesn't help that many of the claims are disjointed, and rather than working towards its main goal of demonstrating a sinister plan by Fauci and vaccine evangelist Bill Gates to poison the masses, the documentary instead just lumps together anything critical of the mainstream consensus on the virus to paint Fauci in a bad light.

For instance, it's been widely reported that Fauci's organization did give millions of dollars to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to finance its study of coronaviruses, after the federal government banned such research in the US. However, no smoking gun linking Fauci to the current outbreak is provided.

Boost by censorship

Yet, when information like this is declared verboten, that's what people will think. There's a popular quote by 'Game of Thrones' author George RR Martin: "When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say."

When right-wing polemicist Alex Jones and his conspiracy-laden news site Infowars were essentially banned from the internet in 2018, the Infowars app shot to the top of both Apple and Google's app stores.

The phenomenon is known as the 'Streisand effect,' named for a 2003 lawsuit in which singer Barbara Streisand sued a photographer who shot an aerial snap of her California mansion for invasion of privacy. The lawsuit backfired, and led to hundreds of thousands of people downloading the picture. Before the case, it had only been viewed six times.

Likewise, the documentary's producers will spin the furor over 'Plandemic' to their advantage. Already, their website urges viewers to "bypass the gatekeepers of free speech," and slams the "overlords of big tech" for silencing them.

Forbidden knowledge is tempting, and by wiping 'Plandemic' from the internet, Silicon Valley will only increase its notoriety.

[May 08, 2020] Judy Mikovits appears to be a sincere and honest individual. The connection of Dr Fauci to the Wuhan lab is also well established. He moved viral "gain of function" research to Wuhan after it was closed down in the USA by the Obama Regime.

May 08, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Ike , May 8 2020 20:32 utc | 18

I enjoy the MOA articles and look forward to reading them daily. Judy Mikovits is interviewed here. She appears to me a sincere and honest individual. I think more investigation is needed before dismissing her as an "anti-vaxxer"
https://www.bitchute.com/video/aNjeT1G6iGTh/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=ca08d0ed-03bf-4482-97f3-f540d3f5666d

The connection of Dr Fauci to the Wuhan lab is also well established. He moved viral "gain of function" research to Wuhan after it was closed down in the USA by the Obama Regime.

There is also little doubt that the virus was created in a lab as Chris martenson outlines here. His whole series of podcasts on the epidemic is extremely interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=928&v=uZUJhKUbd0k&feature=emb_title

[May 07, 2020] New Research Shows Virus Spread Across US Via NYC

May 07, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

The virus reportedly swept across NYC in February and early March, when Mayor de Blasio was still dismissing it as a non-issue and encouraging foreigners to hop on those planes and cruise ships and giddy up on over here, partner. If de Blasio was so proactive about combating the virus, how come it was discovered on the west coast first?

New York City's coronavirus outbreak grew so large by early March that the city became the primary source of new infections in the United States, new research reveals, as thousands of infected people traveled from the city and seeded outbreaks around the country.

The research indicates that a wave of infections swept from New York City through much of the country before the city began setting social distancing limits to stop the growth. That helped to fuel outbreaks in Louisiana, Texas, Arizona and as far away as the West Coast.

The findings are drawn from geneticists' tracking signature mutations of the virus, travel histories of infected people and models of the outbreak by infectious disease experts.

"We now have enough data to feel pretty confident that New York was the primary gateway for the rest of the country," said Nathan Grubaugh, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health.

[May 07, 2020] Neoliberal society does not fare well in any large scale epidemic: The neoliberal dogma of "Freedom for the nihilistic narcissistic ego individual over everything else" lead to anto-social behaviour -- many people today willingly prefer to rake risk and to go to concerts and beer gardens than to deny themselves those small joys in favor of their compatriots

May 07, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

DontBelieveEitherPr. , May 6 2020 19:21 utc | 2

Well, you were indeed right. And your reporting better than most if not all MSM articles written by other laymen. And all without any professional experience. Just by trusting in scientific methods, data and knowledge, instead of making a conspiracy out of thin air.
In those times, that is an amazing achievement.

But when i hear how few people are tested, when i hear of multiple deaths in my circle of people, and see the society unable to unite against such a threat, i dont have much hope for how this will go on.
The last 4 sentences say everything about our western societies, including us Germans.
The only profiteers are the rich, toilet paper and noodle merchants, and politicians (who now race each other in opening up BEER GARDENS and CONCERTS with 100 people).


Many people today willingly prefer to go to concerts and beer gardens than to deny themselves those small joys in favor of their compatriots.
Our society is doom. The neoliberal dogma of "Freedom for the nihilistic narcissistic ego individual over everything else" destroyed what was left of it.

bevin , May 6 2020 19:21 utc | 3

Here Lee, look at this series of reports: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/05/06/nurs-m06.html

"..At one New York City nursing home, the Isabella Geriatric Center in Manhattan's Washington Heights, nearly 100 of its 705 residents have died..."

"..In Medfield, Massachusetts, north of Boston, COVID-19 has killed 54 residents over the past four weeks at the Courtyard Nursing Care Center. An additional 117 residents and 42 employees have tested positive for the virus..."

" A shocking 84 residents have died at the facility since the virus outbreak. Eighty-one employees have tested positive for the coronavirus.

"... deaths at the Soldiers' Home were initially hidden from both the mayor of Holyoke and local health officials, who only became aware of the developing situation when employees at the facility reached out to them. Staff said management at the facility refused to provide them with PPE and instructed them to crowd patients together from multiple wards into a single ward as a solution to staffing shortages due to infections..."

"..A particularly gruesome discovery took place in mid-April when police found 17 corpses piled up at the Subacute and Rehabilitation Center in Andover, New Jersey. The bodies were stacked in a small morgue designed to hold a maximum of four bodies. The more than 2,000 deaths of staff and residents in New Jersey's long-term facilities account for about 40 percent of the state's coronavirus-related deaths."

There's more much more. And not just from the United States either.

[May 07, 2020] US Epidemiologist Slams Trump Admin's COVID-19 Response as Possible War Crime

May 07, 2020 | sputniknews.com

A Yale University epidemiologist is calling into question the legality of US President Donald Trump and his administration's response to the COVID-19 novel coronavirus, appearing to suggest that federal government officials could be tried under international law. Hours before Trump took to Twitter to announce the Coronavirus Task Force would "continue on indefinitely," Gregg Gonsalves , an assistant professor of epidemiology of microbial diseases at the Yale School of Public Health, posed a series of questions to fellow netizens on the social media site regarding Washington's handling of COVID-19.

How many people will die this summer, before Election Day? What proportion of the deaths will be among African-Americans, Latinos, other people of color? This is getting awfully close to genocide by default. What else do you call mass death by public policy? #COVID19 #coronavirus

-- Gregg Gonsalves (@gregggonsalves) May 6, 2020

As of this article's publication, the US has tested over 7.5 million individuals for the novel coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University . Data provided by the university details that the country has confirmed 1.2 million cases of the novel coronavirus and suffered over 71,400 associated deaths. At least 189,791 recoveries from COVID-19 have been observed in the US.

Gonsalves' emphasis on the COVID-19 deaths of Black Americans, Latinos and other people of color in the US stems from the fact that there has been a disproportionate amount of novel coronavirus deaths in the Black community.

"Social conditions, structural racism, and other factors elevate risk for COVID-19 diagnoses and deaths in black communities," wrote a team of epidemiologists and clinicians in a new study analyzing novel coronavirus cases and death on a county level, as reported by CNN. The scientists found that counties where Black residents made up more than 13% of the population - about the percentage of the total US population that is Black - suffered 52% of COVID-19 diagnoses and 58% of associated deaths in the country.

"Structural factors including health care access, density of households, unemployment, pervasive discrimination and others drive these disparities, not intrinsic characteristics of black communities or individual-level factors," noted the researchers.

It's worth noting that the findings are preliminary, as the study still needs to go through the peer review process.

"So, what does it mean to let thousands die by negligence, omission, failure to act, in a legal sense under international law?" asked Gonsalves in another tweet Wednesday morning .

The conduct of Trump and his administration has been called into question over the past several weeks after reports revealed that the president and federal officials were briefed on the novel coronavirus, and its potential threat to the US, several weeks prior to the declaration of a national emergency on March 13.

Recently, Dr. Rick Bright, the former director of the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, said that he alerted Department of Health and Human Services officials in January about the US' unpreparedness for a possible COVID-19 outbreak. Bright said that he was met with "indifference which then developed into hostility" from the administration and, in his opinion, was the reason for his demotion within the agency.

While Trump is pushing for more Americans to return to their workplaces and restart the US economy - which some believe could lead to a second wave of infections - Gonsalves wondered if there could be some kind of intervention or charges brought against the federal government on an international level.

"And I am being serious here: what is happening in the US is purposeful, considered negligence, omission, failure to act by our leaders. Can they be held responsible under international law?" he asked .

[May 07, 2020] https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/18/bill-gates-addresses-coronavirus-fears-and-hopes-in-ama/

May 07, 2020 | techcrunch.com

3 hours ago (Edited) Just sayen

"The world today has 6.8 billion people. That's heading up to about nine billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent!" - Bill Gates

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUJMR3BUm2s

"men and women need a common motivation, namely a common adversary against whom they can organize themselves and act together"

"new enemies have to be identified, new strategies imagined, and new weapons devised"

"in its present form, democracy is no longer well-suited for the tasks ahead. The complexity and the technical nature of many of today's problems do not always allow elected representatives to make competent decisions at the right time"

"In searching for a common enemy against whom we can unite, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like, would fill the bill"

"The real enemy then is humanity itself."

Excerpts from "The First Global Revolution" – I would add, a wonderful marxist propaganda for the NWO. Ms No, 4 hours ago Listen to this medical chick that saved millions from the EU and their swine flu vaccine that caused brain damage. They tried to have her "psychiatrized" which means locked away as crazy and probably tortured for the rest of her miserable life, being banged with blood draw needles, forced meds and put in a straight jacket. Close to Assange treatment.

https://youtu.be/Hlk_Zfz7xhU harleyjohn45, 4 hours ago She may have Fauci by the short hairs. He is deeply embedded in the national health care oligarchy. Not my favorite person, had a lot to do with destroying the US economy along with MSM. DaiRR, 5 hours ago The big pharma crime syndicate, embedded in government health agencies with operatives like Fauci, is a mega-billion dollar enterprise and those dollars buy off thousands of people like Fauci. People smarter than me need to figure out how to stop this once and forever.

Meanwhile, if you don't realize Google and Facebook and all their offshoots are your enemy, you are the enemy too. wdg, 5 hours ago (Edited) Dr. Judy Mikovits is just the tip of the iceberg as more and more doctors and reserach scientists are speaking out and exposing the BIG PHARMA CRIMINAL SYNDICATE that includes the WHO, CDC, NIH and many other so-called health care and research agencies around the world, and Drs. Fauci and Birx not to mention the leadership of most western government who have been bought off by this Criminal Syndicate which has murdered and debilitated millions of people. These are crimes against humanity carried out at the highest levels of governments, corporations and governmental agencies. Watch the powerful video interview of Robert Kennedy Jr. below which provides a window into the evil world we now live in. Big Pharma and the medical profession which sold their souls for money are both finished because the trust is gone. Class action suits will bankrupt the lot.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Robert Kennedy Jr. Destroys Big Pharma, Fauci & Pro-Vaccine Movement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLi6ZrFp6NIH vQ&feature=emb_logo Sl4yer, 5 hours ago (Edited) Few papers of this "crazy" woman....

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21178474

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21576403

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22991430

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21940862

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7853532

...and the list goes on, and on and on.

Your Wikipedia and all your stupid marxist propaganda is fake, yep! 5 hours ago Why is the video doctored right at the end to make Fauci say a damning sentence. You can see his head jerk to new positions as they piece together bits of video.

That fake ending just negated all credibility for the video.

-FAKE- 5 hours ago (Edited) No doctoring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNXGAxGJgQI

Take a look at the original video where he told that (the part of interest is at the very beginning starting at 2:50 and is ending at 3:40) and you shall see that the meaning (when the parts where he brags about his past and future were removed) of what he actually have told in that part was not altered in any way - the meaning is exactly the same. Due diligence in these times is actually quite easy in cases like these, hence you should probably do the same prior to posting 4 hours ago (Edited) I have zero tolerance for fake news. It's not up to me. If I spot it, I call it. You just confirmed I was right. It's up to them to not fake video of a person they are disparaging. There is no way for him to comment about that doctored section at the end.

Edit: I thank you for doing that research but it shouldn't be up to you either. This is not the time for fake anything.

[May 07, 2020] YouTube Deletes Viral Video Claiming Dr. Fauci Spewing Absolute Propaganda About COVID-19

Commercialization of research including allowing patenting the research so that you can extract revenue stream from licensing the patent and which became a binge addition in universities creates "academic entrepreneurs" which are very similar to Soviet Mafiosi.
May 07, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

One thing that should be abundantly clear by now is that any thoughts, opinions, or speculation which challenges the official narratives regarding COVID-19 will be promptly silenced by Silicon Valley, under the guise of protecting the public - which apparently can't be trusted to absorb information and form their own opinions.

The most recent example of censored wrongthink is a new documentary, Plandemic, which features former chronic fatigue researcher Judy Milkovits, who claims that Dr. Anthony Fauci - head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) - is spewing 'absolute propaganda' about COVID-19.

In the video, Mikovits claimed Fauci perpetrated propaganda that led to the deaths of millions of people in the past. She also raised questions about how COVID-19 deaths are being counted.

However, one of her biggest beefs against Fauci dates to the battles for credit over the discovery of HIV in the early 1980s.

In the video, Mikovits claimed she isolated HIV from the saliva and blood of patients in France but that Fauci was involved in delaying research so a friend could take credit, which allowed the HIV virus to spread. These claims are not proven. They were also disseminated in April by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy alleged on the Children’s Health Defense website (where he is chairman) -Heavy

Google's YouTube is currently playing whack-a-mole with a 25 minute promotional vignette for the documentary which has gone viral - deleting new versions seemingly as fast as they pop up. The original version had over 1.6 million views when it was censored.

Facebook, however, hasn't deleted it (yet):

As noted by Heavy's Jessica McBride, Mikovits has a new book out, Plague of Corrpution, which currently has 4.5 / 5 stars on Amazon.

Mikovits, who has a new book out, was featured in the first vignette released to promote the movie. Her controversial career in the scientific community has been punctuated by an arrest, lawsuit, retracted research study, allegations against Fauci and clashes with the founders of the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease, which is located in Reno, Nevada. -Heavy

Mikovits has claimed that she published a "blockbuster" study which revealed that "the common use of animal and human fetal tissues were unleashing devastating plagues of chronic diseases," and that the "minions of Big Pharma" have been waging war against her to destroy her "good name, career and personal life."

In the Plandemic video, Mikovits makes other claims, including that patents are a conflict of interest, and she criticizes the concept of mass vaccines. “They will kill millions, as they already have with their vaccines,” she said, stressing she was not anti-vaccine. She claims there is a financial incentive in COVID-19 strategies to not use natural remedies in order to push people to use vaccines.

Mikovits co-wrote a book called Plague: One Scientist’s Intrepid Search for the Truth about Human Retroviruses and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Autism, and Other Diseases and claims 30% of vaccines are contaminated with retroviruses. The book contains a forward from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The book was No. 2 on the Amazon bestseller list on May 6. -Heavy

Plandemic has received both praise and criticism, however Google thinks it's best if you leave the thinking to them.

Read more about Mikovits here.


xxx 54 minutes ago

If this movie goes away, this site has an original on this page: https://vaccineimpact.com/2020/plandemic-movie-trailer-released-featuring-whistleblower-dr-judy-mikovits-exposing-dr-faucis-alleged-criminal-behavior/

xxx 55 minutes ago

it's still available here - **** youtube

https://www.bitchute.com/video/IB3ijQuLkkUr/?fbclid=IwAR0i9wYC4flCmrQxbpnFQXukSfASe_7kUTlX1r1o5t1B1K-zDnQnISY6rj4

Indigo Child, 1 hour ago (Edited)

Fauci works for Bill Gates, and will push a vaccine & medications that he will profit from. I don't like him. However, the end of this woman's video takes Dr. Fauci's 2017 remarks out of context. Fauci wasn't saying he knew this Plandemic would occur. He was merely saying that every 4-8 years there is a new type of virus or flu strain in the world. (which is fearmongering in a way -- with every new administration he needs to push for more funding by saying there will likely be an outbreak)

SubjectivObject, 2 hours ago

counterpoint from the DeathStar

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QwU4jcRw-qb77BLCLs99af05S1mL2E2vUz2x2M1396U/preview?pru=AAABchUQgQs*_Xs3NcSO7WTyxuJonqhWoQ

artytom, 2 hours ago

https://open.lbry.com/PLANDEMIC-(pt.-1-Judy-Mikovits):8

Montana Cowboy, 3 hours ago

When Youtube or other 2A suppressors bans a video, you will find that video right here:

https://banned.video/

xxx 3 hours ago

Fauci is a scumbag:

"Dr. Fauci, it turns out, has been a key cheerleader for this "death science" research for decades. He has also been credibly accused by Dr. Judy Mikovitz and other virologists of stealing intellectual property and stifling whistleblowers who sought to expose the truth about NIH-funded research and how it threatens humanity."...

https://www.sgtreport.com/2020/05/should-death-science-operatives-like-dr-fauci-face-the-death-sentence-if-found-guilty-of-collaborating-to-build-the-wuhan-coronavirus-bioweapon/

misgivings 4 hours ago

Mokovitz has written a new book called, "Plague of Corruption". The hardcopy is "sold out" EVERYWHERE. I find this fishy. I wonder if the kindle version has been edited to be less damaging to Fauci, et al. It wouldn't be hard for the government to buy up all the copies. Plus, the website for the book does not load.

xxx 3 hours ago

just sayen

https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/18/bill-gates-addresses-coronavirus-fears-and-hopes-in-ama/

xxx 3 hours ago (Edited)

Just sayen

"The world today has 6.8 billion people. That's heading up to about nine billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent!" - Bill Gates

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUJMR3BUm2s

Excerpts from "The First Global Revolution" – I would add, a wonderful marxist propaganda for the NWO.

xxx Ms No, 4 hours ago

Listen to this medical chick that saved millions from the EU and their swine flu vaccine that caused brain damage. They tried to have her "psychiatrized" which means locked away as crazy and probably tortured for the rest of her miserable life, being banged with blood draw needles, forced meds and put in a straight jacket. Close to Assange treatment.

https://youtu.be/Hlk_Zfz7xhU

harleyjohn45, 4 hours ago

She may have Fauci by the short hairs. He is deeply embedded in the national health care oligarchy. Not my favorite person, had a lot to do with destroying the US economy along with MSM.

DaiRR, 5 hours ago

The big pharma crime syndicate, embedded in government health agencies with operatives like Fauci, is a mega-billion dollar enterprise and those dollars buy off thousands of people like Fauci. People smarter than me need to figure out how to stop this once and forever.

Meanwhile, if you don't realize Google and Facebook and all their offshoots are your enemy, you are the enemy too.

wdg, 5 hours ago (Edited)

Dr. Judy Mikovits is just the tip of the iceberg as more and more doctors and reserach scientists are speaking out and exposing the BIG PHARMA CRIMINAL SYNDICATE that includes the WHO, CDC, NIH and many other so-called health care and research agencies around the world, and Drs. Fauci and Birx not to mention the leadership of most western government who have been bought off by this Criminal Syndicate which has murdered and debilitated millions of people. These are crimes against humanity carried out at the highest levels of governments, corporations and governmental agencies.

Watch the powerful video interview of Robert Kennedy Jr. below which provides a window into the evil world we now live in. Big Pharma and the medical profession which sold their souls for money are both finished because the trust is gone. Class action suits will bankrupt the lot.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Robert Kennedy Jr. Destroys Big Pharma, Fauci & Pro-Vaccine Movement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLi6ZrFp6NIH vQ&feature=emb_logo

Sl4yer, 5 hours ago (Edited)

Few papers of this "crazy" woman....

...and the list goes on, and on and on.

Your Wikipedia and all your stupid marxist propaganda is fake, yep!

xxx 5 hours ago

Why is the video doctored right at the end to make Fauci say a damning sentence. You can see his head jerk to new positions as they piece together bits of video.

That fake ending just negated all credibility for the video.

-FAKE-

xxx 5 hours ago (Edited)

No doctoring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNXGAxGJgQI

Take a look at the original video where he told that (the part of interest is at the very beginning starting at 2:50 and is ending at 3:40) and you shall see that the meaning (when the parts where he brags about his past and future were removed) of what he actually have told in that part was not altered in any way - the meaning is exactly the same. Due diligence in these times is actually quite easy in cases like these, hence you should probably do the same prior to posting

xxx 4 hours ago (Edited)

I have zero tolerance for fake news. It's not up to me. If I spot it, I call it. You just confirmed I was right. It's up to them to not fake video of a person they are disparaging. There is no way for him to comment about that doctored section at the end.

Edit: I thank you for doing that research but it shouldn't be up to you either. This is not the time for fake anything.

[May 07, 2020] Fauci, CDC and the Imperial College charlatan Professor Ferguson

May 07, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Igor Bundy , May 6 2020 20:50 utc | 15

This imperial college that consults with the CDC and WHO and others should have also looked at previous forecasts... No one serious should have paid any attention to this Ferguson guy because his modelling was off by factors.. He has now destroyed hundreds of millions of lives, cost countries trillions. Mostly only Africa was saved because they have lived thorough westerners saying they dont know what they are doing and stopped listening. Death rates at a very few areas that were published were higher but were the same everywhere else. In fact over the course of the next few years the effects of this will be widely felt as above average death rates due to the factors. Far above even without anything being done at all.

In 2009, one of Ferguson's models predicted 65,000 people could die from the Swine Flu outbreak in the UK -- the final figure was below 500. potential death toll during the 2005 Bird [avian] Flu outbreak. Ferguson estimated 200 million could die. The real number was in the low hundreds.

[May 07, 2020] Bill Gates and Co "once in a century evidence fiasco"

The clinical epidemiology tradition cautions that primitive model typically mislead us -- for instance, by smuggling in unproven assumptions that have not been empirically established in human populations.
May 07, 2020 | bostonreview.net

The latter camp has won significant media attention in recent weeks. Bill Gates -- whose foundation funds the research behind the most visible outbreak model in the United States, developed by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington -- worries that COVID-19 might be a "once-in-a-century pandemic."

A notable detractor from this view is Stanford's John Ioannidis, a clinical epidemiologist, meta-researcher, and reliable skeptic who has openly wondered whether the coronavirus pandemic might rather be a "once-in-a-century evidence fiasco." He argues that better data are needed to justify the drastic measures undertaken to contain the pandemic in the United States and elsewhere.

[May 07, 2020] Why didn't we shutdown everything in 1968?

May 07, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

xxx Anonymous IX,

xxx 3 hours ago

You might be interested in this little tidbit, Quy. From the CDC . You do "trust" them, don't you?

Just one question for you. Why didn't we shutdown everything in 1968?

1968 Pandemic (H3N2 virus)

The 1968 pandemic was caused by an influenza A (H3N2) virus comprised of two genes from an avian influenza A virus, including a new H3 hemagglutinin, but also contained the N2 neuraminidase from the 1957 H2N2 virus. It was first noted in the United States in September 1968. The estimated number of deaths was 1 million worldwide and about 100,000 in the United States. Most excess deaths were in people 65 years and older. The H3N2 virus continues to circulate worldwide as a seasonal influenza A virus. Seasonal H3N2 viruses, which are associated with severe illness in older people, undergo regular antigenic drift .

"The estimated number of deaths was 1 million worldwide and about 100,000 in the United States."

[May 07, 2020] Locking down without specific actions to shield the vulnerable will yield no better results than no lockdown or the sweden approach

May 07, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Alaric , May 6 2020 21:13 utc | 20

Reading some of the other comments, I see many recognize the incredible specificity involved here in outcomes, treatment, etc. Lockdown is an indirect way to impact those variables but locking down without specific actions to shield the vulnerable will yield no better results than no lockdown or the sweden approach. A sweden approach that does protect those vulnerable is likely more effective than a lockdown that does not.

NYC has nursing homes that are 700 and more persons. Large nursing homes should be banned if we want to stop this sort of thing in the future. Residents of such facilities should be moved to smaller temporary housing. NY State allowed persons who tested positive for Covid to go back to nursing homes -- disaster. Employees of such facilities and visitors would ideally be tested. Employees of such facilities should not be taking the NYC subway to get to work as Subways are major transmission points. Nosocomial infections were a big part of the problem in NYC as well. We needed separate facilities for suspected covid patients. 88.1% of those on mechanical ventilation in NYC (according to a JAMA study) died. That's junk medicine and it was implemented in part out of fear of spreading and probably for financial gain....ick.

There are a lot of things that could and should be done but we don't talk about that because it doesn't fit the media narrative of fear, panic, fear, lockdown, lockdown, lockdown or bust.

The media has done us and the elderly a great disservice......again

[May 07, 2020] Post-Lockdown Insist on the Old Normal by Helen Andrews

May 07, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com
When the CIA wanted to circumvent possible Chinese bugging of its offices in Beijing in the 1980s, it came up with a voice protector or "hush phone," essentially two masks with tubes running between them. It worked, but no one would use it. George Shultz said he felt "ludicrous" wearing something that made him look "like Siamese-twin elephants joined at the trunk." Even during planning for Reagan's state visit in 1984 when secrecy was essential, staff in Beijing simply refused to use a device that made them sound like Donald Duck.

And good for them. There were logistical reasons to reject the hush phone, like the impossibility of more than two people talking to each other at a time, but there is also something creditable about whatever part of Secretary Shultz said: I am a grown man, and I have some dignity.

Everyone is wondering what life will look like at the end of the month. Lockdown bitter-enders insist that the return to normal will not be like flipping a light switch, to borrow Maryland governor Larry Hogan's expression. Instead, they say, we will need to spend an indefinite period in a twilight zone of half-freedom where lockdown orders have been lifted but aggressive safety measures remain -- a "new normal."

Based on descriptions of the new normal, I am not sure we should allow ourselves to get used to it. As eager as we are to get the lockdowns over with, we must not let desperation compel us to put up with things we shouldn't.

Ross Douthat thinks that long lines outside grocery stores of people waiting to come inside and shop "may become a permanent feature of the semi-normal landscape." That's absurd, and, like the hush phone, there are both good reasons and gut reasons why.

One-way aisles and occupancy caps don't do much to stop the spread of disease considering how little transmission takes place between shoppers who pass like ships in the night. Also, queuing down the block for groceries is just too grimly Soviet.

Social distancing measures should remain in place even after schools and businesses reopen, many say. But enforced by whom? Continuing to make cops responsible for enforcing a six-feet-apart rule will only lead to more viral videos like this week's from New York, which depicts the violent conclusion of what started as a social distancing stop.

The New York City Police Benevolent Association says officers shouldn't be enforcing "vague guidelines and mixed messages." It wants the mayor to "get cops out of the social distancing enforcement business altogether." The PBA is right. The alternative is for Americans to get accustomed to being hustled along by police for the crime of picnicking on the grass or reading a book on a park bench, which would be an ominous thing to start shrugging off.

Australia is making its new normal conditional upon citizens downloading a location-tracking app modeled on Singapore's. The prime minister insists the app is voluntary, but business groups like Restaurant and Catering Australia are already considering requiring diners and shoppers to download the app before being served.

The government says its goal is for 40 percent of the population to download the app, a target still more than halfway off after its first week in the app store. "Downloading the COVIDSafe app is the major obstacle now between us freeing up a lot of these restrictions in a cautious way," Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, not disguising the ultimatum.

The last time the Australian government requested emergency permission to track its citizens' phones was the metadata retention law of 2015. As with COVIDSafe, repeated assurances were made about privacy and civil liberties. Later it was revealed that users' metadata had been used by local city councils in order to track down litterbugs and other mundane offenders who had nothing to do with the law's original justification, counter-terrorism.

The United States is not Singapore, and there are certain restrictions on our liberty that we won't tolerate. A government location-tracking app should be one of them. Such excessive post-lockout safety measures are not needed to deal with a disease that is no longer in danger of overloading our hospital capacity. More importantly, Americans' gut aversion to being overpoliced is worth preserving. Ordinary aspects of pre-coronavirus life should not be sacrificed in order to give those still attached to the lockdowns a psychological on-ramp or a face-saving pretense that their doomsday forecasts were more accurate than they were.

Except for open plan offices. Ban those permanently, for the good of the nation's health.

[May 07, 2020] A Tale of Two Countries: Denmark and Sweden

May 07, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jen , May 7 2020 1:32 utc | 50

It is interesting if perhaps concerning that of all the comments on the Peter Turchin article "A Tale of Two Countries [Denmark and Sweden]" , the one comment B chose to zero in on and highlight for his post is one by Richard England who refers to the lockdown of fiat and the lockdown of fear but provides no link to any information (such as polls, questionnaires or surveys) that would support his argument of most Swedes complying with recommendations and regulations voluntarily out of fear.

Turchin started his comparison of the progress of COVID-19 in Denmark and Sweden expecting that the death rates in Denmark compared to those in Sweden would support his belief that a lockdown was necessary. He did not expect to see that by 1 May 2020, the trends in new cases, transmission rates and even death rates in Sweden were actually comparing well with equivalent data in Denmark.

One commenter on the Turchin article, Ernst Nilsson, says that 80% of COVID-19 deaths in Sweden were of people aged 70+ years and that Swedish authorities have acknowledged that people in aged care homes and similar facilities had not been well protected.

Karl Kling points out that in Sweden, aged care facilities are the responsibility of municipal governments that have been cutting labour costs in those places by using workers, many of them on hourly contracts and / or not being fluent Swedish speakers. It is likely then that these workers have been spreading the virus among the people they care for because they are working long hours to make ends meet, are being exposed themselves to the virus more than they would be if they were working regular hours on their shifts and were being paid adequately, and do not have a good understanding of what they should be doing to avoid being infected and spreading the disease in their own languages because Swedish authorities failed to communicate adequate information about COVID-19 to immigrant communities and foreign workers.

Other commenters point out that Sweden has a large immigrant population ( Wikipedia states that the immigrant population and their children make up at least 24% of the total population; incidentally this means comparisons between Sweden and other Nordic nations, where the immigrant population and their children are about 15%, of dubious worth) and sections of this population may be behaving differently in ways that exacerbate COVID-19 incidence and mortality. The Somali community in Sweden is known to be very hard-hit by COVID-19 due in large part to living in dense and crowded housing in impoverished communities where access to healthcare, other social services and information about the disease is poor.

That aged care facilities and immigrant communities have been badly affected by COVID-19 disease is not a consequence of not having a lockdown or shutdown but is rather a consequence of past Swedish policies in allowing nursing homes and similar institutions to be rundown or badly managed, and in neglecting other vulnerable groups by not giving them information about the disease in ways they can access. That immigrants are also working in aged care facilities helps to circulate the disease among vulnerable groups.

[May 07, 2020] Sweden is a valuable case but the only viable option

May 07, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Tuyzentfloot , May 7 2020 7:13 utc | 77

Sweden is a valuable case. I see three categories of measures which can be combined:
- top down centrally managed/enforced
- self organized
- negotiated
The first relies on central planning and as central planning goes, it can be powerful and at the same time crude and wasteful. The second resembles more the 'free market' approach , it has the advantage of 'on the terrain' adjustments which can be much smarter than in the centrally organized case but it does not necessarily work in the desired direction. Much depends on the feedback mechanisms which are available.

The third is where a group of people is willing to do their sacrifices for the greater good(or the lesser evil) but they should expect something in return from other groups of people because it shifts the balance of power.

An example of the difference between 1 and 2 is how masks were handled in Belgium vs Czechia. Czechia took the more trusting decentralized approach. Belgium followed the WHO and was more guided by fear that people would do it wrong, with the scarcity and all. But people perform better if you give them trust and responsibility. Also using masks is a learning process so now you see in Belgium it takes time to get it going.

The main flaws in thinking about Sweden is that it relied entirely on the second group, that this second group by itself should be able to fix it all, and that this second group did not hit the economy hard. But for the cinema owner it does not make a big difference if they have to close down because nobody is allowed to visit, or because there are only 2 people in the theater anyway. In the restaurant sector the self organizing approach will have softened the blow. I read visitors dropped to 1/3.

I think Sweden has used a variety of measures with a variety of results. They flattened the curve without lockdown. We can learn from them, or to put it differently, steal ideas from them.

r , May 7 2020 7:23 utc | 78

so maybe Japan's strategy was better than the others ... delayed "lockdown" with very low testing ratio per million resident (even after promising about 20000 tests per day last April, to this date J-lawmakers blame lack of manpower and preparation for not being able to reach that objective). we got low numbers ... and reported infections have been declining in Tokyo.

the "lockdown" is simply a request for people to follow 3密 (san mitsu). people have explained that Japan can force the people to lockdown. the government does not have the authority. most people followed the requests ... i don't know if it's because they respected the request of the gov't or just because of fear.

GW just finished, it is a yearly migration of people from the cities back to their home towns. or people trying to refresh, go on vacation/travel. i traveled from Kanagawa (where I live) to Tokyo and was surprised at how empty it was. the trains, train stations, the areas. locally in Kanagawa, the parks are full of people, under sun shades, kids playing around.

J-media highlighted 2 cases where asymptomatic person died in self isolation in Saitama, and has now modified the requirements for getting a PCR test. i myself would like to get an antibody test ... well waiting, that is.

waiting to be able to apply for the 10万円 (100000 thousand yen) being given by the government.

i am still waiting for my アベノマスク (Abenomask). distribution is delayed because the masks were soiled/moldy/dirty. a failed stunt which cost 466億円 (466 billion yen).

the best place to buy masks now is in Chinatown ... price is high ... but there is supply ... and there is demand. Sharp (TV/LED maker) is making masks, but has to raffle it off because of the demand.

Abe-extended the State of Emergency to enf-of-May ... but if they think everything is clear they can lift the SoE as early as May 15.

[May 07, 2020] Sheriffs in Arizona have announced that they will not arrest or fine people who violate the governor's virus diktats. Police always have discretion to charge or ignore any crime, but this is a direct challenge to the governor.

May 07, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , May 6 2020 0:29 utc | 41

I usually don't read The Atlantic , but I was shocked its staff writer George Packer wrote this : "We Are Living in a Failed State: The coronavirus didn't break America. It revealed what was already broken." It's a special preview of the June issue, so I don't know how long it'll be at the link. Yes, the title foretells the content!

Hoyeru , May 6 2020 0:31 utc | 42

PIF GADGET comics magazine(a famous French comics anthology magazine for children produced by the French communist party) predicted the corona virus epidemic back in one of its January 1979 issues, not sure which, because they came out weekly. It was in Doctor Justice series, about a doctor named Benjamin Justice who travels around the world helping poor nations. It even had a drawing of a corona virus. Interesting.

Back in the 1970s, growing in a communist country, we were repeatedly warned that Americans want to wage bio war against the communists countries using viruses and bacteria. We were told they will try to spread the bio weapons around. And here we are, 2020. Seems the communists KNEW.

Trailer Trash , May 6 2020 3:25 utc | 47
>We Are Living in a Failed State

Not yet. Uncle Sam still has a near-monopoly on violence. But civilians with 400 million guns (really, more guns than people) might have something to say about that in the near future. Meanwhile, sheriffs in Arizona have announced that they will not arrest or fine people who violate the governor's virus diktats. Police always have discretion to charge or ignore any crime, but this is a direct challenge to the governor.

If an individual directly challenges the police, over anything at all, they will be abruptly dealt with. Failure to Obey is the second worst crime, right next to killing a cop. So what can a governor do, call out the National Guard against the sheriffs? That would be a big deal. But he can't let a direct challenge to his authority go unanswered. That is unthinkable in a rigid hierarchy.

[May 07, 2020] Closing cinemas and bars is a bit inconvenient but can be done without much protest. We have little experience in taking such measures. The model builders do not know how much each of those restrictions will contribute to the lowering of the peak.

May 07, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

We have little experience in taking such measures. The model builders do not know how much each of those restrictions will contribute to the lowering of the peak. They have to estimate those parameters. Until this month it was not even clear if children could get infected or were infectious. Arguing for closing schools without knowing that is quite difficult.

Clinical epidemiologists, who mostly work on randomized trials which produce hard data, are often critical of the model builders. They dislike the many assumptions that go into modeling and demand more hard data. Stanford's professor John Ioannidis, who ran the Santa Clara antibody study , is one of them. He is somewhat right. All models are wrong, but some are useful. A recent Boston Review piece looks at the differences between the two tribes of epidemiologists. It finds that we need both.

When the politicians take measures they are only in part based on the predictions the modelers made. They also have to look at economic outcomes, at other security issues and they have to take public opinion into account. Quite strict measures were taken in many western countries. They worked well in some of them. Germany has hardly any 'excess death' from Covid-19. Other countries, like Britain, acted too late or not to a sufficient degree and had to pay the price for that.

As the epidemic now starts to recede a bit there is quite a lot of criticism of the lockdown in Germany. 'The models were wrong,' some people claim. 'The lockdown measures were unnecessary.' Then follow demands for the immediate lifting of most restrictions.

"There is no glory in prevention" is the frustrating aspects in the life of an epidemiologist. If they do their job too well everyone will bash them.

A month ago Max Abrams saw this development coming and commented :

A month ago Max Abrams saw this development coming and commented :
  1. Models make assumption of how much people will social distance.
  2. Based on this assumption model predicts virus cases.
  3. More social distancing is practiced than assumed.
  4. Model over-predicts virus cases.
  5. Idiots say models are wrong so we don't need social distance.

Others point to Sweden and claim that its decision to let the epidemic burn without much intervention was a much better way than to go for lockdowns. But the evidence for that isn't there . The numbers show a different picture:

Barry Ritholtz @ritholtz - 18:03 UTC · May 3, 2020

Sweden's Coronavirus death rate > its neighbors https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

Sweden
Total Cases: 22,317
Per /1m Pop: 2,210
Deaths: 2,679
Recovered: 1,005

Denmark
Cases: 9,523
/1m: 1,644
Deaths: 484
Recovered: 6,987

Norway
Cases: 7,809
/1m: 1,440
Deaths: 211
Recovered: 32

Sweden in fact had the very same problems with its medical systems that some other countries also had. It had to ration ICU beds by denying them to people above a certain age. Its economy was hit as bad as other ones :

The effect of virus-fighting efforts on the Swedish economy has been devastating. A very large number of small businesses have collapsed. All but essential industries closed down almost immediately and many face bankruptcy. People have been told to refrain from all non-essential travel. Virtually all air travel has been suspended. Unemployment figures are soaring. The opposition parties deem government counter-measures to be too little too late.
...
Contrary to impressions created in American media, Sweden's approach to handling the pandemic has not been "relaxed," but essentially the same as in other Western countries. This country of 10 million has been at least as preoccupied with the pandemic as other countries. Whether its approach has been as efficient remains to be seen. What may stand out as exceptional in the end is Sweden's glaring lack of preparedness for a pandemic, especially for protecting its elderly, and that the dead are disproportionately recent immigrants.

While Sweden may not have ordered everyone into a total lockdown the people have largely done that by themselves simply out fo fear.

As a comment by one Richard England here (May 6, 2020 at 3:40am) describes that effect:

There are two kinds of lock-down, lock-down by fiat and lock-down by fear (or for that matter, self-preservation). The importance of lock-down by fear explains why Sweden has not done as badly as would be expected. Both forms of lock-down are economically destructive. Lock-down by fiat is usually either too slow or too incomplete to be much different from lock-down by fear, and both are more than enough to knock over a weak economy. Fear dissipates, and the economic life resumes more quickly where the disease has been essentially eliminated.

The effect is also captured in this graph by the German equivalent to the CDC, the Robert Koch Institute. It shows the replication factor R of the epidemic in Germany and three points in time where official lockdown measures were taken.


bigger

The replication factor of the disease in Germany was already decreasing in mid March before the more severe measures were ordered. R was below 1 even before March 23 when the government ordered the lockdown.

The simple reason for that is the people heard the news and watched TV. The pictures and death numbers from Italy in late February were quite brutal. When herd animals sense that an epidemic is taken place within their herd they distance themselves from each other. Humans behave similarly. As in Sweden many people in Germany went into some kind of lockdown and practiced social distancing even before it was ordered.

Some now claim that the RKI graph shows that the measures were not necessary. They are wrong. The data was not known when the measures were taken. The first of the simulations shown in the graph was done on April 1. In late March the R seemed to go again above 1 which meant that the epidemic was again expanding. Only the lockdown measures taken on March 23 pressed R below 1 and led to a slow decrease of new daily cases.

Germany is now slowly coming out of its lockdown. The U.S. is doing this too but at a point of the epidemic where it is way too early. There are economic reasons to do so but the early lifting of lockdown measures will likely cost the U.S. many human lives.

Fear will help to overrule that overhasty political decision. The news will continue to report new mass outbreaks in this or that part of the country. The fear will therefore also continue and the people will keep distancing themselves from each other. How much that will help to slow down the epidemic is difficult to estimate.

There is now some evidence that the summer will bring some relief from the onslaught of bad news. A study with data from 166 countries and published in Science of The Total Environment finds :

A 1 °C increase in temperature was associated with a 3.08% (95% CI: 1.53%, 4.63%) reduction in daily new cases and a 1.19% (95% CI: 0.44%, 1.95%) reduction in daily new deaths, whereas a 1% increase in relative humidity was associated with a 0.85% (95% CI: 0.51%, 1.19%) reduction in daily new cases and a 0.51% (95% CI: 0.34%, 0.67%) reduction in daily new deaths. The results remained robust when different lag structures and the sensitivity analysis were used. These findings provide preliminary evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic may be partially suppressed with temperature and humidity increases. However, active measures must be taken to control the source of infection, block transmission and prevent further spread of COVID-19.

A hot and wet summer is likely to lower the number of new Covid-19 cases. But after the summer come fall and winter during which we are likely to see a new peak. The fear will be back, social distances will again be practiced and the economic damage will further increase.

We had the chance to do otherwise. China gave us time to take the right measures. It has, like Hong Kong, Vietnam, South Korea and New Zealand, practically eradicated the disease within its boarders. It now has an advantage that will be difficult to beat.

Posted by b on May 6, 2020 at 18:57 UTC | Permalink

Posted by b at 18:57 UTC , Comments (149)

Posted by b at 18:57 UTC | Comments (149) /div

[May 07, 2020] Government sponcored lockdown vs self-imposed lockdown driven by fear

May 07, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

bevin , May 6 2020 19:15 utc | 1

"The importance of lock-down by fear explains why Sweden has not done as badly as would be expected. Both forms of lock-down are economically destructive."

The difference being that where the government plans and controls the lockdown it can mitigate many of the economic consequences by, for example, ensuring that nobody runs out of money to buy essentials, subsidising prices in agriculture and buying surpluses arising from lower demand, and various other measures, including rationing, which will ensure that the 'lockdown' does not lead to the deaths of anything except marginal businesses.

Many and sincere thanks, b, for these thoughtful and prescient posts. Yours has been a rare voice of sanity and social responsibility in this pandemic. It is to be hoped that even those who disagree with your conclusions recognise the honest and agonising analysis behind them.


C , May 6 2020 20:14 utc | 9

Regarding the imposed versus fear lockdown: Spain had (has) an imposed lockdown, but from the first day the new PSOE/Podemos government announced unprecedente measures to prevent evictions, layoffs, and provide income support that would help working people, including the irregular "gig economy" types that usually fall through the cracks of many such efforts. Big diference from 2007_8. The battle is now with the EU. We Will see if the Dutch and Germán bankers Will pull their heads out of their collective asses, or take the while EU down.
Alaric , May 6 2020 20:27 utc | 10
One really needs to take a closer, deeper look at Sweden and most every place. The lockdown vs. not lockdown mentality is overly simplistic and inaccurate.

Sweden has a high level of obesity (21%) and 44% of Swedes are overweight. Norway is similar but Denmark has 9.5% obesity. Sweden has a larger immigrant (% pop) than Norway and probably than Denmark. Immigrant population in Sweden did not seem to listen to the measures sweden took. Nearly 50% (maybe more now)of the deceased in Sweden are from nursing homes and Sweden's nursing homes are on average bigger (200 plus persons) compared to those in Norway (about 45 people). The Swedes failed to take actions to protect those nursing homes until it was too late and 1/3 had infections. Its worth pointing out that immigrants are over represented among employees of said institutions too.

The over simplification is a tool lockdown advocates are using to ignore the basic reality. Deaths are ultimately about percent of vulnerable in the population (elderly mostly) and success in protecting them from the Virus. The virus yields asymptomatic to mild results in 95% of more of the population so its really all about the vulnerable population. If you want a meaningful chart, then you need to chart deaths vs over 65 population and vs persons with comorbidities.

NY/NJ shut down and still had a lot more deaths per capita than Sweden. NY/NJ failed in the same way Sweden failed. They did not protect the vulnerable.

Lurk , May 6 2020 20:31 utc | 11
When I was in Sweden last summer, I was perplexed how unhealthy many Swedes look. The picture in Denmark was completely different. Curiously, the Covid-19 incidence rates in Denmark, Norway and Sweden mostly mirror my (superficial and subjective) impression of the health of the citizens of these countries. Lots of obesity in Sweden, lots of cyclists in Denmark.

[May 07, 2020] Will the American Way of Life Become a Casualty of the Coronavirus

May 07, 2020 | nationalinterest.org

By April, the country had changed. A virus that had gained footing overseas had spread like wildfire in major cities, forcing bars and restaurants to shutter their doors. The long days at the office were gone. Economic stability had disappeared. At night, the news organizations displayed images of corpses wrapped in white bags being loaded into refrigerated trucks in the once-busy streets of New York City. They showed video footage of people in biohazard suits placing bodies into a mass grave on Hart Island . The gears in the clock were moving at a fast pace in high-density parts of the country: alive this month and dead the next. By May, those who resided outside of the coronavirus hot zones though, who didn't have to see the deadly virus's grim threats on a daily basis, yearned for their old ways of living.

[May 06, 2020] Halting the economy to guard against COVID-19 spread is a terrible idea, and it will already have horrific consequences

I can't imagine that the lockdown will last much longer then end of May. A month, perhaps, to enable governments to row back and gradually feed the change of planned course through the media.
May 06, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

[May 06, 2020] Fauci relied on Neil Ferguson, who proved to be incompetent sharlatan

May 06, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Russ , May 6 2020 6:04 utc | 56

Neil Ferguson is the chief hack with an unbroken record of failure in his epidemiological projections (and therefore always failing upward, as is typical of the system's most useful propagandists), whose prescriptions have been instrumental in pushing the lockdown ideology and program.

Now we learn that he himself doesn't believe in his own lies, as he has felt free to flout the same restrictions he has insisted must become the totalitarian "new normal".

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/may/05/uk-coronavirus-adviser-prof-neil-ferguson-resigns-after-breaking-lockdown-rules

That, along with the already long list of similar examples among the policy elites, proves it: The lockdown elites themselves know it's all a Big Lie.

For Ferguson's prior record:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article209749.html

"Professor Neil Ferguson, high priest of liberal hospital management and inventor of the generalized containment against Covid-19. Professor Ferguson is still the European reference for epidemic modelling.

- Yet it was he who, in 2001, convinced Prime Minister Tony Blair to have 6 million cattle slaughtered to stop the foot-and-mouth epidemic (a decision that cost 10 billion pounds and is now considered an aberration).

- In 2002, he calculated that mad cow disease would kill about 50,000 British people and another 150,000 when transmitted to sheep. There were actually 177.

- In 2005, he predicted that bird flu would kill 65,000 Britons. There were a total of 457."

His Corona terror-mongering will become known as his ultimate failure and lie.

[May 06, 2020] Fauci: No scientific evidence the coronavirus was made in a Chinese lab

May 06, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

RS , May 5 2020 12:03 utc | 150

Fauci: No scientific evidence the coronavirus was made in a Chinese lab

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/05/anthony-fauci-no-scientific-evidence-the-coronavirus-was-made-in-a-chinese-lab-cvd/

[May 05, 2020] Trump Says Dr. Fauci Will Testify To Senate, Slams Dem-Controlled House As A Set-Up

May 05, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Update (1045ET): In video of Trump's Tuesday morning scrum with reporters, the president can be heard telling a reporter that he is allowing Dr. Fauci to testify before the Senate - and not the House - because the House is "a set up".

REPORTER: Why won't you let Fauci testify before the House?

TRUMP: "Because the House is a set up. The House is a bunch of Trump haters ... they, frankly, want our situation to be unsuccessful, which means death." pic.twitter.com/G3G5OoV5IV

-- Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 5, 2020

[May 05, 2020] Fauci has already been awarded the dunce cap with his 1980s assertion that HIV was going kill us all

May 05, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Eric Newhill , 04 May 2020 at 01:26 PM

And Fauci has already been awarded the dunce cap with his 1980s assertion that HIV was going kill us all. So I guess for his most recent action he gets the dunce cap with slide rule cluster.

[May 05, 2020] Dr. Fauci backed controlversial Wuhan Lab with millions of U.S. dollars for risky coronavirus research

May 05, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

omp , May 5 2020 10:47 utc | 144

A conclusion on the origin of a virus is frankly just secondary in a globalized world, is it not?

Dr. Fauci backed controlversial Wuhan Lab with millions of U.S. dollars for risky coronavirus research

"The project was run by EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit research group, under the direction of President Peter Daszak, an expert on disease ecology. NIH canceled the project just this past Friday, April 24th, Politico reported. Daszak did not immediately respond to Newsweek requests for comment."

[May 05, 2020] Ferguson and his Imperial College modelers have a notorious track record for predicting dire consequences of diseases. Based on the Ferguson model, Dr Anthony Fauci of NIAID confronted President Trump and supposedly pressured him to declare a national health emergency.

May 05, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Pft , May 4 2020 22:29 utc | 56

These models are nothing more than curve fitting tools that have limited predictive value.

Basically the models are derived from Neil Ferguson and his modelling group at Imperial College, in addition to being backed by WHO, receive millions from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Ferguson was the source of the "prediction" that 2.2 million Americans would likely die if immediate lockdown of the US economy did not occur. Based on the Ferguson model, Dr Anthony Fauci of NIAID confronted President Trump and supposedly pressured him to declare a national health emergency. Much as in the UK, once the damage to the economy , Ferguson's model later drastically lowered the US fatality estimates to between 100,000 to 200,000 deaths which has since been reduced further.

Ferguson and his Imperial College modelers have a notorious track record for predicting dire consequences of diseases. In 2002 Ferguson predicted that up to 50,000 people in UK would die from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, "mad cow disease", possibly to 150,000 if the epidemic expanded to include sheep. A total of 178 people were officially registered dead from vCJD. In 2005, Ferguson claimed that up to 200 million (!) people worldwide would be killed by bird-flu or H5N1. By early 2006, the WHO had only linked 78 deaths to the virus. Then in 2009 Ferguson's group at Imperial College advised the government that swine flu or H1N1 would probably kill 65,000 people in the UK. In the end, swine flu claimed the lives of 457 people.

As for China. They need a Fake Cold War. Have to give people an external enemy so people wont figure out who the real enemy is. To the extent China was involved it was as an equal partner.

[May 05, 2020] Here's a good first-hand story of the difference between China and the US in handling nCOV

May 05, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

c1ue , May 4 2020 22:30 utc | 59

Here's a good first-hand story of the difference between China and the US in handling nCOV:
SCMP story on ex-pat American family
I was on the ground in the US for less than 36 hours, but saw enough to be alarmed. If I hadn't forcefully volunteered that I had just come from living in China, I don't think anyone would have checked me for fever before entering the US.

Once I declared myself, I was escorted to a "CDC line" for a cursory temperature check (with a large group of Mormon missionaries returning from Europe), given a Centres for Disease Control and Prevention flier about Covid-19 symptoms and asked to stay home and minimise my trips outside for 14 days.

...

Finally, after we promised not to leave our flat, our passports were returned to us, and at 4.03am, some 16 hours after landing, we were home. That morning, a young woman in a hazmat suit knocked on our door and took our temperatures at 10am. She returned at 3pm to take our temperatures again.

This routine was repeated for 14 days before we would be permitted to circulate in the general Shanghai population. We chatted occasionally with our temperature takers (they were a rotating cast of 20-something women). Initially, a man would accompany them to film the temperature reading, but by the final few days the women came alone.

A few days after our return, we discovered that authorities had placed a sensor on our door. And more than a week after the start of our quarantine, we received a note informing us we were not to open our door more than five times a day.

There's a lot more on the epic journey to pass through Chinese airport/immigration/nCOV control procedures, but just this last bit makes it clear what the difference is.

Has anyone out there seen or heard of any nCOV quarantined people in the US even being checked on once to see if they are maintaining quarantine? Much less twice a day for 14 days by a live person, plus a sensor on the door?

Note that this is a much easier setup than contact tracing.

[May 05, 2020] Fauci predictions and reality

May 05, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

JBrant , May 5 2020 1:25 utc | 111

Thanks for this very helpful tracing of US propaganda.

Those projections are very suspect, especially Deaths Per Day, where the model is way off the mark for Past data on deaths per day! Any decent model would at least account for the past data, but that one predicted a fifth of the deaths, and shows the rate dramatically increasing when reported deaths are slowly decreasing.

In the US, some states (Guam, Hawaii, Vermont) have suppressed the virus spread very well, some (Florida, Washington state) have a slow decline in new cases, and just a few (Massachusetts, Virginia others) are still increasing in new cases per day. Fortunately, the rate is increasing in the District of Corruption, but not fast enough to reduce the corruption much.

[May 04, 2020] Fauci vs Atlas and Ioannides. Who will wear the dunce cap

Notable quotes:
"... Mnuchin said today that it is too early to say whether international travel will open back up before the end of the year ..."
May 04, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"The basis of reassuring the public about re-entry is repeating the facts about the threat and who it targets . By now, studies from Europe and the U.S . all suggest that the overall fatality rate is far lower than early estimates. And we know who to protect, because this disease – by the evidence – is not equally dangerous across the population. In Michigan's Oakland County , 75 percent of deaths were in those over 70 years old; 91 percent were in people over 60, similar to what was noted in New York . And younger, healthier people have virtually zero risk of death and little risk of serious disease; as I have noted before, under one percent of New York City's hospitalizations have been patients under 18 years of age, and less than one percent of deaths at any age are in the absence of underlying conditions.

Here are specific and logical steps to end the lockdown and safely restore normal life:

First , let's finally focus on protection for the most vulnerable -- that means nursing home patients, who are already living under controlled access. This would include strictly regulating all who enter and care for nursing home members by requiring testing and protective masks for all who interact with these highly vulnerable people. Specifically, nursing home workers should be tested for COVID-19 antibodies, and if negative, for virus to exclude infection, to ensure safety of senior residents. No COVID-19-positive patient can resume residence until definitively cleared by testing.

We should continue to inform the public about what they have already successfully learned regarding the at-risk group. That means issuing rational guidelines advising the highest standards of hygiene and appropriate social distancing while interacting with elderly friends and family members at risk, including those with diabetes, obesity and other chronic conditions.

Second , those with mild symptoms of the illness should strictly self-isolate for two weeks. It's not urgent to test them -- simply assume they have the infection. That includes confinement at home, having the highest concern for sanitization and wearing protective masks when others in their homes enter the same room." Dr. Scott Atlas in The Hill

---------------

It should be mentioned that Dr. John Ioannides, a leading epidemiologist at Stanford agrees with Dr. Atlas.

I saw Atlas on a news program a day or so ago. The anchor looked frightened by what Atlas was saying. This is understandable. The COVID panic is now so deeply embedded and pervasive that to question the rationale for the shut-down of the economy is equivalent to heresy in a theocratic state.

IMO the road back economically is going to be slow and difficult. I hope I am wrong. pl

https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/495833-how-to-open-society-using-medical-science-and-logic?fbclid=IwAR2nEYTdayVhhU47mmrIZ9FawIw9M6I2yTtOAyKhNvv0wLdSv_R4Xw6vhFI


Diana Croissant , 04 May 2020 at 09:38 AM

I hope you are wrong, too. I am tired of the drama and hysteria.

Still, I do want the investigations into China's culpability for the
result of their "accident" or of their planned upheaval of the rest of the world.

I just want to trust some designated "expert" to tell us when when we can put away the masks and can take up hugging our friends and shaking hands while smiling and meeting new acquaintances. What is a church service without that and all the stories of Christs care and concern for the "untouchables" of the world?

J , 04 May 2020 at 10:40 AM
Colonel,

Beijing is getting very nervous. Take a look at Reuter's report:

Exclusive: Internal Chinese report warns Beijing faces Tiananmen-like global backlash over virus

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-sentiment-ex/exclusive-internal-chinese-report-warns-beijing-faces-tiananmen-like-global-backlash-over-virus-idUSKBN22G19C

Seems the CCP's MSS's think-tank CICR compiled an Intelligence Report of their own warning of possible armed conflict with U.S..

IMO it's hoped that our IC will realize that this virus doesn't jump ship into the human sphere on its own naturally without 'human tweaking in a lab' which then provides a bridge from which the virus could go from bats to the human sphere. And why would the CCP/MSS play such a dangerous game? -- Bio-weapons R&D.

Eric Newhill , 04 May 2020 at 10:59 AM
There can be little doubt that the fascist/socialist/anti-Trump elements in this country have seized upon the presence of the virus to attempt to destroy Trump's chances in November and to bring about greater state control of citizens. This immediately after the lame impeachment plot failed to remove Trump; which was right after the lame Russian collusion plot failed to remove Trump.

I don't think it's paranoid to consider that China released the virus on the US at a time when President Trump is engaging in a major trade war with the Chinese, as a tactic in fighting that war.

The Ionides/Atlas clinical perspective has been known to be correct - based on data - since March, yet the Democrat controlled states continue to double down on state control of their populations and destruction of their economies.

The Left has become a collection of kamikazes. The elites can ride this out. They have money. They are hoping that when the economy is in ashes, all of the starving little people will come into their open arms.

In 1968 another Asian virus, known as the Hong Kong flu, arrived in the US. It began killing Americans noticeably in 1969. As this was occurring, the Woodstock music festival was planned. The festival went off with now famous record crowd numbers during the peak of the virus. No one seemed to care. That virus ultimately killed 100,000 Americans (not Woodstock attendees); more than covid, even if you believe the artificially inflated covid figures. That was at a time when the population of the US was far less. So a far greater % died than covid.

We've been here before folks. It's the reaction that is different this time. The reaction is driven by internal and external political objectives of massive importance for our future as a free society.

Free people need to be able to make these decisions on their own. Give them clear information and let them decide their next move. Keep the government "experts" out of the decision making process. I believe that as the weather improves and the economic hardship increases, Americans will turn on the fascist/socialist elites and take their lives back. The vulnerable and the cowards will self-isolate. I further believe Americans will do what they need to to get the economy going again, buying American made only, patronizing small businesses beyond what they normally would and voting for pro-American candidates (i.e. the Democrats lose big time).

Deap , 04 May 2020 at 11:11 AM
What should we be doing every "flu season"?

What have we done every flu season that has resulted in very similar numbers and population groups affected. How, in fact, is this one materially different.

Barbara Ann , 04 May 2020 at 11:13 AM
Mnuchin said today that it is too early to say whether international travel will open back up before the end of the year . Coincidentally, I also came across a Twitter poll of 15,000 people with the the following question & results:

"Hypothetically, if everything opens up tomorrow when would you fly again?"

- Immediately 25%
- 2-3 months 20%
- 3-6 months 26%
- 1 year or more 29%

Hardly scientific and I've no idea of the demographic or geographic spread of respondents, but it seems pretty clear many people remain fearful.

https://twitter.com/chigrl/status/1257097868919406594

David Solomon , 04 May 2020 at 11:18 AM
Colonel Lang, As to economic recovery I suggest listening to this podcast with Nouriel Roubini.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2020-05-03/nouriel-roubini-sees-a-bad-recovery-and-a-depression-podcast

TV , 04 May 2020 at 11:20 AM
The Democrat-media hysteria HAS been deeply ingrained.
The mass of people have - not surprisingly - turned out to be lambs (baby sheep).
Each person is responsible for managing their own life - which includes risk.
Unfortunately, the population of lambs has been trained over the years to look for mommy government to manage their risk - mandatory seat belt laws come to mind.
Ben Franklin said it succinctly:
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
PJ20 , 04 May 2020 at 11:30 AM
There is widespread criticism of Ioannides two Covid studies, including the use of an unapproved antibody tests which is known to give false positives; statistical flaws, and recruiting volunteers for the sampling via Facebook, as well as the wife of a study co-author to call and recruit parents from her kids school.

Here is an excerpt from an article on the controversy.

""My quick take is that something really odd is going on with Ioannidis," wrote Alexander Rubinsteyn, a geneticist and computational biologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in an email to Undark. Rubinsteyn suggested that Ioannidis may simply be "so attached to being the iconoclast that defies conventional wisdom that he's unintentionally doing horrible science."

He added: "Pretty much no one with statistical acumen believes these studies.""https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/23/coronavirus-antibody-studies-california-stanford

Patrick Armstrong , 04 May 2020 at 11:48 AM
Here's who Ioannidis is https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/308269/
JJackson , 04 May 2020 at 11:57 AM
In areas where the health system is not under stress this makes perfect sense. I would give the hugging, handshaking and church services a miss and maintain the social distancing at work and when out of the house as far as is practical. It needs to be done with lots of testing, contact tracing and case isolation. Knowledge and common sense on everyone's part will work. Limited local shutdown may be needed if cases start climbing in some areas.
BillWade , 04 May 2020 at 12:22 PM
Our restaurants open today in most of Florida. In spite of needing our hair attended to, we will eat out both lunch and dinner. Sadly, some of our restaurants are closing for good. My wife tells me that local Facebook is about evenly divided about going out now. I don't get it as these folks have been gathering in the supermarkets the whole time.
turcopolier , 04 May 2020 at 12:40 PM
All

Explain to me what anti-body testing does for us as a population other than allow mapping the extent of infection.

Eric Newhill , 04 May 2020 at 12:42 PM
PJ20,
Except the results of the Ionides study have been replicated several times now elsewhere in the country, including NYC.
AK , 04 May 2020 at 12:46 PM
Diana Croissant,

"I just want to trust some designated 'expert' to tell us when when we can put away the masks and can take up hugging our friends and shaking hands while smiling and meeting new acquaintances. What is a church service without that and all the stories of Christs care and concern for the 'untouchables' of the world?"

I think that "expert" you seek is going to have to be the person you see in the mirror every morning. The "designated experts" have no interest in encouraging you to go back to living a life you love. As Eric Newhill stated, it's going to be up to free-thinking adults to make those decisions for themselves. If you expect or hope for "experts" to protect you from yourself, then you have too much faith in "experts" and in government. Take sensible precautions as they relate to your own risk demographic and respect other people making those choices for themselves. Otherwise let's all get on living like Americans.

ST Harris , 04 May 2020 at 12:55 PM
Even in blissful 'pre rona' December the Fed's repo market had been sounding the alarms that a serious bubble recession was coming. Nothing apparently was fixed from the last wall street megadooshbaggery meltdown. See:

https://www.housingwire.com/articles/wells-fargo-joins-chase-in-halting-helocs/

This means that even those who built up real estate equity will have a difficult time short term liquifying that equity, which means that Chase, Wells Fargo, et al have a lot of pessimism about the US real estate market, the thing they have made so much money on last few years, and which they were supposed to have fixed.

well pilgrims ;) not only is the economy enduring sudden searing pandemic pain, it is also feeling the beginning of a big bubble popping recession, which everybody in the financial world was already freaking about well before the rona arrived. Perhaps endless Fed QE can prop up equities markets through November, perhaps, but then it's all bets off into 2021 as numerous wall street debts scams will have to be deleveraged.

Eric Newhill , 04 May 2020 at 01:21 PM
Sir,
In the spirit of fairness, anti-body testing would allow scientists to identify who has the anti-bodies and then track them to see if they become re-infected and, if so, at what level of severity. That would shed light on the "herd immunity" theory (i.e. is there such a thing and, if so, to what extent?).

Otherwise, calls for "universal testing" are just sound bites born of confusion and panic, at best; another means of violating the rights of Americans at worst (e.g. making people wear yellow stars, carrying papers that allow them to enjoy full or truncated societal "privelges").

The Twisted Genius , 04 May 2020 at 01:25 PM
pl,

Widespread antibody testing will show covid-19 is more contagious than a lot of diseases, but not not near as deadly as most people think. People will see they had it, didn't even know it and are now immune to it at least in the near term. Fear will be deflated. We will then have a known large segment of the population known to not capable of further spreading the virus and a ready supply of antibody serum as an effective treatment for those who do get infected. That will also diminish fear.

Covid-19 and our response to it is as much a political issue as it is a public health issue. Trump was going to run on a booming economy. If he wants to get back to that strategy, he has to banish the fear of the virus. That will get everyone back to work so they can eat and pay rent, as well as continue to piss away their money on crap they don't need. Our economy depends on all that. If Trump is smart, he best get to stepping and institute a nationwide antibody testing program.

Eric Newhill , 04 May 2020 at 01:26 PM
And Fauci has already been awarded the dunce cap with his 1980s assertion that HIV was going kill us all. So I guess for his most recent action he gets the dunce cap with slide rule cluster.
Deap , 04 May 2020 at 01:29 PM
A cruise passenger interests website offered another informal poll - are you willing to cruise again: 64% said as much as in the past; 10% said they would cruise even more to help get the industry back on its feet. Therefore, in this obviously interested sample, 75% want the cruise industry to start up again. Yesterday. 25% will choose to wait or not cruise again.

The cruise industry passenger base remains willing and loyal. In fact they are probably better trained in personal hygiene habits than most having had to deal with noro (aka tourista ) in the past and a typical URI complaint commonly called" cruise crud" that was most likely picked up on the air flight to get to the cruise port. The real numbers of disease and mortality overall within this industry do not support the screaming head llnes and lurid reporting.

turcopolier , 04 May 2020 at 01:40 PM
TTG

It remains to be seen if one infection makes an individual immune for some time. IMO we should follow the Atlas/Ioannides formula. I noticed in re-reading "Sharpsburg," that Hunter McGuire appears therein.

Deap , 04 May 2020 at 01:44 PM
What does an anti-body test do? I just had one last week and awaiting the results - was a cruise passenger and international air passenger during the month of January in a later suspected area. (not Asia).

Here is why I did the anti-body test: (Quest Labs - fee service, no RX- 99% accuracy - drawn blood vial test)

1. Helps substantiate dates and areas of transmission that may not yet be in the data pool.

2. Tracks the rates of asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic cases occurring among the "elderly", in order to see if there is an enhanced risk of not in this age group, if there are no underlying co-morbidities.

3. Adds demographic data specific for the travel industry.

4. Allows possible donation of anti-body serum for research and perhaps mitigation of those who are affected.

5. Personal peace of mind -been there and done that. Freedom to move about.

6. Provides baseline for duration of immunity; resilience of immunity or data showing re-infection can be possible.

Primarily it is for data gathering to help stop the hysteria. That was worth the time, money and blood donation for me. We will never know the true extent of this virus, its impacts, its initial modeling accuracy until we start plugging facts into the "expert" hypotheticals.

Taking one for the team is the way I see it. Will I now become a local Typhoid Mary and our house burned down if this data becomes known? Or will people stop walking out into the roadway in faux deference to my advanced age as I pass by, from our deliciously virtue signaling "progressive" population in blue state California.

turcopolier , 04 May 2020 at 01:44 PM
All

Am I right or wrong in thinking that when the injected liquidity plus existing cash exceeds the amount of money that would haven been in the economy at this point then the currency will begin to inflate?

turcopolier , 04 May 2020 at 01:47 PM
Deap

"Provides baseline for duration of immunity; resilience of immunity or data showing re-infection can be possible. Primarily it is for data gathering to help stop the hysteria." Yes

Oilman2 , 04 May 2020 at 01:54 PM
Colonel, you are NOT wrong. The oil business in America is going to take a very long time to recover. There are complete shutterings of businesses, bankruptcies and more - all while we were in the middle of a downturn. Personally, I just folded up my tent because my my active client list went from 21 to zero over this last month (and that includes intl clients).

As the number one buyer of US steel, the oilpatch represents much more than people realize. We have also been the number one buyer of many other items - where sales have disappeared as company quietly and reluctantly face the reality of the current induced glut.

I'm being forced to change livelihoods - interesting for me, as I am short of the age to get my SS check and too old to employ by most corporate masters....

The Twisted Genius , 04 May 2020 at 02:06 PM
pl,

Yes, I noticed Hunter Holmes when I reread Chancellorsville this time. I knew nothing about him until you mentioned him a while back. He also founded what is now the VCU Medical Center and was president of the AMA for a time. There is a statue of him on the State Capitol grounds, but i haven't seen it yet.

[May 04, 2020] Fauci and the damage to the USA economy

May 04, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

It's likely Fauci's incorrect simply because just as central planners routinely failed when it came to planning economic outcomes in the 20th century, so does that same central planning fail now. Fauci once again may be brilliant, but he's no match for a U.S. economy comprised of hundreds of millions of individuals making infinite informed decisions every second of every day.

The same applies to Bill Gates. Some believe that his undeniable genius as a businessman positions him to knowledgeably opine on how we the U.S. and the world can come back from the virus. Gates has observed that businesses would be troubled with or without the lockdowns, unemployment would be higher with or without them, so the plan should be to continue them until we're better situated in terms of a vaccine.

Is Gates right? It's once again difficult to know. For one, his analysis ignores the "unseen"; as in what would individuals and businesses have done had the response of politicians to the virus been something like "You're all adults. Be careful."

If so, it's not unreasonable to suggest that Fauci, Gates and other intelligent individuals would have strongly called for Americans to shelter-in-place, and tens of millions would have done just that. At the same time, Elon Musk and investors like Michael Burry might have responded in more intrepid fashion; calling for individuals and businesses to work around a virus of unknown lethality.

[May 03, 2020] Brad Griffin is Not My Mommy and He Doesn't Get to Decide Whether or Not I Can Play Outside by Andrew Anglin

May 03, 2020 | www.unz.com

The decision of whether or not to embrace coronamania is not based on statistical analysis of the specific number of nursing home residents or obese black people that are likely to die. We are witnessing a mass hysteria. It is collective temporary insanity induced by the media. The gulf between skeptics and true believers is underlined by personal disposition; those who are inclined to prioritize personal responsibility, freedom and suspicion of authority are pushing back against the lockdown, while those who are prone to neuroticism, risk aversion, safety prioritization and trust in authority are embracing the hysteria. For most people, the data becomes simply a post-hoc rationalization for a position that was already determined by their psychological profile. Given the masculine/feminine dichotomy, it has also become a partisan political issue, which has poisoned any public debate over the merits of the various claims.

...As a healthy and athletic 35-year-old, I am not at risk for dying. According to the CDC's own numbers, I have less than a 1 in 1000 chance of dying, even if I get sick enough to go to the hospital. This is approximately the same risk I have of dying from drowning or burning to death in a fire. By CDC math, I am ten times more likely to die in a car crash than I am to die of the coronavirus. For me personally, the coronavirus falls squarely into the category of "acceptable risks." I believe that I had a right to make that choice. However, here I sit, locked in my house, because people like Brad Griffin lobbied for this insane experiment.

This government that Brad Griffin demands we hand over total control of our lives to has overseen the mass import and distribution of opioid drugs, which are now killing 70,000 people a year. This government refuses virtually any regulation of the food industry, which leads to the deaths of 650,000 people every year from heart disease. This government sent thousands of young Americans to die in Iraq and Afghanistan for the purpose of forwarding the regional goals of Israel, based on a series of hoaxes. It's very difficult for me to buy the idea that this government is particularly concerned about my health.

Ezekiel Emmanuel, a dual Democrat political operative and credentialed expert, has been a prime evangelist for this lockdown. He was at the forefront of changing the narrative from "prevent the hospitals from being overwhelmed" to "we must continue the lockdown until the virus is eradicated." He is currently serving as Joe Biden's chief advisor on medical issues. While developing Barack Obama's healthcare plan, Emmanuel was the core proponent of what became known as "death panels," a policy that would limit end of life care for the elderly in the name of prioritizing the greater good of society. And he is now concerned about old people dying of the flu?

Brad Griffin claimed in his gotcha manifesto that anyone who even dares ask questions about whether or not it is desirable to surrender all control of our lives to this government, all the way down to our ability to feed ourselves, is a "libertarian." I assert that even if you actually believed that this coronavirus is a Biblical plague, that the only possible solution to it is to lock everyone in their houses (while also letting them gather whenever they want at supermarkets), including healthy young people whose chance of experiencing complications from the virus is statistically nonexistent, and you were fine with sacrificing the entire economy, putting what will probably amount to at least 50% of the population out of work, destroying virtually all small businesses, creating a massive new homeless population that is going to number in the millions and vastly inflating the suicide and drug abuse rates – even then, it would be appropriate to ask if this government is going to take advantage of this situation.

Brad Griffin's position is that we all just need to shut up and do as we're told.

While claiming that there is no chance whatsoever that the government will exploit this situation, Brad Griffin also takes the position that this will not collapse the economy. He's the only person on the entire internet I've seen saying that. The fun part is, whereas we will never know if we would have had as easy of a time as Sweden if we did as they did and refused the lockdown, we are going to know very soon whether the government is going to agree to give us all of our Constitutional rights back and whether or not the economy has collapsed. You will all be able to come back here and see my position in contrast with Brad Griffin's position, and decide who was right and who was wrong.

I have no idea why Brad Griffin and the rest of the costumed neo-Nazi community is promoting a total surrender to the government in the name of safety. Some people might say, "the COINTELPRO chief should be fired, because this has gotten ridiculous."

I won't say that. I'll just say this: Brad Griffin, you are not my mommy. I already have a mommy. In fact, we all have mommies. We all love our mommies, but none of us are looking for a second mommy.

MB , says: Website Show Comment May 2, 2020 at 7:21 pm GMT

Dunno Andrew. This is not rocket science and we all doesn't have to be Werner Von Einsteins (sic) to figure it out. Because if nobody is an expert, but the experts, so what?

It's called jujitsu.
IOW are the so called experts self consistent and coherent?

Rather, the WHO/CDC organizations and the IMHE and Imperial College reports are bought and paid for hirelings of Bill Gates. The same who took how many times and versions before he got Windows right?
Fauci in 2000 was still calling AIDS a plague threatening the world and likewise the 2009 Swine Flu.
(That something that was transmitted by sticking something in your arm or up the poop chute was supposed to seriously threaten heterosexuals who weren't drug addicts passed expert peer review is par for the course.)

Likewise for anybody who has lived through the Asian, Hong Kong, Swine, Bird, Nile River, Zika, AIDS, Ebola, SARS, MERS etc. epidemics, some herd immunity has been developed regarding the Chicken Little/Boy Who Cried Wolf fairy tale

So at first it was 2-3 Million – even with mitigation i.e. cower in place/anti-social distancing etc. – then 100-200 k and now 60-80k which is a bad flu season. Hmmm.

Neither does "flattening the curve" reduce the overall numbers. It only spreads them out. So now the hospitals are empty/going broke.
And we're going to empty the jails so the criminals don't get sick there is room for all the people that don't wear masks.

But what I really want to know is if there really is a mask shortage, how come nobody has snitched on Antifa and the KKK. It would seem that this is the time for them to come into their own as the real heros of the debacle. (Nah, cops and robbers is only for kids.)

IOW give me liberty or six feet and a mask blindfold so we'll shut up/suck it up.

cheers,

The Emperor Has No Clothes/Long Live the Emperor.

[May 03, 2020] Lockdown Wars Debating Pandemic Measures in a Failed State

May 03, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

... ... ...

People and governments always invoke the safety and security of the majority when they are taking away rights for "our own good," just like the Patriot Act did. It's an old playbook...

There is science which should be informing decisions. But while claiming a small rally in Denver will cost lives, or Florida will kill people by opening its beaches, the same voices remain silent as NYC keeps its subway running 24/7. The public beach versus public transportation debate came as a new study showed that NYC's "multitentacled subway system was a major disseminator -- if not the principal transmission vehicle -- of coronavirus infection," seeding the virus throughout the city. Without a superspreader like the subway it can be contained locally. It is tragic when the virus rips through a nursing home or meatpacking plant (it is a virus after all, it will go viral), but all of those together barely touch a week's body count in New York. Shut down mass transport.

We can put most people back to work with limited risk; the protesters are right. The virus kills a very specific patient. About half the dead are over age 65. Less than one percent of deaths are under age 44. Almost 94 percent of the dead in any age group had serious underlying medical issues (about half had hypertension and/or were obese, a third had lung problems). The death toll in NY/NJ under total lockdown: over 27,000. Death toll in much more densely populated Tokyo with "smart" lockdown: 98.

About 22 percent of New Yorkers already have the virus antibody and thus expected immunity. One logical implication of this -- that large numbers already have or had the virus, and that it is harmless to them -- is simply ignored. Quarantine/social distancing should be for those most vulnerable so we can stop wrecking all of society with cruder measures. Hospitals should separate patients by age. No need to keep kids from school, especially if that means isolating them inside a multigenerational household. Let them wear soggy paper masks to class, even tin foil on their heads, if it makes things easier. Online classes are lame and America doesn't need a new generation dumber than the current one.

The New York-New Jersey area, with roughly half the dead for the entire nation, practices full-on social distancing while Georgia was one of the last states to implement a weaker stay-at-home policy. Yet as Georgia re-opens, the NY/NJ death count is over 27,000 . Georgia is 892. NYC alone continues adding around 500 bodies to the pile every day, even with its bowling alleys closed.

We judge risk versus gain for every other cause of death. We wear condoms. We watch our diets. Time to do the same for the virus. As for lockdowns, we may not even be judging them accurately. Some 22 states have had fewer than 100 deaths. Only 15 states had total deaths for the entire duration of the crisis higher than NYC's current 500 a day. The original goal of lockdowns, to buy time for the health care system (and most resources were never needed due to over-estimates of the viral impact), has passed. If the new goal is Virus Zero it will never come. If the real goal is to harm Trump we'll have to put up with this without serious discussion until November.

A Stanford doctor nails it: "Strictly protect the known vulnerable, self-isolate the mildly sick and open most workplaces with some prudent large-group precautions. This would allow the essential socializing to generate immunity among those with minimal risk of serious consequence, while saving lives, preventing overcrowding of hospitals, and limiting the enormous harms compounded by continued total isolation."

We are fretting and frittering away our national muscle watching TV about a bigamous tiger keeper. There are too many who want this isolation to continue indefinitely, a pathetic nation whose primary industries for its young people are camming and GoFundMe. Politics focuses on viral deaths, but the Reaper keeps a more accurate tally: deaths from despair, from hunger (two million new people became food insecure in NYC since the virus), financial losses (26 million Americans have filed for unemployment ), mental health issues, and abuse (domestic murders during the viral months in NYC outstripped the total from 2019). In some ultimate irony, parents are postponing standard childhood vaccinations for fear of bringing their kids to medical facilities.

It is the reaction to the pandemic that exhausts us, not the pandemic itself. So when someone claims it is Money vs. Life they miss the real answer: It's both. It should not be taboo to discuss this.

Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department veteran, is the author of We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, Hooper's War: A Novel of WWII Japan , and Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99 Percent .

[May 03, 2020] Contact tracing via app: a scam

May 03, 2020 | www.schneier.com

Bruce Schneier on contact tracing via app

This is a classic identification problem, and efficacy depends on two things: false positives and false negatives.

False positives: Any app will have a precise definition of a contact: let's say it's less than six feet for more than ten minutes. The false positive rate is the percentage of contacts that don't result in transmissions. This will be because of several reasons. One, the app's location and proximity systems -- based on GPS and Bluetooth -- just aren't accurate enough to capture every contact. Two, the app won't be aware of any extenuating circumstances, like walls or partitions. And three, not every contact results in transmission; the disease has some transmission rate that's less than 100% (and I don't know what that is).

False negatives: This is the rate the app fails to register a contact when an infection occurs. This also will be because of several reasons. One, errors in the app's location and proximity systems. Two, transmissions that occur from people who don't have the app (even Singapore didn't get above a 20% adoption rate for the app). And three, not every transmission is a result of that precisely defined contact -- the virus sometimes travels further.

Assume you take the app out grocery shopping with you and it subsequently alerts you of a contact. What should you do? It's not accurate enough for you to quarantine yourself for two weeks. And without ubiquitous, cheap, fast, and accurate testing, you can't confirm the app's diagnosis. So the alert is useless.

Similarly, assume you take the app out grocery shopping and it doesn't alert you of any contact. Are you in the clear? No, you're not. You actually have no idea if you've been infected.

The end result is an app that doesn't work. People will post their bad experiences on social media, and people will read those posts and realize that the app is not to be trusted. That loss of trust is even worse than having no app at all.

It has nothing to do with privacy concerns. The idea that contact tracing can be done with an app, and not human health professionals, is just plain dumb.

Posted by: c1ue | May 3 2020 17:03 utc | 37

[May 03, 2020] A Protest From France. The Great Danger of Ill-Conceived Lockdowns - Global ResearchGlobal Research - Centre for Research on Gl

May 03, 2020 | www.globalresearch.ca

A Protest From France. The Great Danger of Ill-Conceived Lockdowns By Jörg Guido Hülsmann Global Research, May 01, 2020 Mises Wire 30 April 2020 Region: Europe Theme: History , Police State & Civil Rights

After WWI, the distinguished British economist Edwin Cannan was asked, somewhat reproachfully, what he did during the terrible war years. He replied: "I protested." The present article is a similar protest against the current lockdown policies put into place in most countries of the Western world to confront the current coronavirus pandemic.

Here in France, where I live and work, President Macron announced on Thursday, March 12, that all schools and universities would be shut down on the following Monday. On that Monday, then, he appeared on TV again and announced that the entire population would be confined starting the very next day. The only exceptions would be "necessary" activities, especially medical services, energy production, security, and food production and distribution. This policy response was apparently coordinated with other European governments. Italy, Germany, and Spain have applied essentially the same measures.

I think that these policies are understandable and well intentioned. Like many other commentators, I also think that they are wrongheaded, harmful, and potentially disastrous. An old French proverb says that the way to hell is plastered with good intentions. Unfortunately, it seems as though the present policies are no exception.

My protest concerns the basic ideas that have motivated these policies. They were clearly enunciated by President Macron in his TV address of March 12. Here he made three claims that I found most intriguing.

The first one was that his government was going to apply drastic measures to "save lives" because the country was "at war" with the COVID-19 virus. He repeatedly used the phrase "we are at war" ( nous sommes en guerre ) throughout his talk.

Secondly, he insisted right at the very beginning that it was imperative to heed the advice of "the experts." Monsieur Macron literally said that we all should have to listen to and follow the advice of the people "who know" -- meaning who know the problem and who know how best to deal with it.

His third major point was that this emergency situation had revealed how important it was to enjoy a state-run system of public healthcare. How lucky are we to have such a system and to be able to rely on it, now, in the heat of the war against the virus! Unsurprisingly, the president insinuated that this system would be reinforced in the future.

Now, these are not the private ideas of Monsieur Macron. They are shared by all major governments in the EU and by many governments in other parts of the world. They are also shared by all major political parties here in France, as well as by President Macron's predecessors. Therefore, the purpose of the following remarks is not to criticise the president of this beautiful country, or his government, or any person in particular. The purpose is to criticise the ideas on which the current policy is based.

I do not have any epidemiological knowledge or expertise. But I do have some acquaintance with questions of social organisation, and I am also intimately familiar with scientific research and with the organisation of scientific research. My protest does not concern the medical assessment of the COVID-19 virus and its propagation. It concerns the public policies designed to confront this problem.

As far as I can see, these policies are based on one extraordinary claim and two fundamental errors. I will discuss them in turn.

An Extraordinary Claim

The extraordinary claim is that wartime measures such as confinement and shutdowns of commercial activity are justified by the objective of "saving lives" that are at risk because of the burgeoning coronavirus pandemic.

Over here in Europe, we have heard American presidents use such expressions since the 1960s, as in "the war on poverty" or the "war on drugs" or "the war on terrorism" or more recently "the war on climate change." Odd language of this sort seemed to be one of America's many eccentricities. It also did not escape our notice that none of these would-be wars have ever been won. Despite the great sums of money that the US government has spent to fight them, despite the new state institutions that were put in place, and despite the great and growing infringements on the economic and civil liberties of ordinary Americans, the problems themselves never went away. Quite the opposite; they were perpetuated and aggravated.

Most of the European governments have now joined ranks with the Americans and consider that they, too, are at war -- with a virus. It is therefore appropriate to insist that this is metaphorical language. A war is a military conflict designed to protect the state -- and thus of the very institution that is commonly held to guarantee the lives and liberties of the citizens -- against malicious attack from an outside power, usually another state. In a war, the very existence of the state is under attack. Clearly, this is not so in the present case.

Moreover, there can be no war with a virus, simply because a virus does not act . At most, therefore, the word "war" can be used here metaphorically. It then serves as a cover and justification of infringements of the very civil and economic liberties that the state is supposed to protect.

Now, in the traditional conception, the state is supposed to protect and promote the common good. Protecting the lives of the citizens might therefore, arguably, justify massive state interventions. But then the very first question should be: How many lives are at stake? Government epidemiologists, in their most dire estimates -- whose factual basis is still not solidly established -- have considered that about 10 percent of the infected persons might be in need of hospital care and that a large part of those would die. It was also already known by mid-March that this mortal threat in the great majority of cases concerned very old people, the average COVID-19 victim being around eighty years of age.

The claim that wartime measures, which threaten the economic livelihood of the great majority of the population and also the lives of the poorest and most fragile people of the world economy -- a point on which I will say more below -- are in order to save the lives of a few, most of whom are close to death anyway, is an extraordinary claim, to say the least.

Without going into any detail, let me just highlight that this contention squarely contradicts the abortion policies that Western governments have applied since the 1970s. There, the reasoning was exactly the other way around. The personal liberty and comfort of the women who wished to abort their children was given priority over the right to lives of these yet unborn children. According to World Health Organization (WHO) figures, each and every year, some 40–50 million babies are aborted worldwide. In 2018 alone, more than 224,000 babies have been aborted in France. However serious the current COVID-19 pandemic may yet become, it will remain a small fraction of these casualties. Not only have governments neglected to "save lives" when it comes to abortions. They have in point of fact condoned and funded the killing of human beings on a massive scale.

They still do so now. Here in France, all hospital services have been run down to free up capacity for the treatment of COVID-19 victims -- all except one. Abortion services run unabated and have recently been reinforced by the legal obligation for hospital staff to provide abortions (previously it was possible for individual doctors to refuse this out of personal conviction).

The pretention that drastic policies are justified in order to "save lives" also flies into face of past policy in other areas. In the past, too, it would have been possible to "save lives" by allocating a greater chunk of the government's budget to state-run hospitals, by further reducing speed limits on highways, by increasing foreign aid to countries on the brink of starvation, by outlawing smoking, etc. To be sure, I do not wish to make a case for such policies. My point is that it has never been the sole or highest goal of government policy to "save lives" or to extend them as much as possible. In fact, such a policy would be utterly absurd and impractical, as I will explain further below.

It is difficult to avoid the impression that the "war to save lives" is a farce. The truth seems to be that the COVID-19 crisis has been used to extend the powers of the state. The government obtains the power to control and paralyse all other human concerns in the name of prolonging the lives of a select few. Never has this principle been admitted in a free country. Few tyrannies have managed to extend their power this far.

The current beneficiaries of these new powers are the elder citizens and a few others. But make no mistake. It is likely that their destinies only serve as a pretext to justify the creation of new and unheard-of powers for the state. Once these new powers are firmly established, there is no reason why the elderly should remain especially dear to those in power. It must be feared that the very opposite will be the case.

Now, in order to avoid any misunderstanding, I do not claim that the present French government seeks to grab power over life-and-death decisions, or dictatorial powers to introduce socialism through the backdoor under the cover of COVID-19. In fact, I cannot imagine that Monsieur Macron and his government are driven by sinister motivations. I think they have the best of all intentions. But the point here is precisely that there is a difference between doing good and wishing to do good.

A Grave Error: Rule by Experts

So far, I have commented on a political issue. But there are also matters of fact. And this brings me to the two aforementioned errors.

The first fundamental error is to hold that is that the experts know and all the rest of us should trust them and do as they tell us.

The truth is that even the most brilliant academics and practitioners have in-depth knowledge only in a very narrow field; that they have no particular expertise when it comes to devising new practical solutions; and that their professional biases are likely to induce them into various errors when it comes to solving large-scale social problems such as the current pandemic. This is patent in my own discipline, economics, but not really different in other academic fields. Let me explain this in some more detail.

The kind of knowledge that can be acquired by scientific research is just a preliminary to action. Research gathers facts and yields partial knowledge of causal connections. Economics tells us, for example, that the size of the money stock is positively related to the level of unit prices. But this is not the whole picture. Other causes come into play as well. Real-world decision-making cannot just rely on facts and other bits of partial knowledge. It must weigh the influence of a multitude of circumstances, not all of which are well known, and not all of which are directly related to the problem at stake. It must come to balanced conclusions, sometimes under rapidly changing circumstances.

In this respect, the typical expert is no expert at all . How many laureates of the Nobel Prize in economics have earned any significant money by investing their savings? How many virologists or epidemiologists have established and operated a privately run clinic or laboratory? I would never trust a colleague who had the folly to volunteer to direct a central planning board. I do not trust an epidemiologist who has the temerity to parade as a COVID-19 czar. I do not believe a government that tells me that it somehow knows "the experts" who know best how to protect and run an entire country.

Furthermore, consider that scientific knowledge is, at best, a state of the art. The precious thing about science is not to be seen in the results, which are hardly ever final. What is crucial is the scientific process , which is a competitive process based on disagreements about the validity and relevance of different research hypotheses. This process is especially important when it comes to new problems -- such as a new virus which spreads in unheard-of ways and has unheard-of effects. It is precisely in such circumstances, when the stakes are high, that the impartial confrontation and competitive exploration of different points of view is of paramount importance. Research czars and central planners are here of no use at all. They are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

A government which bets the house on one horse and hands the management of a pandemic over to a single person or institution achieves, at best, only one thing: that all citizens receive the same treatment. But it thereby slows down the very process which leads to the discovery of the best treatments, and which makes these treatments rapidly available to the greatest number of patients.

It is also important to keep in mind that academics -- and this includes epidemiologists just as much as economists and lawyers -- are typically government employees and that this colours their approach to any practical problem. They are likely to think that serious problems, especially large-scale problems touching most or all citizens, should be solved by state intervention. Many of them are in fact incapable of imagining anything else.

This problem is reinforced through a nefarious selection bias . Indeed, those academics who opt for an administrative or political career, and who make it into the higher ranks of the civil service, cannot fail to be convinced that state action is suitable and necessary to solve the most important problems. Otherwise they would hardly have chosen such careers, and it would also be virtually out of the question that for them to end up in leadership positions. A good example among many others is the current WHO director Tedros Adhanom, who I understand is a former member of a communist [party in Ethiopia] organisation. The point is not that a WHO director should have no political opinions or that Dr. Adhanom is an evil or incompetent person. The point is that it is unsurprising that men like him occupy leadership positions in state-run organisations, and that the approach he envisions to deal with a pandemic is likely to be coloured by his personal political preconceptions, not only by medical information and good intentions.

Another Momentous Error: Neglect of Economics

Along with such selection bias comes a peculiar ignorance in regard to the functioning of complex social orders. This brings me to the second fundamental error that vitiates the COVID-19 policies. It consists in thinking that civil and economic liberties are some sort of a consumers' good -- maybe even a luxury good -- that can only be allowed and enjoyed in good times. When the going gets tough, the government needs to take over and all others should step back -- into confinement if necessary.

This error is typical for people who have spent too much time among politicians and in public administrations. The truth is that civil and economic liberty is the most powerful vehicle to confront virtually any problem. (The notable exception is that liberty does not help to consolidate political power.) And the reverse side of the same truth is that governments typically fail whenever they set out to solve social problems, even very ordinary problems. Think of state-run education or housing projects. I will return to this point further below.

Because of the mechanics of the political process, governments are liable to overreact to any problem that is big enough to make it into the news and to become an issue for voters. Governments will then typically zoom in on this one problem. In their perception, it becomes the most important of all problems that humanity has to solve. If such a government has no clue about economics, it is liable to propose one-plan technical solutions that completely neglect the social and political dimension of what it means to solve a problem. In the present case, the "experts" have blithely proposed to shut down the entire economy because this is what "works."

Now, I do not contest that shutdowns are effective in slowing down the transmission speed of a pandemic. I have no opinion at all on the most suitable way to deal with pandemics or other problems of virology or medicine. But as an economist I know the crucial importance of the fact that there is never ever only one single goal in human life. There is always a great and diverse array of objectives that each of us pursues. The practical problem for each person is to strike the right balance, most notably to act in the right temporal sequence. Translated to the level of the economy as a whole, the problem is to allocate the right amounts of time and material resources to the different objectives.

For most people, protecting their own lives and the lives of their families has a very high importance. But irrespective of how important this objective is, in practice it cannot be perfectly achieved. To protect my life, I need food. Thus, I need to work. Thus, I need to expose myself to all kinds of risks that are associated with leaving the safe space of my house and encountering nature and other humans. In short, human lives cannot be perfectly protected, even by those who are ready to subordinate everything else to doing so. It is a practical impossibility. When it comes to protecting lives, the only question is: How much am I willing to risk my life and the lives of those who depend on me? And it more than often turns out that by risking much one protects best. What holds true for the eternal life of one's soul also holds true for the mundane material life down here on earth: "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matt 16:25).

Now, most people do not actually cherish the preservation of their lives, or the extension of their life spans, as the single highest goals. Smokers, meat eaters, drinkers prefer a shorter, more joyful life, to a longer life of abstinence. Policemen, soldiers, and many citizens are more than often driven by the love of their country and by a love of justice. They would rather die than live under slavery or tyranny. Priests would risk their lives rather than forsake their commitment. A believer in Christ would rather risk death than apostasy. Sailors risk their own lives to provide for their families. Medical doctors and nurses are willing to risk their lives to help patients with infectious diseases. Rugby players and racecar drivers risk their lives not only for the glory of winning, but also for the excitement and satisfaction that comes with performing well under danger. Many young men and women gladly trade the excitement of dance for the risk of catching COVID-19.

All of these people, in one way or another, make material contributions to the livelihood of all others. Smokers and drinkers ultimately pay for their consumption, not with money (which serves them only as a tool for exchange with others), but with the goods and services that they themselves provide to others. If they could not indulge in their consumption, their motivation to help others would diminish or vanish altogether. If policemen, soldiers, sailors, and nurses did not have a relatively low risk-aversion, their services would be provided only at much higher cost, and possibly not at all.

The preferences and activities of all market participants are interdependent. In the market order, each one helps all others in pursuing their goals, even if these goals may ultimately contradict his own. The meat eater might be a mechanic who repairs the cars of vegetarians, or an accountant who does the bookkeeping for a vegetarian NGO. The soldier also protects pacifists. Among the pacifists may be farmers who grow the food consumed by soldiers, etc.

It is impossible to disentangle all of these connections, and it is not necessary. The point is that in a market economy the factors determining the production of any economic good are not just technical . Through exchange, through the division of labour, all production processes are interrelated. The effectiveness of doctors and nurses and their assistants does not only depend on the people who directly supply them with the materials that they need. Indirectly, it also depends on the activities of all other producers who do not have the slightest thing to do with medical services in hospitals. Even in an emergency situation, it is therefore necessary to respect the needs and priorities of these others. Locking them away, locking them down, far from facilitating the operation of hospitals, will eventually come to haunt the latter as well when supply chains wither and consumer staples start lacking.

Now one might contend that such consequences only obtain in the longer run and that a government confronted with an emergency situation needs to neglect long-run issues and focus on the short-run emergency. This sounds reasonable, which is why governments have appealed to arguments of this sort with great regularity in other areas, most notably to justify expansionary macroeconomic policies, which also trade off the present against the future.

But the reasoning is flawed in the present case. The root of the error is to consider the COVID-19 virus an immediate threat to human lives whereas the lockdown policies are not. But this is not the case. How many people have committed suicide because the lockdown measures have driven them to depression and insanity? How many did not receive life-saving treatments because hospital beds and staff were restricted to COVID-19 victims? How many have become victims at home because of the lockdown-induced aggression of their spouses? How many have lost their jobs, their companies, their wealth, and will be driven to suicide and aggression in the months to come? How many people in the poorest countries of the world economy are now driven to starvation because households and firms in the developed world have cut back demand for their products?

The inevitable conclusion is that, even in the short run, lockdown policies are costing the lives of many people who would not otherwise have died. In the short and in the long run, the current lockdown policy does not serve to "save lives," but to save the lives of some people at the expense of the lives of others .

Conclusion

The lockdown policies are understandable as a panic reaction of political leaders who want to do the right thing and who have to make decisions with incomplete information. But upon reflection -- and certainly in hindsight -- they are not good policy. The lockdowns of the past month have not been conducive to the common good. Although they have saved the lives of many people, they have also endangered -- and are still endangering -- the lives and livelihoods of many others. They have created a new and dangerous political precedent. They have reinforced the political regime uncertainty -- to use Robert Higgs's felicitous phrase -- that bears on the choices of individuals, families, communities, and firms in the years to come.

The right thing to do now is to abandon these policies swiftly and entirely. The citizens of free countries are able to protect themselves. They can act individually and collectively. They cannot act well when they are locked down. They will greet any honest and competent advice on what they can and should do, upon which they will proceed responsibly, whether alone or in coordination with others.

The greatest danger right now is in the perpetuation of the ill-conceived lockdowns , most notably under the pretext of "managing the transition" or other spurious justifications. Is it really necessary to walk through the endless list of management failures of government agents? Is it necessary to remind ourselves that people who have no skin in the game are irresponsible in the true sense of the word? These would-be managers should have stayed out of the picture from the very beginning. Instead, so far, they have managed to get everybody else out of the picture. If they are allowed to go on, they might very well turn the present calamity -- big as it is -- into a true disaster.

The historical precedent that comes to mind is the Great Depression of the 1930s. Then, too, the free world was confronted with a painful recession, when the implosion of the stock market bubble entailed a deflationary meltdown of the financialised economy, along with massive unemployment. This recession , dire as it was, could have remained short, as all the previous recessions in the US and elsewhere had been. Instead it was turned into a multiyear depression , thanks to folly of FDR and his government, who had the pretention of managing the recovery with government spending, nationalisations, and price controls.

It is not too late. It is never too late to recognise an honest error and correct a wrong course of action. Let us hope that President Macron, President Trump, and all other people of goodwill may rapidly come to their senses. COVID-19 Lockdown: A Global Human Experiment *

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published on LewRockwell.com.

Jörg Guido Hülsmann is senior fellow of the Mises Institute where he holds the 2018 Peterson-Luddy Chair and was director of research for Mises Fellows in residence 1999-2004. He is author of Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism and The Ethics of Money Production . He teaches in France, at Université d'Angers. His full CV is here . The original source of this article is Mises Wire Copyright © Jörg Guido Hülsmann , Mises Wire , 2020

[May 03, 2020] On the luck of masks and other protection equipment

May 03, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Likklemore , May 3 2020 0:21 utc | 55

There was a Virtual March today for PPE.

[.] "For lack of a 75-cent piece of equipment, we're losing lives and putting more lives at risk," said Lisa Lattanza, MD, chair of the Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut.

I purchased masks this week that [usually cost] 75 cents per mask that were being sold for $5.50, $6 on the market. We had to pay it. It's either that or not have the masks," she said.
Lack of Masks Shows Lack of Value."[.]

March 4, 2020

HHS clarifies US has about 1% of face masks needed for 'full-blown' coronavirus pandemic

And still not done. Where is Jared Kushner?

[May 03, 2020] Western countries simply did not have an appetite to do any qurantine measures until the pain was high enough

May 03, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Clueless Joe , May 1 2020 18:36 utc | 66

That WHO basically fucked up because of Western pressure more than because of China is obvious. Just look at the most recent idiocy they promoted: masks are useless. China would never claim that - both because they rely massively on them and because they produce and sell a lot of them. On the other hand, Western governments who were asleep at the wheel and never bothered to store or produce facemasks were desperately trying to convince their sheep flock, I mean, people, that they were all good, managed the crisis as best as anyone could, and that there wasn't any shortage of masks because these weren't useful to begin with.
Case closed.
And for the eternal record of universal history: China's dictatorship obviously cared more about its people than self-claimed democratic governments. Let that sink in for a minute.

CharkVaror , May 1 2020 18:44 utc | 67

This whole coronabs is the biggest psyops in the history of mankind, 11/9 looks like a joke compared to it.
hopehely , May 1 2020 18:57 utc | 68
Posted by: Clueless Joe | May 1 2020 18:36 utc | 66
That WHO basically fucked up because of Western pressure more than because of China is obvious.

I don't think WHO fucked up. Western countries simply did not have an appetite to do any measures until the pain was high enough.

[May 03, 2020] WHO as a corrupt bereaucracy

May 03, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Allen , May 3 2020 2:09 utc | 70

There's a lot of trash science out there re:Covid- it was founded on trash science.

Maybe next post you could go into the trash science of the fraudulent tests themselves.

In the mean time this is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what is going on- one of the most concise pieces on the subject to date:

The WHO makes gratuitous use of appellations such as "world" and "health" but is actually a semi-private entity lavishly financed by Bill Gates and Big Pharma, which is owned by a handful of highly inbred oligarchic entities that include Vanguard, BlackRock, Capital Group, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Northern Trust and State Street, which in turn own each other in various convoluted ways.

WHO's main function is to scare people into getting vaccinated and accepting expensive drug regimens (barely half of which do any good at all), thus funneling resources toward Big Pharma.

The World Health Organization establishes thresholds to determine whether to declare an influenza epidemic that range between 2.5% and 5%. The novel coronavirus misses the mark by a thousand-fold, yet the WHO has declared it to be the cause of a global pandemic.

If this seems like an extreme overreaction, that is because this is an extreme overreaction.

Some conspiratorially-minded people may surmise that this is a conspiracy, but it isn't. It is yet another blatant attempt to confiscate a chunk of the world's wealth by requiring it to buy something worthless, just like this same set of medical/financial interests did with the relatively worthless Tamiflu antiviral medication during the H1N1 swine flu pandemic of 2009-10 which caused a mere 18,036 deaths worldwide. This is a specific group pursuing its own group interests.

......

https://thewallwillfall.org/2020/05/02/gaslighting-the-coronavirus-dimitry-orlov/

[May 03, 2020] Cuomo incompetence: Last month, the state paid Yaron Oren-Pines $47,656 per ventilator for 1,450 ventilators, three times the normal asking price

May 03, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

uncle tungsten , May 2 2020 22:28 utc | 43

Thanks b for that polite and quiet reference to:
Last month, the state paid Yaron Oren-Pines $47,656 per ventilator for 1,450 ventilators, three times the normal asking price,.....

...Oren-Pines has no known capability or expertise in making ventilators. According to BuzzFeed, his social media shows expressions of support for Trump since at least 2015.

He has not provided the ventilators, and New York state is attempting to recover the money, BuzzFeed reported. Oren-Pines would not comment to the online news site.

An unnamed official for the New York state government said the recommendation to deal with Oren-Pines came directly from the White House coronavirus task force. A spokeswoman for Vice President Mike Pence, who heads the task force, denied any involvement in making the recommendation.

The carpetbaggers are always in the lead if not the instigators. Perhaps he was on the last flight home.

[May 03, 2020] Shadow of the USSR over the USA: sclerotic incompetent leadership is a sad reality

May 03, 2020 | econintersect.com

"Sclerotic America" [John Furlan, Econintersect ].

"The U.S. has had sclerotic political leadership during this crisis. The U.S. is being offered the "choice" between Trump, 73, and Biden, 77. Its other major political players are Pelosi, 80, and McConnell, 78 .

Trump of course bears most of the blame for the Covid-19 Crisis.

But the Dems and liberal media also share a lot. Trump dithered for many crucial weeks after China's CCP very belatedly shut down Wuhan on January 23, many weeks after the virus emerged What were the Dems and liberal media doing during those crucial weeks? From December 18 to February 5 they culminated three years of wasting the nation's time trying to impeach Trump for Russia- and Ukraine-gate, as the virus picked up steam.

The Dems and liberal media held "debates" and primaries through March 17 in which Covid-19 was barely mentioned except in the context of Sanders' Medicare for All, focusing instead on such issues as Bloomberg's NDA's (Biden's opponents are now using a similar #MeToo attack)." • "The duty of an opposition party is to oppose."

[May 03, 2020] I was Fauci, who despite a moratorium in the USA outsourced in 2015 the GOF research to China's Wuhan lab and licensed the lab so that it can continue receiving US government funding

May 03, 2020 | asiatimes.com

In the face of a moratorium in the US, Dr Anthony Fauci – the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and currently the leading doctor in the US Coronavirus Task Force – outsourced in 2015 the GOF research to China's Wuhan lab and licensed the lab to continue receiving US government funding.

[May 03, 2020] Dr. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, recently declared the anti-viral drug remdesivir as a "standard of care" based on unpublished trials

May 03, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Dr. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, recently declared the anti-viral drug remdesivir as a "standard of care" based on unpublished trials. But the judgment was sketchy and has come under question as it seems that the government moved the goalposts to achieve this outcome:

Instead of counting how many people taking the drug were kept alive on ventilators or died, among other measures, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said it would judge the drug primarily on a different outcome: how long it took surviving patients to recover.

Death and other negative outcomes were moved to secondary measure status: They would still be tracked, but they would no longer be the key measure of remdesivir's performance. The switch -- which specialists said is unusual in major clinical trials but not unheard of -- was publicly disclosed on the government's clinicaltrials.gov website on April 16 but did not receive much attention at the time.
...
"It raises a lot of flags, and it requires a lot of answers," Walid F. Gellad, a professor of health policy and management at the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Medicine, said in an interview, "especially when people start saying it's become the standard of care, and all we saw was a news release in a trial with an outcome that was changed two weeks ago. It really is striking."

A Chinese double blind study of remdesivir, previously published in Lancet , had come to the conclusion that the drug had no statistically noticeable influence on the length of recovery and the outcome.

One wonders how much White House influence was used to push that drug. White House influence may also have been used in this ventilator acquisition that was paid for but never delivered .

[May 03, 2020] David Stockman about Fauci and nursing homes

May 03, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Needless to say, you did not need to be entombed in the infectious disease tunnel at the NIH for 52 years like Dr. Fauci, a pretentious 79-year old windbag who should have himself been put in a retirement home years ago, to realize that nursing homes are dense-packed with the frail, disease-afflicted elderly.

So rather than wipe out $4 trillion of GDP via Lockdown Nation they might have started with say $25 billion of incremental money for Medicare/Medicaid and the state public health agencies to zero-in on protecting, isolating and treating the nursing home residents.

[May 03, 2020] Fauci should be fired for promoting this crap research on remdesivir.

May 03, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

cj , May 2 2020 23:41 utc | 51

Hi B,
I think that we don't know if remdesivir works or not. The trial used patients that were very sick. The virus had done its job and was no longer replicating exponentially. When you look at these lungs they are full of exudate and superinfection and the damage is done. I am surprised that there was any effect and the fact that there was is very encouraging. The time to give a chain terminator like remdesivir is early in the infection as soon as the patient presents and you have a positive test. You must hit the virus as it is exponentiating in the nasopharynx. That is when you have to do the clinical trial then the outcome is admission to ITU or not, then death or survival-- a really big trial.
I agree it is wrong to change the goal posts and it shouldn't have happened --- but the clinical trial was flawed from the beginning any way.
In defense of remdesivir it works rather well in feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) which is caused by a corona virus and is 100% lethal in cats. Remdesivir results in 100% survival with occasional relapse that is still treatable with the drug. In humans, remdesivir will work only if you give it early-- it is a powerful delayed chain terminator. So I do think the drug will protect people that are in the early stages of the disease- so everyone will get it and it will be huge for Gilead.

Duncan Idaho , May 2 2020 23:52 utc | 52

In humans, remdesivir will work only if you give it early-- it is a powerful delayed chain terminator.

Yep, the first 48 hours, if our data is correct. This is still early in the game.

vk , May 2 2020 19:44 utc | 2
I think this remdesivir authorization was a genius move by the Trump administration. So genial even Dr. Fauci must have immediately understood the catch and endorsed it, as it is probable the drug must not have any grave collateral effects on the patients (as is the case with hydroxycloroquine).

First of all, remdesivir helps one of America's biggest pharmaceuticals (Gilead). Therefore, it will also help American capitalist reproduction.

Second, it will trigger a nationwide placebo effect thanks to widespread optimism and petit-bourgeois euphoria, thus lowering the death rates (though not the infection rates), and giving Trump an election boost in crucial areas (by the astroturf protests pattern, important swing states in the Midwest).

Third, by the time the efficacy of remdesivir is debunked, the Trump administration can simply state they acted with good will, with the "evidence" available at the time, and gently apologize. It is the perfect plausible deniability.

Trailer Trash , May 2 2020 19:44 utc | 3
Fauci should be fired for promoting this crap research on remdesivir. Changing the primary endpoint is verboten, plain and simple. The only reason to change the primary endpoint is to cherry-pick data in order to claim "success". Honest journals, if they still exist, will not publish this rubbish, as it contravenes their industry's "Committee on Publication Ethics" guidelines. The control arm of the trial was halted, another giant red flag, so there is nothing to compare their cherry-picked data against.

This trial is now at the quality level of the rubbish research that "proves" homeopathy "works". How can Fauci not be totally embarrassed by this? There must be powerful financial forces behind this. No amount of air freshener can cover up the stink...

NWOdna , May 2 2020 19:57 utc | 4
Trailer Trash,
FAUCI is now prohibited by Trump admin from testifying before Congress on the COVI debacle. This criminal co-conspirator of Billy Goats owns the patents on the same HIV genes that just happened to be found as gain-of-function additions to the genome of the Corona virus. PROVING it is a lab made bioweapon. W/ Fauci's signature all over creation of this WMD. He should get the electric chair for genocide.
John Smith , May 2 2020 20:26 utc | 12
A price-idea for Remdesivir:
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/coronavirus/2020/05/02/Coronavirus-US-grants-emergency-approval-to-expand-use-of-Gilead-s-drug-remdesivir.html
Frank Barnes , May 2 2020 20:28 utc | 13
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnBldI7KPY&t=2047s

Judy Mikovits gives compelling evidence that Fauci is a criminal that has the power to retconn virus research. Her new book "Plague of Corruption" should be a great read, but I've heard parts are hard to underestand.

hopehely , May 2 2020 20:39 utc | 14
Posted by: Frank Barnes | May 2 2020 20:28 utc | 12
Judy Mikovits gives compelling evidence that Fauci is a criminal that has the power to retconn virus research. Her new book "Plague of Corruption" should be a great read, but I've heard parts are hard to underestand.

Thanks Frank for the info, that is very noble of you!

Red Ryder , May 2 2020 21:22 utc | 30
Fauci did the same with AIDS drugs. Jumped on the first one regardless. Unfortunately, in those days, people died and HIV was blamed when it likely was the drug. But, he's got almost the same situation now. If you are deep with the virus, you'll probably die, so the drug used is excused.

Watch the vaccine the US finally chooses. They are talking already about pushing it out in this year, when the whole world knows it needs a year of testing.

[May 02, 2020] If this Newsweek article published April 28, 2020, is credible, then Trump and cohorts should tread carefully

Highly recommended!
So was Fauci an enthusiast of "gain of function" research? If so he is probably a criminal.
Notable quotes:
"... Dr. Fauci Backed Controversial Wuhan Lab With Millions Of U.S. Dollars For Risky Coronavirus Research ..."
"... [just] last year, the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the organization led by Dr. Fauci, funded scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and other institutions for work on gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses. ..."
"... In 2019, with the backing of NIAID, the National Institutes of Health committed $3.7 million over six years for research that included some gain-of-function work. The program followed another $3.7 million, 5-year project for collecting and studying bat coronaviruses, which ended in 2019, bringing the total to $7.4 million. ..."
May 02, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Likklemore , May 1 2020 16:32 utc | 43

IMHO, if this Newsweek article date April 28, 2020, is credible, then Trump and cohorts should tread carefully:
Dr. Fauci Backed Controversial Wuhan Lab With Millions Of U.S. Dollars For Risky Coronavirus Research

[just] last year, the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the organization led by Dr. Fauci, funded scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and other institutions for work on gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses.

In 2019, with the backing of NIAID, the National Institutes of Health committed $3.7 million over six years for research that included some gain-of-function work. The program followed another $3.7 million, 5-year project for collecting and studying bat coronaviruses, which ended in 2019, bringing the total to $7.4 million.

Many scientists have criticized gain of function research, which involves manipulating viruses in the lab to explore their potential for infecting humans, because it creates a risk of starting a pandemic from accidental release.[.]

Dr. Fauci did not respond to Newsweek's requests for comment. NIH responded with a statement that said in part: "Most emerging human viruses come from wildlife, and these represent a significant threat to public health and biosecurity in the US and globally, as demonstrated by the SARS epidemic of 2002-03, and the current COVID-19 pandemic.... scientific research indicates that there is no evidence that suggests the virus was created in a laboratory."[.]

NIH gave a non-denial, avoidance denial. Congressmen were on Foxnews attacking the funding. Where there is a whiff of smoke?

Additional articles on U.S. funding:
NPR
FoxNews
NationalInterest cites Pompeo on Foxnews defending the funding. Also, UK papers repeat U.S. funding.

stevelaudig , May 1 2020 16:37 utc | 45

When ever the US government speaks on such issues. Refer them here... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States

[May 02, 2020] General lockdown strategies can reduce transmission and death counts in the short term. But this strategy cannot be considered successful until lockdowns are removed without the disease resurging.

May 02, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

>

MacCheerful 3 days ago
The pessimistic models predicted millions of deaths if no measures were taken to slow the disease. In nearly every country measures were taken to slow the disease. But now conservatives complain that hey, no millions of deaths! So why was it necessary to go into confinement?
Sidney Caesar MacCheerful 3 days ago • edited
The people who cite the success of social distancing measures as the reason social distancing measures weren't necessary (or were too rigorous) seem to be using the same logic as certain anti-vaxxers who use the success of vaccinations to buttress their contention that vaccinations are unnecessary.
Jim Chilton Sidney Caesar 2 days ago
Anti-vaxxers calculate their own safety by using the knowledge that most people get vaccinated. That is the logic of their position.
Sidney Caesar Jim Chilton 2 days ago • edited
Yes, it's likely that most of them are free-riders.

But there's a variety of misconceptions motivating anti-vaxxers, which is why I wrote "certain anti-vaxxers" instead of 'all anti-vaxxers'.

wicked_sprite MacCheerful 3 days ago
Those predictions were WITH social distancing. So the good news is the worst case is most definitely not the case.
Adriana Pena wicked_sprite 2 days ago
It is always safer to go with the worst projections. It is better to give out a sigh of relief when they do not come true than a scream of pain when they do.
Jim Chilton 3 days ago
Martin Kulldorff is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. In his opinion, general lockdown strategies can reduce transmission and death counts in the short term. But this strategy cannot be considered successful until lockdowns are removed without the disease resurging. So the best policy is to go for herd immunity. The sooner that is achieved, the more lives will be saved in the long term.

Herd immunity arrives after a certain still unknown percentage of the population has acquired immunity. It will never be achieved unless most people who get the disease and survive, are immune to it afterwards.

MacCheerful Jim Chilton 3 days ago
1) We don't know whether getting Covid-19 gives you immunity.
2) Going full fledged for herd immunity quickly, i.e. 60-70% infection rate, means in the U.S. perhaps 1 million dead. One million dead over the course of a couple of months looks a lot worse for a society than one million dead over the course of a couple of years.
FND MacCheerful 3 days ago
"Going full fledged for herd immunity quickly, i.e. 60-70% infection rate, means in the U.S. perhaps 1 million dead."

You just proved the author's point.

Also, of course we don't know for 100% certain that having had the virus gives one immunity since its a brand new virus, but it would be a very rare virus indeed if that doesn't turn out to be the case. It is overwhelmingly expected, but we don't know for sure yet.

Sidney Caesar FND 3 days ago
"...we don't know for sure yet."
Which is why caution is indicated going forward.
I Don't Matter FND 3 days ago
" we don't know for 100% certain that having had the virus gives one immunity since its a brand new virus, but it would be a very rare virus indeed if that doesn't turn out to be the case."

Wish this were true. Alas. There's no immunity to common cold. And it's caused by corona viruses, among others. This is a truly nightmarish scenario: a common cold-like lack of acquired immunity combined with SARS-like disease.
We just don't know yet.

IanDakar FND 2 days ago
Very rare? The common cold doesn't give long term immunity. It's not rare. It depends on whether the body decides to hold on to the memory cells that cause immunity. Some diseases They hang around for decades, some for years, some just a few weeks.

And the cold is caused by coronaviruses: the same family COVID lives in. Also a lot of people who get this virus don't face heavy symptoms and there's some speculation (just speculation) that the easier it is for the body to handle a disease the less it cares to remember it.

So not only is it not rare it's also very much possible for this one.

We don't know. But unfounded statements like "it's very rare." Don't help the discussion.

FND IanDakar 2 days ago
Immunity is more than just "you don't get it again". Its also "if you get it again the symptoms are less" as with colds. Also, colds like all viruses, don't stay the same. They mutate. But with immunity from a previous form, the symptoms are less with the mutation.
JonF311 IanDakar 2 days ago
You generally don't get the same cold you had, at least not in any immediate time frame. There are a myriad different cold viruses out there and they mutate over time, so like the flu, any immunity is fairly short-lived.
IanDakar JonF311 2 days ago
It's about 4 weeks on average last I heard and that's of you get hit with the same stand. The flu is stronger with a few years but there's a mass of stands and mutations so it's hard to notice when you ignore one of them.

For example a particularly nasty h1n1 stain hit us in 2009. Most people didn't have an immunity but many older than 60 did. Seems They had been hit with a similar strand in the past and thus their bodies still remembered it.

This is also why some vaccines aren't given again after childhood as you basically don't forget it. Others need to be given again after so many years to be sure of immunity.

stephen pickard Jim Chilton 3 days ago
Tell me if I got this correct. Herd immunity can be achieved if there is rigorous testing immediately when a hot spot ocurrs. Plus a vaccine must be unavailable when it breaks out. In addition there must be sufficient data points that indicates if the virus is contained. None of which is present now.

And do not forget that in the hotspots now, the health care community is getting close to the breaking point. None of the models can account for the collapse of the health care infrastructure.

For those who advocate for reopening the economy, what does their model predict if there are no workers, no managers, no consumers and the like because they are part of the sick and dead. We just don't know. So it boils down to determing what level of destruction is bearable. Is anyone willing to trust our stable genius? God save us.

Sidney Caesar Jim Chilton 3 days ago
Successful long-term herd immunity will only come with a vaccine.
Jim Chilton Sidney Caesar 3 days ago • edited
Before the theory of vaccination was understood or even the idea that microbes cause, or can cause, infectious disease in human beings, herd immunity had to be acquired by exposure. Had this not been the case, the human race would not have survived.
Sidney Caesar Jim Chilton 2 days ago • edited
Right.
Like the herd immunity that prevented smallpox, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, diptheria, influenza, etc.
Naturally acquired herd immunity was not enough to prevent recurrent epidemics that we currently prevent with vaccinations (although anti-vaxxers are trying mightily to rectify that success).
Jim Chilton Sidney Caesar 2 days ago • edited
There is good reason to hope a vaccine will be produced for CORVID-19. However, that is not a certainty and it might be a year or two before it's safe to use throughout the population.

Since the economy can hardly be left in suspended animation until a vaccine is available, there will be a period during which the acquistion of herd immunity has to proceed by default.

IanDakar Jim Chilton 2 days ago
This is true but it resulted in a lot of death. This is why disease changed so much of our history. Entire communities and nations have been changed or fallen due to disease.

That was the world that relied on herd immunity. That's why medicine is deemed so precious as our entire current way of life is based on no longer relying on pure herd immunity.

Talking as if the old way at all worked just as fine as our modern age is a case of just enough knowledge to know the terms but not enough to know what it really means.

Jim Chilton IanDakar 2 days ago • edited
I know how much we owe to the advance of medical science and I am not suggesting a fatalistic response to this epidemic is desirable. But until a vaccine is produced for this particular virus and its mutations, we have no alternative but to accept the risk and carry on.

No one is seriously suggesting that the shutdowns must continue until a vaccine is produced, so draw the obvious conclusion.

Sidney Caesar Jim Chilton 2 days ago
"...draw the obvious conclusion"
...which is to let the experts and their science lead.
Jim Chilton Sidney Caesar 2 days ago
Not necessarily. Continuation of the lockdown is a political decision.

If you advocate continuing the lockdown until a vaccine is available, you should say so.

Sidney Caesar Jim Chilton 2 days ago • edited
"If you advocate continuing the lockdown until a vaccine is available, you should say so."
Please explain how you take that away from "...let the experts and their science lead"? We're in uncharted territory in which tens (possibly hundreds) of thousands of lives are at stake- the "political decision" to reopen should be based on the best advice of scientists.
Jim Chilton Sidney Caesar 2 days ago
The "obvious conclusion" which I referred to, had nothing to do with taking the advice of scientists. If we want to revive the economy, then sooner or later we have no option than to resume our social and economic actvities. Until a vaccine is produced, this entails risk; but human life is never as safe as we might wish to believe.
Sidney Caesar Jim Chilton 2 days ago • edited
"If we want to revive the economy, then sooner or later we have no option than to resume our social and economic activities."
Of course, the rub in that profoundly obvious statement is the meaning of "sooner or later". I'm suggesting we defer to the best expert advice available. Should we infer that you would leave those decisions solely up to 'experts' like Brian Kemp (who first became aware of person-to-person transmission April 1)?
Jim Chilton Sidney Caesar 2 days ago
Sometimes it's necessary to state the obvious to people who hide their fuzzy position behind "expert advice".
Sidney Caesar Jim Chilton 2 days ago • edited
How is it "fuzzy" to plainly state (several times) that we should let scientists lead?
Jim Chilton Sidney Caesar 2 days ago
It's the government's job to lead; that's what it was elected to do.

This predicament involves a choice between evils - not a simple choice between the crude economic materialism of politics and the science of saving lives. It's a choice between lives and lives. Your comments are made in bad faith.

Sidney Caesar Jim Chilton 2 days ago • edited
One of us is arguing in "bad faith", and it's not me. I've written- repeatedly- that we should be deferring to the best judgement of scientists to navigate reopening- whatever 'fuzziness' you infer from that is occurring somewhere between your eyes and your brain (which is also the source of the somewhat "fuzzy" and undefined "sooner or later" timeline, when you feel normal activity can be resumed- when is "sooner or later", exactly, and what are the criteria that would define "sooner" as opposed to "later"?
john Jim Chilton 2 days ago
The Koreans, the Chinese, the Taiwanese, the Australians and the New Zealanders all provide a counter example of how to deal with it. The path we are on isn't the only path.
Adriana Pena john 2 days ago
Do not forget Vietnam nor Cuba. Just because they are communist does not mean that they do not get some things right
Jim Chilton john 2 days ago
I agree; but we're being led up a path on which we shall have to retrace our steps.
IanDakar Jim Chilton 2 days ago
I'm not either. I'm actually standing with Trump, or whoever wrote his plan, on this one. Get a 2 week downturn in cases then open slowly wait for the spikes open more wait for spikes and so on. Keep buisiness from doing stupid things like making sick people work. That sort of thing.

I'd prefer longer as manycountries are waiting a month. But we seem to be able to handle barely what we have now and you have to balance the panicked with the impatient on this so 2 weeks may have to do. The goal is to make sure the public doesn't go crazy or the situation doesn't go nutty enough to require a new shutdown.

I'm ok for that. If you are ok with that then I'm not your enemy here.

I'm arguing against the folks who want to keep throwing out mass media lines like "cure worse than the disease." Or "it's the flu". I'm against the folks who see the flattening after this lockdown and somehow conclude that the lockdown did nothing. I'm against the folks like my Georgia governor that somehow thought that opening salons and theaters are to be opened no matter that we aren't even sure we peaked no matter how few people will even go there no matter that it kills the companies' governmental benefits for being locked down or that it forces people into risk as they can't take UI anymore no matter that it ignores Trump's own plan.

Also I'm just sick of the (find random country praised by media) they aren't mass dying so OF COURSE the virus means nothing LIBERATE THE PLANET, LET THE PEOPLE DIE LIKE NATURE INTENDED.

Jim Chilton IanDakar 2 days ago • edited
This virus is here to stay, and we must learn to live with it. In the coming months, until a vaccine is produced, there will be many hard choices between economic survival and risking lives.

Only a callous fool would argue that we should let the infection rip and "let the people die as nature intended."

IanDakar Jim Chilton 2 days ago
That's a claim I won't even put on Trump. I'm suspecting he's just trying to find the most popular position.

Governor Kemp though. I'm suspecting now. We're in the upper end as far as infections, the worst in testing and most of the flatten we might be in is due to counties and cities deciding for themselves to lock (my own started once the first case showed up. We're still pretty empty on infections here): a feature Kemp is now taking away as he unilaterally opens the state.

That I'm now seriously defending a Trump policy over my governor means something is going very very wrong.

Sidney Caesar IanDakar a day ago • edited
Trump's only concern throughout this debacle (that can virtually all be laid at the feet of his administration, given it's inactivity- with the exception of the travel 'sieve'- from January to March), as well as his entire presidency and life, is and has been Trump. It's not the most popular decision he's trying to find, he just wants to goose the stock market and economy enough to eke out another (unpopular) electoral college win- he doesn't give a damn about the lives of the people who may go back to work, or the loss of lives of people who may die unnecessarily because of imbeciles like Kemp forcing people back to work prematurely.
And while the Trumps and Kemps are at least honest enough to wear their sociopathy on their sleeves, you can find it by scratching just about any Republican.
By the way, as a Georgian you might find this article interesting:
https://www.theatlantic.com...
IanDakar Sidney Caesar a day ago
I couldn't read the article fully. It's like watching a close up of a massacare economically. Even ignoring the health costs it's a boneheaded move. And since Kemp has massive powers as a governor in an emergency he gets full reign to keep being a bonehead.

I understand why he's doing it. His economy is shattered when he is desperately in need to fund the promises that got him elected (not many Republicans would offer a 5k raise to all teachers but there you go). He's in a state constantly whispering of turning blue and he only won by slivers. And if he can't lock the state government or both Senate seats (the other retired due to health issues) when the whispers also say democrats are taking the Senate he's doomed. So he's pulling a Hail Mary.

I get it. So saying he's a callous man ready to kill for a buck is toxic nonsense.

But it's boneheaded.

I have to hopeI'm wrong and Kemp scores and probably saves the state for the Republicans one more election. Because I have to live in the horrible mess he'd have created if I'm right.

Save SK 3 days ago
Person has Heart attack taken to ER does and is called death by C-Virus
Immune system is CRITICAL -that is why older folks suffer more weakened immune functions. Fear weakens Immune function !!! Play Hide
Sidney Caesar Save SK 3 days ago
I work in an ER- despite what Alex Jones may have told you, when people die of a heart attack, we use the evidence (EKG changes, abnormal labs) to attribute their death to a heart attack.
On the other hand, it's highly likely that COVID19 deaths have been undercounted:
https://www.businessinsider...
M Orban 3 days ago
"Competing Pandemic Projections Driving You Mad?"
Not really. I just sit it out and see what happens.
Sidney Caesar 3 days ago
Great interview:
https://www.theguardian.com...
Shouvik Banerjee 2 days ago
I am deeply dubious that James Pinkerton truly believes in hard, empirical data over modeled probabilities. His disingenuous logic comes through in his celebration of Ionnadis who, in recent weeks, is best known for releasing a sloppy study and publishing an even sloppier WSJ op-ed. He has been criticized by statisticians around the world. Before he had sufficient empirical data, he went repeatedly on Fox News to shape conservative minds, advocating that the covid death rate was low and the costs of social distancing too high. There are statistical rules that define when data is sufficient and significant, increasing confidence in a projection. Ionnadis failed to do this in a big way, but is celebrated by Pinkerton as the White Knight of hard data.
Adriana Pena 2 days ago
Of course, the models vary widely. IT is new, there is new data coming every minute. So some models become obsolete very quick, and new models have to be made incorporating the new data.

But as a rule, it is better to go with the more pessimistic models. Because as it happens, there is no way that an optimist can be pleasantly surprised.

[May 02, 2020] Many field hospitals went largely unused, will be shut down

Apr 29, 2020 | www.militarytimes.com

Gleaming new tent hospitals sit empty on two suburban New York college campuses, never having treated a single coronavirus patient. Convention centers that were turned into temporary hospitals in other cities went mostly unused. And a Navy hospital ship that offered help in Manhattan is soon to depart. When virus infections slowed down or fell short of worst-case predictions, the globe was left dotted with dozens of barely used or unused field hospitals. [ Too bad Cuomo didn't send COVID-19 patients from the nursing homes to these ships for treatment... ]

[May 02, 2020] In pandemic blame distribution Fauci and the CDC top should get mayor shares

May 02, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Antonym , May 1 2020 14:03 utc | 15

In pandemic blame distribution Fauci and the CDC top should get mayor shares.

In financial crash blame distribution the New York FED with its top 5 controller / bail-out receiver banks have big parts. It still holds the world's other Central Banks hostage through its reserves and trade in U$ dollars only meme.

In the intelligence area it is not very different: also that branch of the US Deep State failed.

A multipolar world is getting closer..

GeorgeV , May 1 2020 14:04 utc | 16

The jaw-dropping stupidity of the Trump administration regarding the COVID-19 pandemic is truly mind numbing. There is an old dictum that states that there is no such thing as 'military intelligence.' To that I add there is no such thing as 'intelligence' in Washington DC either, or the Trump White House for that matter. If you try to look for it, you will only find hacks, flacks, quacks and certifiable jerks. You would do better to waste your time and money looking for the Loch Ness Monster, Big Foot, or the Tooth Fairy. The prospect that Trump could get anther four years as president is depressing indeed. All that would be left is divine intervention, and I don't think that is any more likely than finding the aforementioned mythical creatures.

[May 01, 2020] Ten questions the U.S. needs to offer clear answers to the world regarding the #COVID19.

People's Daily, China
Notable quotes:
"... Among the reported influenza deaths in the US, how many cases were infected with COVID-19? Did the US government cover up the spread of coronavirus with the flu? When will the US government make public the samples of the US influenza virus and its genetic sequence, or allow experts from the WHO or the United Nations to sample and analyze? ..."
May 01, 2020 | www.facebook.com
Yesterday at 9:30 AM · Ten questions the U.S. needs to offer clear answers to the world regarding the # COVID19 .

1. Regarding the restarted avian influenza virus modification experiment last year, why does the US release no more updates?

The Science reported in February 2019 that US authorities had quietly approved the avian influenza virus modification experiment. The research, aiming to transform the H5N1 virus to be more capable of infecting mammals, was controversial and considered extremely dangerous. Some experts believe that the modification may increase the risk of human-to-human transmission of the virus. The question is why the US government decided to unfreeze the experiment 4 years after it was halted, and why there are no more updates regarding the experiment.

2. The United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) was previously closed. What is the truth behind ?

The Global Biodefence reported in April that the USAMRIID, US Army's primary institution and facility for biological research headquartered in Fort Detrick, Maryland, has resumed full operation. The institution was once ordered to halt the study of biological select agents and toxins (BSATs) last July. In March, there was a petition on the White House website demanding the clarification of the shutdown of USAMRIID. Given that these issues have become a primary public concern, what is the US government's response?

3. The US Department of Health and Human Services ran a scenario last year that was similar to the COVID-19 outbreak. Is this just a coincidence?

In March, the New York Times quoted a draft report obtained from the US government saying that from January to August 2019, the US Department of Health and Human Services ran a scenario called "Crimson Contagion" that simulated the fictional outbreak involving a group of tourists visiting China. They then became infected and flew to various countries, including the US. Last October, a high-level pandemic exercise named Event 201 was hosted by a couple of US organizations. The drill simulated a scenario that a fictional virus called CAPS, which causes more severe symptoms than SARS and transmits via the respiratory route like the common flu, had caused a pandemic. Like COVID-19, there is no vaccine for CAPS.

Given the fact that the simulated virus is so much like COVID-19, is this just a coincidence? Another question is, why did it not take enough preventive measures at the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak since the US has predicted a similar pandemic?

4. US intelligence officials warned of coronavirus crisis as early as last November. Why the warning was ignored?

In April, according to the American Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), it was said that, as early as late November 2019, US intelligence officials had warned the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon, and the White House that an infectious disease was sweeping through Wuhan, China.

Last November, the US National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI) issued a report detailing the coronavirus pandemic, which was later identified as "COVID-19". Some analysts believed that the outbreak in Wuhan might have evolved into a catastrophic event. According to the Washington Post, in more than two months from January to February, Trump had received intensive warnings from the US intelligence agencies about the coronavirus. Why did the US government not declare a "National Emergency" until March 13?

5. Among the reported influenza deaths in the US, can the US clarify how many cases are actually infected with COVID-19?

Japanese Asahi Television reported on February 21 that some of the 14,000 people reportedly killed by influenza in the US might have died from coronavirus, which became a hot topic soon after.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report at the end of February, showing that there have been at least 32 million flu illnesses in the US that winter.

On March 11, at the House of Representatives, Robert Redfield, the director of the US CDC, admitted that some in the US who were previously thought to have been killed from the flu may have been infected with coronavirus.

Among the reported influenza deaths in the US, how many cases were infected with COVID-19? Did the US government cover up the spread of coronavirus with the flu? When will the US government make public the samples of the US influenza virus and its genetic sequence, or allow experts from the WHO or the United Nations to sample and analyze?

6. When did the novel coronavirus first appear in the US? Did community transmission of the coronavirus start sooner than it was reported?

A report released in late April by local health authorities suggests that a 57-year-old woman from Santa Clara County of California died from COVID-19 on February 6, some 20 days earlier than the date the US announced its first death caused by the virus.

The Los Angeles Times quoted Santa Clara County health officer Sara Cody in a piece saying, "we presume that each of them represents community transmission and that there was some significant level of virus circulating in our community in early February."

County Executive Officer Jeffrey V. Smith said this is evidence that the coronavirus was circulating in California as early as January or even earlier.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has ordered all counties in the state to review autopsies of suspected coronavirus deaths dating back to December.

When did the novel coronavirus first appear in the US? Did community transmission of the coronavirus start sooner than it was reported?

7. How did the US get the virus strains so soon to start the first human testing of a vaccine against COVID-19?

The Wall Street Journal on March 16 reported that the first human testing of Moderna Inc.'s experimental vaccine against the COVID-19 had already begun. Experts immediately raised questions about the speed of the vaccine development, saying that it would not be possible unless the US had obtained the virus strains from very early on. So how did the US start the first human testing of the vaccine so soon? When and how did they get the virus strains?

8. Why did the US government keep downplaying the pandemic while its officials privately dumped stocks?

According to the Washington Post, US Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr and his wife sold up to 1.7 million in 33 different stocks just one week before the market plunged. Why did these officials at the Committee act so quickly while the government was continually understating the pandemic?

Why is the vital information kept confidential to the public while the government officials were taking advantage to practice insider-trading?

9. Why are US experts not allowed to discuss COVID-19 in public?

The New York Times reported that the White House began tightening controls for all coronavirus messaging from health officials on February 27 after Vice President Mike Pence led the nation's epidemic prevention and control efforts.

Several scientists and government health officials, including the nation's leading infectious disease expert Anthony S. Fauci, have been asked to make statements or make public appearances about the COVID-19 only after consultation with the US vice president's office.

Why does the United States, which claims free speech, not allow experts and scholars to discuss the novel coronavirus in public? Does the US want to hide something or fear of something?

10. What research is being done in the US overseas biological laboratories? Why does the US keep tight-lipped about it?

Natalia Poklonskaya, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Foreign Affairs, has proposed verifying the legitimacy of US biological laboratories around the world, according to Sputnik news agency.

Not long ago, a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry expressed concern about the establishment of a biological laboratory in countries from the former Soviet Union.

Grigory Trofimchuk, a Russian expert in the field of internal affairs, foreign affairs, and national defense, said the work of these biological laboratories was never disclosed to the outside world, and that they had caused several problems, with widespread outbreaks of dangerous infectious diseases such as measles at the laboratory site.

What research is being done in these biological laboratories? Why does the US keep tight-lipped about the function, use, the safety of these biological laboratories?

[May 01, 2020] The virus is a problem and if you do a general lock down (1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year..) you will create 100 further problems. Now you have 101 problems!

May 01, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Ric G , Apr 29 2020 23:50 utc | 76

The virus is a problem and if you do a general lock down (1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year..) you will create 100 further problems. Now you have 101 problems!

The data is in that the virus, in the general community (not counting hospitals), only kills people over 70 years, or with medical issues.

So quarantine the over 70's, give them free delivered food, a laptop with Zoom so they can still communicate, and let the rest of the world live their lives. It is insane that two 20 year olds cannot go on a date without being fined, or someone on a rural beach has a chopper land beside them and they are fined. This is not a medical response, this is a psych-ops, that is manipulation of the human psyche on a grand scale. Some would say on a Satanic scale!

Here is what happens when money collapses, when the economy collapses, and in the turmoil some are going to be richer than Midas.

In the past, an inflationary collapse has usually affected currencies in isolation; but the modern tendency for governments to coordinate their inflationary stimulations raises a new factor, of strains between currencies collapsing at the same time but at different rates.

The most notable experience of it in modern times was in several European countries following the First World war. The inflations were individual to the nations, but the cause was the same, and Austria's inflationary collapse ran ahead of Germany's. A passage from a man who witnessed it, the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, in his autobiographical The World of Yesterday vividly describes the consequences:

Every hotel in Vienna was filled with these vultures [foreign tourists]; they bought everything from toothbrushes to landed estates, they mopped up private collections and antique shop stocks before their owners, in their distress, woke to how they were being plundered. Humble hotel clerks from Switzerland, stenographers from Holland would put up in the deluxe suites of the Ringstrasse hotels. Incredible as it may seem, I can vouch for it as an eyewitness that Salzburg's first-rate Hotel de l'Europe was occupied for a period by English unemployed, who, because of Britain's generous dole were able to live more cheaply at that distinguished hostelry than in their slums at home. Whatever was not nailed down disappeared. The tidings of cheap living and cheap goods in Austria spread far and wide; greedy visitors came from Sweden from France; more Italian French Turkish and Romanian was spoken than German in Vienna's business district.[ii]

Among the Austrians impoverished in their own communities, the law-abiding starved and those prepared to break food rationing laws thrived. Savers, who had patriotically bought government bonds, lost everything. Germans from across the border, whose currency was yet to enter its final collapse, could swill six litres of Austrian beer for one of German, adding to the foreign revelry in Austria's misery.

In our contemporary fiat collapse, differences in its rate will create similar openings for an unsettling life arbitrage. In business dealings, any vestiges of decency and compassion are early victims as those with an early understanding of the opportunities provided by a monetary collapse profit from the innocence of the ignorant. But Germany was to suffer the inflationary fate of Austria the following year. Again, from Zweig:

A pair of shoe laces cost more than a shoe had once cost, no, more than a fashionable store with two thousand pairs of shoes had cost before; to repair a broken window more than the whole house had formerly cost, a book more than the printers shop with a hundred presses. For $100 one could buy rows of six-storey houses on Kurfürstendamm and factories were to be had for the old equivalent of a wheelbarrow

Towering over all of them was the gigantic figure of the super-profiteer Stinnes expanding his credit and in thus exploiting the mark he bought whatever was for sale, coal mines and ships, factories and stocks, castles and country estates, actually for nothing because every payment, every promise became equal to naught. Soon a quarter of Germany was in his hands and, perversely, the masses who in Germany always became intoxicated at a success that they can see with their eyes, cheered him as a genius.

The story of Hugo Stinnes brings us back to our current situation, how markets will evolve and who will profit.

[May 01, 2020] Sweden avoided lockdown with good results

May 01, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

kurious , Apr 30 2020 16:08 utc | 153

Sweden mocks the lockdown - new deaths per day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/graph/png/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Sweden/0/335c26917c384c372fb322a67f5bb85eb4b55f1a.png


kurious , Apr 30 2020 16:11 utc | 155

It's looking good for Sweden -new deaths per day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/graph/png/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Sweden/0/335c26917c384c372fb322a67f5bb85eb4b55f1a.png

james , Apr 30 2020 16:16 utc | 157
sweden total cases and totals deaths...21,092 / 2,586 deaths per 1 million - 256..
norway - same........................................7,738 / 207 - 38
finland ...................................................4,995 / 211 - 38
denmark............................................. 9,158 / 452 - 78...

sweden pop 10 mil.
norway, finland, denmark pop - 5 mil...

[May 01, 2020] Fauci ties to Gates

May 01, 2020 | www.corbettreport.com

Unsurprisingly, the Gates Foundation has injected substantial sums of money into both groups. This year alone, the Gates Foundation has already given $79 million to Imperial College, and in 2017 the Foundation announced a $279 million investment into the IHME to expand its work collecting health data and creating models.

Anthony Fauci, meanwhile, has become the face of the US government's coronavirus response, echoing Bill Gates' assertion that the country will not "get back to normal" until "a good vaccine" can be found to insure the public's safety.

ANTHONY FAUCI : If you want to get to pre-coronavirus . . . You know, that might not ever happen, in the sense of the fact that the threat is there. But I believe with the therapies that will be coming online, and with the fact that I feel confident that over a period of time we will get a good vaccine, that we will never have to get back to where we are right back now.

SOURCE: Dr. Anthony Fauci on return to normalcy from pandemic

Beyond just their frequent collaborations and cooperation in the past, Fauci has direct ties to Gates projects and funding. In 2010, he was appointed to the Leadership Council of the Gates-founded " Decade of Vaccines " project to implement a Global Vaccine Action Plan, a project to which Gates committed $10 billion of funding. And in October of last year, just as the current pandemic was beginning, the Gates Foundation announced a $100 million contribution to the National Institute of Health to help, among other programs, Fauci's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases' research into HIV.

... ... ...

AMY GOODMAN : And the charity of billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda is under criticism following the disclosure it's substantially increased its holdings in the agribusiness giant Monsanto to over $23 million. Critics say the investment in Monsanto contradicts the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's stated commitment to helping farmers and sustainable development in Africa.

SOURCE: Gates Foundation Criticized for Increasing Monsanto Investment

LAURENCE LEE : The study from the pressure group Global Justice now paints a picture of the Gates Foundation partly as an expression of corporate America's desire to profit from Africa, and partly a damning critique of its effects.

POLLY JONES : You could have a case where the initial research is done by a Gates-funded institution. And the media reporting on how well that research is conducted is done, the media outlet is a Gates-funded outlet, or maybe a Gates-funded journalist from a media program. And then the program is implemented more widely by a Gates-funded NGO. I mean . . . There are some very insular circles here.

LEE : Among the many criticisms, the idea that private finance can solve the problems of the developing world. Should poor farmers be trapped into debt by having to use chemicals or fertilizers under written by offshoot of the foundation?

SOURCE: Gates Foundation accused of exploiting its leverage in Africa

This is no mere theoretical conflict of interest. Gates is held up as a hero for donating $35.8 billion worth of his Microsoft stock to the foundation, but during the course of his "Decade of Vaccines," Gates' net worth has actually doubled, from $54 billion to $103.1 billion .

The Rockefeller story provides an instructive template for this vision of tycoon-turned-philanthropist. When Rockefeller faced a public backlash, he helped spearhead the creation of a system of private foundations that connected in with his business interests. Leveraging his unprecedented oil monopoly fortune into unprecedented control over wide swathes of public life, Rockefeller was able to kill two birds with one stone: moulding society in his families' own interests even as he became a beloved figure in the public imagination.

Similarly, Bill Gates has leveraged his software empire into a global health, development and education empire, steering the course of investment and research and ensuring healthy markets for vaccines and other immunisation products. And, like Rockefeller, Gates has been transformed from the feared and reviled head of a formidable hydra into a kindly old man generously giving his wealth back to the public.

But not everyone has been taken in by this PR trick. Even The Lancet observed this worrying transformation from software monopolist to health monopolist back in 2009, when the extent of this Gates-led monopoly was becoming apparent to all:

The first guiding principle of the [Bill & Melinda Gates] Foundation is that it is "driven by the interests and passions of the Gates family." An annual letter from Bill Gates summarises those passions, referring to newspaper articles, books, and chance events that have shaped the Foundation's strategy. For such a large and influential investor in global health, is such a whimsical governance principle good enough?

SOURCE: What has the Gates Foundation done for global health?

This brings us back to the question: Who is Bill Gates? What are his driving interests? What motivates his decisions?

These are not academic questions. Gates' decisions have controlled the flows of billions of dollars, formed international partnerships pursuing wide-ranging agendas, ensured the creation of "healthy markets" for big pharma vaccine manufacturers. And now, as we are seeing, his decisions are shaping the entire global response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Next week, we will further explore Gates' vaccination initiatives, the business interests behind them, and the larger agenda that is beginning to take shape as we enter the "new normal" of the Covid-19 crisis.

[May 01, 2020] In pandemic blame distribution Fauci and the CDC top should get mayor shares

May 01, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Antonym , May 1 2020 14:03 utc | 15

In pandemic blame distribution Fauci and the CDC top should get mayor shares.

In financial crash blame distribution the New York FED with its top 5 controller / bail-out receiver banks have big parts. It still holds the world's other Central Banks hostage through its reserves and trade in U$ dollars only meme.

In the intelligence area it is not very different: also that branch of the US Deep State failed.

A multipolar world is getting closer..

[May 01, 2020] No doubt that the United States is currently facing the wrath of the global pandemic. If the U.S. government had begun to plan effectively after the WHO declared a public emergency on January 30 or even when it declared a global pandemic on March 11, the problems would not be so grave.

May 01, 2020 | www.counterpunch.org

When U.S. President Donald Trump cut off his government's funding to the World Health Organization (WHO), one of his grievances was that the WHO -- under Chinese tutelage -- failed to declare the global coronavirus outbreak as a pandemic soon enough. Not long after the virus brought patients to Hubei Provincial Hospital, the Chinese medical and public health authorities brought it to the notice of the WHO. The WHO investigated the virus over the course of early January, sending a team into Wuhan and making public whatever credible information it could report.

The WHO's International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee met twice in January, first on January 22-23 and then again on January 30 ; in the first meeting, the committee felt it had insufficient evidence to declare an emergency, but at the second meeting it took the decision to declare a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC). This is the penultimate step for the WHO; on March 11, after it became clear that the virus was spreading across borders, but not before the WHO made many warnings to governments, the WHO declared a global pandemic.

Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden , as well as a host of other U.S. politicians, made the argument that the WHO did not act fast enough with its declaration. Whatever problems posed to the United States by the virus were not the responsibility of the U.S. government, they suggested; the fault lay with the Chinese government and with the WHO.

Our investigation finds that this argument has little foundation. The WHO's reporting mechanisms are sound, but the WHO's own ability to make these formal declarations -- a public health emergency and a global pandemic, which come with serious financial consequences for member states -- has been circumscribed; those who have constrained the World Health Organization -- the United States and European nations -- are the very same countries whose leaders are now complaining about Chinese influence over the WHO.

Revisions

By the 1990s, it had become clear that the WHO's old International Health Regulations -- originally issued in 1969, with only a few minor updates and new editions over the two decades after that -- were inadequate. For one, these regulations were produced before the emergence of very infectious, lethal, and recurrent infections such as Ebola and the avian influenzas. Secondly, these old regulations were made before air travel began to move about 4.3 billion passengers per year, the scale of air traffic now making the movement of viruses so much easier.

In May 2005, the 58th World Health Assembly revised the 1969 regulations, pointing out that the new regulations would "prevent, protect against, control and provide a public health response to the international spread of disease in ways that are commensurate with and restricted to public health risks, and which avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade."

The North American and European states, in particular, insisted that the declaration of a PHEIC or global pandemic only be made after it was clear that air travel and trade would not be unduly interrupted. This restriction, essentially the core foundations of globalization, has constrained the WHO since 2005.

The 2009 Test

The new WHO regulations were tested when a new influenza emerged out of Mexico and the United States in mid-April 2009. This H1N1 was a combination of influenza virus genes that had links to swine-lineage H1N1 from both North America and Eurasia (thus the 2009 outbreak was commonly known as "swine flu"). It was first detected on April 15 . On April 24, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention uploaded a gene sequence onto a publicly accessible influenzas database. On April 25, ten days after the first detection of the virus, the WHO declared the 2009 H1N1 outbreak a PHEIC. On June 11, the WHO said that a global pandemic was underway.

In 2020, the WHO took a month to declare a PHEIC for the coronavirus and took an additional two months after that to pronounce a global pandemic. It was slower to announce the emergency, but it took the same time to declare a global pandemic.

By July 2009, the dangerous H1N1 virus had a less lethal impact than the WHO had feared. However, for the full year from its first detection, 60.8 million people were infected and 12,469 died.

Almost immediately, the WHO was attacked for the June 11 description of the outbreak as a pandemic. When the WHO declares a pandemic, governments are expected to do a variety of things including mass purchase of drugs and vaccines. These are costly.

That December, members of parliament in the Council of Europe opened an inquiry into the WHO declaration. Fourteen members of the Council charged the WHO with what was essentially fraud. They said that "pharmaceutical companies have influenced scientists and official agencies, responsible for public health standards, to alarm governments worldwide. They have made them squander tight health care resources for inefficient vaccine strategies and needlessly exposed millions of healthy people to the rise of unknown side-effects of insufficiently tested vaccines." "The definition of an alarming pandemic," they wrote, "must not be under the influence of drug-sellers."

The criticism of the WHO stung. It had declared a pandemic, but the virus had stabilized very soon after the declaration. The WHO responded to such criticism with humility. "Adjusting public perceptions to suit a far less lethal virus has been problematic," the WHO responded . "Given the discrepancy between what was expected and what has happened, a search for ulterior motives on the part of the WHO and its scientific advisers is understandable, though without justification."

Trump's Attacks

A WHO official told one of us that the agency had been shaken by the assault in 2009. Over the past ten years, the agency has struggled to regain its confidence, working through the Ebola outbreak in 2014 and then Zika in 2016. In neither of those cases was there a need to make any global declaration.

This year, the WHO declared a global pandemic within three months of the first cases. But there is no doubt that the attack on the WHO a decade ago has made an impact. Former WHO employees tell us that fear of being attacked like this by the main donors seriously hampers the independence of the WHO and its scientific advisers. Trump's current attack is going to weaken further the ability of the WHO to operate at its own pace and with credibility.

The World Health Organization is not the first UN agency to face the wrath of the U.S. administration. The Trump administration sent its budget to Congress with zero dollars for a line item called International Organizations and Programs. Under this line item comes United States funds for UN Development Program, UNICEF, UNESCO, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Women, and UN Population Fund. In 2018, the United States stopped funding the UN's Palestine agency (UNRWA). When the UN is useful, the United States uses it; when the UN goes against United States interests, it will lose its funding.

When Trump said that the WHO is "China centric," he offered no evidence; he did not have to.

No doubt that the United States is currently facing the wrath of the global pandemic. If the U.S. government had begun to plan effectively after the WHO declared a public emergency on January 30 or even when it declared a global pandemic on March 11, the problems would not be so grave. But there was no planning at all, which is distressing. As George Packer put it in the Atlantic, the United States in the months after January was "like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering." From Trump, the U.S. citizenry got "willful blindness, scapegoating, boasts, and lies." This sums it up. Part of the scapegoating was directed at China ; it is far easier to blame China -- already part of a dangerous trade war and a simmering regional struggle in Asia -- than to accept responsibility oneself.

This article was produced by Globetrotter , a project of the Independent Media Institute. Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: Vijay Prashad

Vijay Prashad's most recent book is No Free Left: The Futures of Indian Communism (New Delhi: LeftWord Books, 2015).

[May 01, 2020] Evil intent and premeditation are perfectly compatible with bad planning and gross incompetence.

May 01, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Russ , Apr 29 2020 20:55 utc | 49

Evil intent and premeditation are perfectly compatible with bad planning and gross incompetence.

Look at every US war of aggression: It fails utterly at every affirmative goal, but so far always accomplishes the purely negative goals of mass murder, gross physical destruction and generating failed states. Same for disaster responses like with Katrina: They couldn't save any lives or help poor people rebuild, but they could complete the destruction of social infrastructure which the hurricane hadn't finished off.

That's the US, domestically and around the world. And people really think any kind of intensive response to an epidemic would have any other kind of outcome?

Jackrabbit , Apr 29 2020 21:32 utc | 53

NoOneYouKnow Apr29 20:41
... it wouldn't surprise me if they deployed this virus in China without assuming, or caring about, blowback in the US.

karlof1 has speculated along the same lines weeks ago.

My understanding of karlof1's argument is as follows: China turned the "weapon" (assuming it was a deliberate attack) back on USA by revealing the virus instead of keeping the outbreak quiet. The result has been the destabilizing of US society because USA leadership had never planned to respond to the virus in any way that is appropriate to a new virus.

!!

[May 01, 2020] Bright transfer was in response to his insistence that the government invest into safe and scientifically vetted solutions for fighting COVID-19, and not in drugs, vaccines and other technologies that lack scientific merit

May 01, 2020 | www.counterpunch.org

The people need science. The teaching is a legacy of pathologist Rudolph Virchow who was at the barricades in Berlin in 1848. A journal entry in that year of revolutions reads, " Medicine is a social science , and politics nothing but medicine on a grand scale." The pioneering Virchow first pronounced upon the biological importance of cells in health and disease. He was the " chief founder of modern scientific medicine." (William H. Welch, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine 1902),

Virchow inspires today's imperative that the entitled classes not abandon science in the face of danger nor twist science to fit proprietary uses. This is the Virchow whose study of a typhus outbreak in Upper Silesia convinced him that class-based oppression – poverty and lack of education – was responsible for the epidemic, the Virchow who helped form the German Radical Party in 1884 and served in the Prussian and German parliaments.

Ask immunologist and virologist Rick Bright about science serving the people. That expert in preventing viral disease, particularly influenza, on April 21 was removed from his position in the Department of Health and Human Services. Bright was in charge of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and of efforts to develop an anti-COVID 19 vaccine. He had 63 scientific articles to his credit.

Bright told the press that, "I believe this transfer was in response to my insistence that the government invest the billions of dollars allocated by Congress to address the COVID-19 pandemic into safe and scientifically vetted solutions, and not in drugs, vaccines and other technologies that lack scientific merit. I am speaking out because to combat this deadly virus, science -- not politics or cronyism -- has to lead the way."

He added that, "contrary to misguided directives, I limited the broad use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, promoted by the Administration as a panacea, but which clearly lack scientific merit."

Science has been a bit player in the U.S. government's confrontation with the pandemic. President Trump's anti-science attitudes are far from the whole story, although his cut-off of U.S. funding for the World Health Organization was as dangerous as it was symbolic.

That government failed to take steps that would have allowed scientific inquiry during the early stages of the pandemic Early case-finding and tracking of contacts did not take place. Investigators lacked the raw material that might have allowed them to define the contours of an evolving epidemic, its special characteristics.

The fact of delay was clear on April 21 when a California medical examiner announced that COVID 19 had accounted for one death on February 6 and another on February 17. Neither victim had traveled outside the United States. The onset of their infections was presumably in mid-January. All along, authorities had regarded a Washington-state patient who tested positive on February 26 as the first U.S. victim of community-acquired infection. Yet CDC director Robert Redfield, testifying before a congressional committee on March 11, revealed that some patients assumed to have died from influenza did die from COVID 19 infection.

Also, the administration's China-bashing and even conspiracy theories about the origins of the pandemic testify to its dismissal of useful scientist research, particularly the findings of scientists throughout the world who know about the beginnings of the pandemic, in China.

British and German scientists " reconstructed the early 'evolutionary paths' of COVID-19 in humans." A Cambridge University team "mapped some of the original spread of the new coronavirus through its mutations, which creates different viral lineages." Virus genomes were studied " from across the world between 24 December 2019 and 4 March 2020."

The researchers categorized three types of COVID 19. The original Wuhan virus was type A; its mutated versions showed up in the United States and Australia. Type B, predominating in Wuhan, stayed put in East Asia. Type C appeared only in Europe, Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea. The researchers "traced established infection routes: the mutations and viral lineages joined the dots between known cases." Such information about the virus's biologic behavior might have enabled public health officials to identify at-risk populations within the United States and abroad.

Lead author Peter Forster suggested to a reporter that in Wuhan "the first infection and spread among humans of COVID-19 occurred between mid-September and early December." His disclosure has implications for U.S. military athletes participating in the "World Military Games" in Wuhan in late October. They were among 9308 military athletes on hand from 100 countries. The athletes might have carried the virus with them on their return to the various nations.

Zoologist Peter Daszak, president of the New York – based EcoHealth Alliance, does research in China on inter-species sharing of viruses. He pointed out in 2013 that, "Coronaviruses evolve very rapidly [and] are exquisitely evolved to jump from one species to another." At the time, he was reflecting on the SARS coronavirus epidemic of 10 years earlier.

He offered a suggestion that, if acted upon, might have prevented the COVID 19 pandemic. The cost, Daszak estimated, would have been "about $1.5bn to discover all the viruses in mammals. I think that would be a great investment because once you have done it, you can develop vaccines and get ready with test kits to find the first stage of emergence and stop it."

This story of the U.S. government's abuse of science ends with lessons learned. They are: (1) science must exist for the benefit of all people and not be left to the mercies of the rich and powerful, (2) a government restricting and disrespecting scientists, like Dr. Bright, is dangerous to the people, and (3) a capability to plan is of the essence to a state that would assure the safety and flourishing of all its people. These basic standards, it seems here, will be identifying features for those societies that do emerge relatively intact from the pandemic. The odds favor the socialist ones.

[May 01, 2020] Dr. Ron Paul Interview: Bill Gates Tony Fauci Are Determined To Run The World by Vaccines

May 01, 2020 | www.unz.com

Agent76 , says: Show Comment April 30, 2020 at 1:25 pm GMT

Apr 16, 2020 Dr. Ron Paul Interview: Bill Gates & Tony Fauci Are Determined To Run The World by Vaccines

Dr. Paul and Spiro discuss the current coronavirus crisis and the political, social and economic fallout effecting millions of Americans, as people begin to display resistance to the government lockdown response.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/LKkByA7nC4U?feature=oembed

Sep 11, 2013 9/11 In A Nutshell

James Corbett presents this 5 minute parody of the official conspiracy theory of 9/11

https://www.youtube.com/embed/vrJiKbK0tVM?feature=oembed

2.3 TRillion Dollars Missing from DOD Day before 9/11/ 2001

SEPTEMBER 10, 2001 Defense Business Practices

Secretary Rumsfeld and other officials talked with reporters about the need to refine the Defense Department's business practices. An opening ceremony will kick off Acquisition and Logistics Excellence Week. They answered questions from members of the media

http://www.c-span.org/video/?165947-1/defense-business-practices

[May 01, 2020] The CDC is actually a vaccine company. -- Robert F. Kennedy Jr., by Paul Craig Roberts

May 01, 2020 | www.unz.com

Watch this RT interview with Robert Kennedy to see how corrupt the CDC is. We cannot trust this corrupt organization with our health. The CDC has a large financial interest in pushing untested vaccines on the public.

WHO is even more under the control of Big Pharma. The organization is corrupt beyond the meaning of the word. "The WHO is a sock puppet for the pharmaceutical industry." -- Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

https://youtu.be/5CfLDXpC324

[Apr 30, 2020] Fauci and gain of function research

Apr 30, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

xxx 2 hours ago (Edited)

Now its come out that Fauci personally oversaw 3.7million in grants to the Wuhan lab;

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/paid-for-the-damn-virus-thats-killing-us-giuliani-rips-fauci-over-grants-to-wuhan-laboratory

""Back in 2014, the Obama administration prohibited the U.S. from giving any money to any laboratory, including in the U.S., that was fooling around with these viruses. Prohibited! Despite that, Dr. Fauci gave $3.7 million to the Wuhan laboratory -- and then even after the State Department issued reports about how unsafe that laboratory was, and how suspicious they were in the way they were developing a virus that could be transmitted to humans,"Giuliani claimed

So, the guy who is heading up the Corona response personally oversaw the funding of the lab that created it......COME ON!

xxx 2 hours ago


I am a consistent complainer over the Obama administration's policies but this is one policy where I admire them. THIS is what I mean when I keep complaining about the scientific community. Obama had it right and should have been even more vocal in their opposition to misguided research. If the reports on Fauci funding this are true it should be exposed and LOUDLY vilified. WHEN are we going to hold the scientific community accountable? Do you know how many brilliant and decent scientists are being muted because of the likes of these type scientists that want free reign to do whatever they want?

Here's my point: If a scientist lower in prestige than Dr. Fauci had written a paper defining "playing with viruses as important research" as unnecessary and dangerous, he/she would be putting their very careers at risk due to Fauci's power. They've been doing it to any scientist that disputes climate change models, to the point of even firing editors that allow varying opinions. I'm not saying scientists are bad, just the opposite. Good Scientists are being stifled by a small powerful few within their leagues.

xxx 3 hours ago

Here an expose of Dr Fauci ; **** floats as we say . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq2uuHfmq8k

[Apr 30, 2020] WHO Flip-Flops Again, Endorses Sweden's Lockdown-Free Approach To Tackling Coronavirus Live Updates

Apr 30, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

The WHO initially opposed, then embraced lockdowns, and now it's apparently back to opposing them again. Unlike other European states like Italy, Sweden implemented swift and early testing regimes to weed out infected patients. This allowed it to avoid lockdowns and border closures, relying instead on social distancing guidance. The country never closed its schools, and although mortality rates have been markedly higher than its neighbors, the virus never overwhelmed its hospital system. The Swedish government's approach is widely popular within Sweden.

The director of the WHO's health emergencies program said the notion that Sweden hadn't done much to combat the virus is simply not true.

Sweden has put in place a "very strong public health policy", said Dr. Mike Ryan. Unlike many other countries, Sweden chose to rely on its "relationship with its citizenry" and trust them to self-regulate. Its healthcare system has not been overwhelmed, he said, adding that its approach could be a "model" for other countries when lockdowns begin to relax. "There are lessons to be learnt by our colleagues in Sweden."

Remember the last time the WHO praised a "model" approach to tackling the virus? It was praising China's strict lockdowns.

[Apr 30, 2020] I do think it has been a mistake not to quarantine nursing homes, ltc facilities, hospitals, etc.. Including the docs, nurses, workers. Those are the vectors 50% of covid deaths could have been prevented, esp in NY, like that.

Apr 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

BDrizz , Apr 30 2020 2:09 utc | 92

These lockdowns have ended life as we know it, no matter which position you take. I do think it has been a mistake not to quarantine nursing homes, ltc facilities, hospitals, etc.. Including the docs, nurses, workers. Those are the vectors & 50% of covid deaths could have been prevented, esp in NY, like that. At year-end, we can look at all-cause mortalities trends, see how this year stacks up. I hope these measures make sense given the extreme poverty, violence, death they will cause. There will be no permanent vaccine, they've been trying w/Coronav's for a long time. This thing is a fact of life going forward. It will mutate like any other cold or flu. Are we going to shut down & go Orwell every time it pops up? We're f'ed.

[Apr 30, 2020] Ferguson's alamist narrative about two million dead int he USA alone has triumphed, helped by our incontinent and irresponsible media. ...

Apr 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

fairleft , Apr 30 2020 0:43 utc | 80

Neil Ferguson hasn't been part of b's coronavirus narrative, but his bad statistics (he has a history) are key to the whole story. Great opinion piece by R.R. Reno :

"On March 16, Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London predicted a coronavirus death toll of more than two million in the United States alone. He arrived at this number by assuming that infection would be nearly universal and the fatality rate would be high -- a terrifying prospect. The next day, Stanford epidemiologist John Ioannidis sifted through the data and predicted less widespread infection and a fatality rate of between 0.05 and 1.0 percent -- not that different from the common flu. The coronavirus is not the common flu. It has different characteristics, afflicting the old more than the young, men more than women. Nevertheless, all data trends since mid-March show that Ferguson was fantastically wrong and Ioannidis was largely right about its mortal threat. [fairleft: Reno goes too far here: data indicates Covid-19 is worse than the flu for the vulnerable, possibly much worse depending on age and the severity of their vulnerability.]

"But Ferguson's narrative has triumphed, helped by our incontinent and irresponsible media. ...

"Our entire ruling class, which united behind catastrophism and the untested methods of mass shutdown, is implicated in the unfolding fiasco.

"Journalists continue to sustain the pandemic narrative. Ioannidis is still ignored, though the evidence I outlined above has been building for weeks. ..."

[[U of Oxford prediction: "Taking account of historical experience, trends in the data, increased number of infections in the population at largest, and potential impact of misclassification of deaths gives a presumed estimate for the COVID-19 IFR somewhere between 0.1% and 0.36%." All studies so far are flawed and not all are within that range, but here are basically ALL of them, which generally point to the Oxford prediction being about right:

NYC shopping center: 0.6%
Santa Clara County: 0.1 - 0.2%
LA County: 0.1 - 0.3%
Oise, France high school: 0.0%
Gangelt, Germany: 0.37%
Bergamo, Italy: 0.57%
Lombardio, Italy: 0.87%
Iceland: 0.05%
UK: 0.9%
China: 0.66%
Boston homeless shelter: 0.0%
US Navy ship: 0.07% ]]

R.R. Reno concludes:

"We've been stampeded into a regime of social control that is unprecedented in our history. Our economy has been shattered.... As unemployment numbers skyrocket and Congress spends trillions, the political stakes rise.

"The experts, professionals, bureaucrats, and public officials who did this to us have tremendous incentives to close ranks and say, 'It is not wise to tell people that the danger was never grave and now has passed.' Sustaining the coronavirus narrative will require many lies. It will be up to us to insist on the truth."

[Apr 30, 2020] This interview with Dr Mikovits tells us what this is all about and why Fauci cannot be trusted. Only goes for 15 mins

Apr 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Graham Peppercorn , Apr 30 2020 4:08 utc | 107

I cannot suggest more strongly for anyone seeking the truth about this Corona Virus that you HAVE to listen to an interview with Dr Mikovits who had originally worked on the discovery of the Aids Virus and who was bullied and threatened by Fauci. YOU HAVE TO listen to this Scientist!!!

I am NOT connected to this site in any way but I think this interview HAS to spread throughout the World because this Scientist knows what she is talking about. AND, it is very scary.

https://www.trunews.com/stream/edward-s-interview-of-dr-judy-mikovits-mp4


james , Apr 30 2020 4:43 utc | 108

dr... mikovits.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_Mikovits
Peppercron , Apr 30 2020 10:58 utc | 130
...This interview with Dr Mikovits tells us what this is all about and why Fauci cannot be trusted. Only goes for 15 mins. But this is the most damning insight yet to be shared on the CV

https://www.trunews.com/stream/edward-s-interview-of-dr-judy-mikovits-mp4

[Apr 30, 2020] THE LATEST coronavirus figures in New York, per state officials by more than 1k. The number of new cases (+4,585) compares with (+3,110) yesterday.

Apr 30, 2020 | twitter.com

THE LATEST coronavirus figures in New York, per state officials:

+ 17,968 dead
+ Hospitalized: 12,159 (-487)
+ Patients in ICU: 3,923 (-148)
+ Patients intubated: 3,281 (-139)
+ People tested: 872,481 (+27,487)
+ Confirmed cases: 299,691 (+4,585) https://t.co/tElx0HYu9B

-- Jimmy Vielkind (@JimmyVielkind) April 29, 2020

[Apr 30, 2020] Fauci and gain of function research

Apr 30, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

xxx 2 hours ago (Edited)

Now its come out that Fauci personally oversaw 3.7million in grants to the Wuhan lab;

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/paid-for-the-damn-virus-thats-killing-us-giuliani-rips-fauci-over-grants-to-wuhan-laboratory

""Back in 2014, the Obama administration prohibited the U.S. from giving any money to any laboratory, including in the U.S., that was fooling around with these viruses. Prohibited! Despite that, Dr. Fauci gave $3.7 million to the Wuhan laboratory -- and then even after the State Department issued reports about how unsafe that laboratory was, and how suspicious they were in the way they were developing a virus that could be transmitted to humans,"Giuliani claimed

So, the guy who is heading up the Corona response personally oversaw the funding of the lab that created it......COME ON!

xxx 2 hours ago


I am a consistent complainer over the Obama administration's policies but this is one policy where I admire them. THIS is what I mean when I keep complaining about the scientific community. Obama had it right and should have been even more vocal in their opposition to misguided research. If the reports on Fauci funding this are true it should be exposed and LOUDLY vilified. WHEN are we going to hold the scientific community accountable? Do you know how many brilliant and decent scientists are being muted because of the likes of these type scientists that want free reign to do whatever they want?

Here's my point: If a scientist lower in prestige than Dr. Fauci had written a paper defining "playing with viruses as important research" as unnecessary and dangerous, he/she would be putting their very careers at risk due to Fauci's power. They've been doing it to any scientist that disputes climate change models, to the point of even firing editors that allow varying opinions. I'm not saying scientists are bad, just the opposite. Good Scientists are being stifled by a small powerful few within their leagues.

xxx 3 hours ago

Here an expose of Dr Fauci ; **** floats as we say . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq2uuHfmq8k

[Apr 29, 2020] Sweden is trying something different and seem to be no worse, probably better than the UK approach

Apr 29, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Ric G , Apr 29 2020 16:53 utc | 3

Sweden is trying something different and seem to be no worse, probably better than the UK approach.

Meanwhile some are making out like bandits!

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/americas-super-rich-see-their-wealth-rise-282-billion-three-weeks-pandemic

And we haven't paid our recent 'restaurant bill' now owed to the bankers, payable in about three years, when we are going to be drained of several pints of financial blood!

And in Australia, with about eighty deaths, the panic borders on the insane!

[Apr 29, 2020] Starvation from the loss of income is 100% lethal

Apr 29, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

JasonT , Apr 29 2020 20:16 utc | 37

It really astounds me that the Covid-19 hyperventilators fail to understand that starvation is 100% lethal, and immune compromised people due to malnutrition are much more susceptible to any disease that comes along.

As the supply lines collapse, and with winter in the northern hemisphere coming in a mere 6 months, you can expect that the number of dead by starvation, and from other diseases attacking mal-nourished people, will utterly dwarf the number of dead from Covid-19 complications.

[Apr 29, 2020] The ruling-class/establishment always portrays neo-liberal policies as beneficial to the working class/middle-class

Apr 29, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Apr 29 2020 18:36 utc | 21

Many commenters here don't want us to hold our government accountable for that failure. They just want to move on.

The ruling-class/establishment always portrays neo-liberal policies as beneficial to the working class/middle-class. It is generally only superficially so. The fact is, neolib government policy is essentially:

corporate welfare (like bailouts) and pay-offs to the wealthy (tax cuts);

socialized bads (we're in this together!) among the lower classes.

... ... ...

IMO this is likely because Big Pharma and government budgets benefit from continuing failures that could best be summed up as culling the herd. Big Pharma could lose billions of dollars of potential profits from treating old people with expensive and/or experimental drugs. And governments (wealthy taxpayers, really) could save billions more if older people die quickly: the last year of care is the most expensive and pensions are underfunded.

!!

[Apr 29, 2020] 'FREE AMERICA' Elon Musk divides opinions after calling for lockdown to be lifted and tweeting 'give people their freedom back

Apr 29, 2020 | www.rt.com

Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has come out in favor of reducing restrictions on freedoms and businesses, sparking a fierce debate on Twitter. Some lauded him and others chastised him for putting profits ahead of people's safety. The Tesla and SpaceX founder called on Wednesday for the US to lift the lockdown, tweeting "FREE AMERICA NOW" and "Give people their freedom back!"

FREE AMERICA NOW

-- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 29, 2020

He also attached links to a Wall Street Journal article suggesting lockdowns were ineffective and to another praising Texas for announcing more businesses will be allowed to reopen on Friday.

The billionaire has been known as a vocal critic of the "panic" around the novel coronavirus, having previously branded the behavior "dumb" and keeping his Tesla car factory in California running despite local shelter-in-place laws.

But his new string of tweets has managed to quickly divide opinions online. While some praised Musk for his commitment to liberty, others accused him of being reckless and of placing profits over people.

There were those who accused Musk of being "drunk with power." Even his supporters, like one named Sylvia Kane, told the polymath to "get some sleep" .

What science are you following, EM? Clearly you know something the doctors and scientists don't

-- Bill Moseley (@choptopmoseley) April 29, 2020

Others chastised the SpaceX tycoon for seemingly choosing to ignore scientific evidence, with critics like actor Bill Moseley wondering "what science" Musk was now following, and sports presenter Dave Zirin saying that "wanting your workers to die for you while you stay in your compound isn't exactly courage."

However, there was no shortage of commenters praising Musk for his commitment to liberty, with President Donald Trump supporter Melissa A. responding to the tweet by saying "the scariest thing about this pandemic" was "seeing Americans bow down" to "corrupt politicians who promise them safety." Musk clearly approved of this take by replying: "True."

True

-- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 29, 2020

A conservative media host Joey Saladino was quick to claim that "When the smartest man in the world is saying this, it is time to FREE AMERICA!"

Musk's "FREE AMERICA" comments appear to echo Trump's sentiments about the lockdown, after the president took to Twitter last week urging several US states to "LIBERATE" themselves.

Last month, Musk committed to providing California with 1,000 ventilators. However there seems to have been some confusion over whether or not Musk's aid has actually arrived. The Sacramento Bee reported on April 14 that no hospitals in the state had received any ventilators promised by the billionaire.

Musk vociferously denied that accusation, after it was picked up by CNN, saying that Tesla had delivered hundreds of ventilators.

Also on rt.com 'How do you still exist?' Musk unloads on CNN after claims his ventilators were never delivered to California hospitals

[Apr 26, 2020] On Long Island NY, the first deaths occurred in a nursing home because an Uber driver who drove a virus patient to a hospital worked in the nursing home part-time.

Apr 26, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Apr 26 2020 3:33 utc | 77

fairleft @Apr26 3:03

On Long Island NY, the first deaths occurred in a nursing home because an Uber driver who drove a virus patient to a hospital worked in the nursing home part-time.

It's very difficult, in USA anyway, to protect vulnerable populations without a lock-down. USA people not just not disciplined enough and organized enough. And many of the vulnerable are under-65: they are diabetic, asthmatic, obese, have compromised immune systems, etc. And there's evidence that there is an adverse effects of the virus on younger people: strokes, lung scarring (pulmonary fibrosis), and possibly chronic fatigue syndrome (which affected about 3/4's of those who recovered from SARS).

WHY is there so little interest in CHANGING THE STRATEGY from 'virus mitigation' to 'virus suppression'? Virus mitigation is basically 'living with the virus' until there's a vaccine - but we don't even know if a vaccine is possible.

'Virus suppression' is a pro-active approach that has been successful in South Korea, Taiwan, Iceland, and maybe New Zealand.

AFAICT 'living with the virus' benefits Big Pharma and might save Governments some money on care for the elderly.

!!

[Apr 26, 2020] A sad situation at the Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center

Notable quotes:
"... As of Thursday, 23 employees at the 4,000-employee VA hospital, had tested positive, according to an update the hospital director emailed to employees. Another 45 employees are home awaiting test results. The hospital declined to say how many of the employees who are positive or are awaiting results are nurses, or name which parts of the hospital they work in. ..."
"... Three VA nurses said they were given N95 respirators for several days early in the crisis in March, but after that they were given surgical masks, which provide less protection from the coronavirus. Another nurse reported wearing only a surgical mask the entire time caring for coronavirus patients. The nurses, who work in a unit that treats COVID-19 positive patients or patients awaiting test results who are suspected to be positive, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to news media and their job security could be at risk if they spoke publicly. ..."
"... The hospital had 73 confirmed coronavirus cases among patients as of Friday, and four inpatient deaths. "Currently every health care system is taking steps to conserve PPE. VA is no different," Hodge wrote in a series of responses by email to questions. Hodge also said that the hospital is issuing surgical masks to all staff who work in non-COVID-19 units. ..."
"... "Those staff are provided one surgical mask weekly to assist in protecting high-risk patients who are asymptomatic," he wrote. ..."
"... Since the number of COVID-19 tests are limited nationwide, there is no COVID-19 testing capability at our CBOC locations. Please call your provider to determine whether you would be a candidate for testing. If so, then you may proceed to the Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia where Monday – Friday, 8:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., a Drive-Thru Clinic is available for screening and testing (if you need it); you will be triaged according to your symptoms. Also, Monday – Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., you may be directed to be seen in the medical center's High Consequence Infections (HCI) Clinic. Last, depending on your symptoms, you may go to the hospital's Emergency Department or to an Urgent Care Center or Emergency Department in your area. ..."
"... Much of the federal stockpile of PPE sent to the states had passed their expire dates, 2010 for some, and was either useless or had to be repaired. I blame the failure on the person, or persons, charged with monitoring the wharehoused stockpiles. The president only knows what he's told. He can't micromanage the nation. He needs Jack Webb directing him to stick with the facts. ..."
"... I read somewhere the V.A. ordered the masks but F.E.M.A expropriated them on the directions of Jared Kushner, who will later decide who receives the masks...something about the National Emergency Stockpile...what a mess. ..."
Apr 26, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com


Colonel Lang sent me an eye opening link last night concerning the Hunter Holmes McGuire VA hospital in Richmond. Here are some excerpts from the Richmond Times-Dispatch article.

-- -- -- --

As of Thursday, 23 employees at the 4,000-employee VA hospital, had tested positive, according to an update the hospital director emailed to employees. Another 45 employees are home awaiting test results. The hospital declined to say how many of the employees who are positive or are awaiting results are nurses, or name which parts of the hospital they work in.

Three VA nurses said they were given N95 respirators for several days early in the crisis in March, but after that they were given surgical masks, which provide less protection from the coronavirus. Another nurse reported wearing only a surgical mask the entire time caring for coronavirus patients. The nurses, who work in a unit that treats COVID-19 positive patients or patients awaiting test results who are suspected to be positive, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to news media and their job security could be at risk if they spoke publicly.

The hospital had 73 confirmed coronavirus cases among patients as of Friday, and four inpatient deaths. "Currently every health care system is taking steps to conserve PPE. VA is no different," Hodge wrote in a series of responses by email to questions. Hodge also said that the hospital is issuing surgical masks to all staff who work in non-COVID-19 units. "Those staff are provided one surgical mask weekly to assist in protecting high-risk patients who are asymptomatic," he wrote. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

-- -- --

I'm not surprised by the numbers. Richmond, itself, is a virus hot spot although that is mostly due to several deadly assisted living/nursing home outbreaks. What shocks me is the PPE situation. The fact that nurses have to treat known Covid-19 patients with hospital masks rather than the N95 respirators is only moderately better than third world conditions in my view. Hospital masks offer the wearer no protection against the aerosolized virus. If the patients were wearing those masks, it would be more helpful than the nurses wearing them.

Here's a tip. If you can still smell odors like onions or bacon while wearing the mask, the aerosolized virus can get into your lungs. Hospital masks and other improvised masks protect those around the wearer, not the mask wearer. The concept behind the universal wearing of such masks is mutual protection. For any of you who spent time in the infantry, it's the same concept behind the DePuy fighting positions where you are not defending yourself. You are forming interlocking fields of fire to protect your comrades to the left and right of you. Protecting those around you actually provides the best protection for all of you. We wear masks in grocery stores and other such places to protect the entire community, not just our own sorry asses.

But back to the situation at McGuire. In the early days of the pandemic in America, the hospital instituted a screening program at the hospital entrances consisting of temperature and health interview. We were told to expect delays and to be given a mask for wear in the hospital. Not long after that, we were called to reschedule our appointments to May or beyond. By mid-April, this was the COVID-19 testing situation.

Since the number of COVID-19 tests are limited nationwide, there is no COVID-19 testing capability at our CBOC locations. Please call your provider to determine whether you would be a candidate for testing. If so, then you may proceed to the Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia where Monday – Friday, 8:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., a Drive-Thru Clinic is available for screening and testing (if you need it); you will be triaged according to your symptoms. Also, Monday – Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., you may be directed to be seen in the medical center's High Consequence Infections (HCI) Clinic. Last, depending on your symptoms, you may go to the hospital's Emergency Department or to an Urgent Care Center or Emergency Department in your area.

McGuire seems to have had all its ducks in a row. It's what I expect. This VA medical center is well run. The professionalism, pride and morale among the staff is astoundingly high. It shows among us broke down old vets who show up for care. We are proud of McGuire. That this fine facility is now forced to ration out PPE to its staff is a travesty. The VA dropped the ball. The federal government dropped the ball for several administrations. PPE should have been stockpiled at all levels and those stockpiles should have been replenished by a push logistics system.

That's the long term screw up. In the more immediate term, the federal government should have been acquiring that PPE and forcing industry to massively produce supplies back in January. Trump should have invoked and used the Defense Production Act robustly in January rather than waiting until March and April to weakly wield that executive authority. Every hospital and every first responder should have had all the PPE needed. Every household could have been sent a dozen disposable masks with a note from President Trump telling us to keep these in case we need them. What a galvanizing message that would have sent across the nation. Even if Covid-19 proved to be a non-problem, it would have been a message of Churchillian defiance in the face of a potential threat. A missed opportunity for both the American people and Trump.

TTG

https://www.richmond.com/special-report/coronavirus/at-mcguire-va-hospital-in-richmond-nurses-fear-the-masks-they-wear-dont-protect-them/article_6da49ed3-84c7-52a6-b052-32ca3cd305b9.html?utm_source=RTD&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Breaking%20News


Terence Gore , 25 April 2020 at 01:16 PM

Sorry to read your post and hope everyone fares well. Many nursing homes may be in the same situation.

https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/coronavirus-disease-covid-19/uchicago-medicine-doctors-see-truly-remarkable-success-using-ventilator-alternatives-to-treat-covid19

"The proning and the high-flow nasal cannulas combined have brought patient oxygen levels from around 40% to 80% and 90%, so it's been fascinating and wonderful to see," Spiegel said."


Possibly positive news.

Pj20 , 25 April 2020 at 02:19 PM
It isn't just the VA, hospitals all over the country are short of PPE. And that is one of the problems with opening up the country too soon. Unprotected staff in suddenly flooded hospitals become ill themselves risking the viability of local health systems.
JoeC100 , 25 April 2020 at 04:57 PM
TTG -

I read a while back that the key supply chain issue with N-95 masks is that their essential core material is a synthetic spun fiber that we are completely reliant on China for sourcing. In addition. the machines that make this fiber are complex, quite expensive and there is no capability to quickly and significantly ramp up their production. Further they are challenging to set up and operate.

And for perspective, of the 200 million masks China currently makes a day, only 600,000 are N95 standard masks, used by medical personnel,

So yet another "essential supply chain" item for a critical health system need that simply can't be ramped up out of this air.

Hopefully some one in the Federal system is looking for all similar needs and working on a plan to facilitate onshore manufacturing.

Full (scary/sobering) details are at: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/16/814929294/covid-19-has-caused-a-shortage-of-face-masks-but-theyre-surprisingly-hard-to-mak

I see this as a long term "lack of US preparedness" problem vs. something that could have been easily addressed if the administration had moved a couple on months earlier..

JohninMK , 25 April 2020 at 05:02 PM
We have the same problems here in the UK. With people, mainly it seems like in the MSM, blaming the Government's leadership for the supply issues.

Ignoring totally the management of our respective national health organizations who knew, at the latest in mid January, that there was probably a nasty contagious problem coming down the tracks, that would, based on already clear Chinese actions, need more PPE than was on their shelves.

Bear in mind that, in the UK at least, hundreds of these NHS bureaucrats earn twice what a Government minister earns and a few twice the PM's salary. In both nations they have failed their people dismally, seemingly like rabbits trapped in the headlights. None will be punished of course for failure, they are just pleased that the Government steps up and takes the blame.

Then we have the academics and think tank personnel. All accepted as impartial and offering honest opinions based on state of the art models. Again the Governments take what they are offered as gospel and acts on it. Only to discover that the models are more of the garbage in garbage out variety, not fit for purpose. Then we find how much funding the impartial academics are receiving from potentially very interested parties, as there are $Bs at stake. In the UK there was a Pandemic 2016 exercise to check things out. Result everything in NHS under control. In the real world under four years later, a shambles. Did you have a similar last autumn?

The real heroes and heroines in this saga are the doctors, nurses and their support and ancillary staff who are actually at the sharp end. Many working in appallingly unsafe conditions. Hats off to them.

Bobo , 25 April 2020 at 07:01 PM
For 200 plus years our hospitals utilized laundries to cleanse their medical protection gear (PPE) until the advent of synthetic PPE. The present generation is taught to utilize the N95 mask and other gear once and then trash it. This was derived as a manner in reducing Sepsis and MRSA in hospitals and an effective one though those diseases are still present.
Our hearts went out to these young medical personnel without the plastic masks and gear as they were working outside of what they were taught and they were much more susceptible to the Covid-19.
Now we all saw every Chinaman walking around Wuhan with a N-95 mask in January and unfortunately those were our masks that were re-routed to the Chinese people. Hopefully we have now learned a very hard lesson that Just in Time Inventory does not work for medical diseases or viruses and that the USA needs to manufacture all PPE and medicine in the USA amongst other things.
Regarding the political implications I can only say that the guy in the hot seat made things happen when the chips were down something his predecessors nor his competitor had/have the ability to do in a timely manner. Coercion worked.
optimax , 25 April 2020 at 11:00 PM
Much of the federal stockpile of PPE sent to the states had passed their expire dates, 2010 for some, and was either useless or had to be repaired. I blame the failure on the person, or persons, charged with monitoring the wharehoused stockpiles. The president only knows what he's told. He can't micromanage the nation. He needs Jack Webb directing him to stick with the facts.

We have two groups of psychopaths vying for political power.

https://time.com/5815652/national-stockpile-medical-supplies-unusable/

elaine, 26 April 2020 at 12:58 AM

I read somewhere the V.A. ordered the masks but F.E.M.A expropriated them on the directions of Jared Kushner, who will later decide who receives the masks...something about the National Emergency Stockpile...what a mess.

[Apr 25, 2020] Sympathy for the Reopeners

Apr 25, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Around 2,000 people descended on the Pennsylvania state capitol in Harrisburg on Monday afternoon. They carried signs declaring, "Don't be a sheeple," "I need a haircut," and the particularly chilling, "Open businesses anyway."

Even worse, pictures showed protestors tightly packed on the sidewalks with nary a facemask in sight, except among the jackasses openly carrying AR-15s at a protest that had nothing to do with gun rights. Young Americans for Liberty posted a video praising the protests, apparently forgetting the Non-Aggression Principle at the heart of libertarianism. The protestors' refusal to observe social distancing puts the old and immunocompromised at risk, and even drive-by protests, a supposedly safer alternative, have reportedly left hospital-bound ambulances marooned in traffic .

The condemnations addressed at these Reopeners and their ilk were thick and fierce. One particularly bewildered NYT opinion writer accused them of "Protesting for the Right to Catch the Coronavirus" and blamed this incomprehensible movement on "the modern far-right's donor-funded, shock-jock led liberty movement." Those who transcend the "Orange Man Bad" contrarianism and achieve some semblance of authentic economic leftism are even more strident, painting the Reopeners as either brainwashed bootlickers " demanding the right to go out and die to keep making the ruling class richer" or as callous McMansionites who would rather kill off the working class than miss a nail appointment.

The only possible motives, we're told, are idiocy and evil. It's the 2016 election all over again. Certainly, these motives do exist, and those driven by them deserve all the criticism they get, but they also aren't the whole story. As with the 2016 election, one can reject these condescending explanations while still thinking Trump is a divisive jerk who is amplifying the most toxic voices in American political discourse. Anti-Reopeners are quick to interpret any doubts about the shutdown's scope as the ravings of an Infowars donor thirsting for octogenarian blood, but how could they be when even the perennially level-headed Ross Douthat has voiced them?

Thankfully, the protestors don't speak for all of us or even most of us. According to one poll , 81 percent of Americans and 68 percent of Republicans would support a national stay-at-home order. This poll fails, however, to account for a significant population of people smart enough to reject misinformation and avoid petri-dish protests, but skeptical enough of government overreach to sympathize, to one degree or another, with those in attendance. It would be a mistake to conflate the two groups, no matter how politically convenient it might be to do so. I'm not denying that the protestors in Harrisburg and elsewhere are being murderously reckless or that kooks were overrepresented among those protestors. I'm just saying that there are millions of Americans out there who watched the protests on their TV or phone and thought, "What they're doing is dangerous, but they've got a point."

Even leaving aside the obvious absurdities of closing public parks to solo hikers and putting a ban on gardening supplies, there's plenty to be paranoid about. The progressive insistence that the shutdown's sole purpose is to save lives and that to question authority at a time like this puts lives at risk sounds well-intentioned, but a moment's scrutiny reveals it to be a smokescreen, and a thin one at that. They have no intention of letting this crisis go to waste. "When this is over," John Oliver says , "this country is going to need more than band-aids; it's gonna need f*cking surgery! Things need to change and not go back to normal." Slate laments that "governments in the West have spent decades deliberately shedding power" and sees in the 'Rona an opportunity to reverse this trend. Bernie Sanders goes full accelerationist , appearing positively giddy that the COVID-driven economic collapse has caused many Americans "to rethink the basic assumptions underlying the American value system."

These politicians and pundits envision a post-corona world in which expanded state power over the economy and a beefed-up welfare state become permanent fixtures. Anyone who doesn't want this, they assume, must have been brainwashed by Koch-funded, free-market-fundamentalist think tanks into opposing his own best interest.

There is, however, a third possible motivation: the desire for solidarity and subsidiarity.

"How terrible a thing it is," Dorothy Day wrote , "when the state takes over the poor!" Anyone with any familiarity with Day's life and work will know that she was no trickle-down, up-by-the-bootstraps free marketer, but despite some naïve statements in the early days of the Castro regime, Day was no socialist either. She was a distributist , a believer in voluntary cooperation and private property. The socialist is content to rely on the government. The distributist wants to have something of his own to rely on so that he doesn't have to. He wants the same thing for his neighbors too, because if push comes to shove he'd rather rely on them than on the government.

This is an entirely rational sentiment. The last time I talked to my parents, who were forced to furlough the only two employees of their small business, they told me that the lauded Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) had run out of money and hadn't been refilled due to partisan squabbles in Congress. Their employees got a measly thousand dollars each. And they're not the only ones being failed. Five to seven million restaurant employees might never get their jobs back. If so many people are falling through the cracks even in the midst of the biggest bailout in government history, I can see why people are eager to re-open.

One possible solution, of course, is for government to do more, but that doesn't change the fact that people would rather depend on voluntary transactions with their neighbors and employers than on government handouts. It would be nice if there were some way for community members to support one another in times of crisis other than via the mambo of Keynesian consumerism , but despite outpourings of private charity, state-administered welfare (necessary, as Christ said of divorce, because of the hardness of our hearts) is the only other option. Considered as an alternative to waiting around passively for an indefinite amount of time for money that may or may not be forthcoming, starting to re-open the economy starts looking awfully tempting, regardless of one's opinion about the safety and feasibility of such a re-opening.

T.S. Eliot wrote , "'When the Stranger says: What is the meaning of this city?' / / What will you answer? 'We all dwell together / To make money from each other'?" That's not a great answer, but it at least reveals a desire to depend on one another in some way. The need for community, shallow as that community might be, explains why so many people are loathe to trade a complex web of interconnected economic interdependency for a direct, one-way dependence on the government. If buying and selling is all we have to alleviate our loneliness and precarity, it makes sense to cling to it.

It's possible that many of the Reopeners (and Reopener sympathizers) are hollowed-out materialists who must consume, whatever the cost, or go insane: "I shop, therefore I am." Surely, though, some of them are small business owners whose shops and restaurants are no less paycheck-to-paycheck than the employees they've laid off. They've made a career out of voluntary exchange.

It's also possible that many of the Reopeners are brainwashed proles willing to die for their capitalist oppressors, but again, I'm not so sure. It's much easier for me to picture them as ordinary working people for whom working for their money and then going out and spending it at local businesses they'd rather not see close is infinitely preferable to collecting Daddy Trump's Coronabucks (as my wife and I have taken to calling the stimulus money). These workers have been forced to trade the agency of earning a paycheck for the helplessness of waiting around while the people in Washington (or Lansing or Trenton or wherever) decide everything for them.

In short, it seems to me that the shutdown skeptics (though not necessarily the protestors) are best described as those who would rather put their trust in the people and businesses they know than in governors and senators they don't. Re-opening businesses and lifting stay-at-home orders prematurely is still a bad idea, but the sentiment driving the doubters is understandable, even admirable, especially when those elected paternalists refuse to release their death grips on each other's throats long enough to save millions of jobs and can't seem to understand that a man painting his own house isn't going to get anyone sick.

Grayson Quay is a freelance writer and M.A. at Georgetown University.

Gio Con 3 hours ago

Put our trust in the people and businesses we know than in governors and senators we don't? I don't "know" Smithfields, Target, Cargill or US Bank. But I do know that, at least in my state, the governor is working in close cooperation with businesses and health officials to decide when would be a safe time to open. Unfortunately, some corporations don't have the same regard for human life -- Smithfield's is currently being sued for failing to protect its workers and for penalizing them for covering their face when coughing and sneezing -- seems they might miss a chunk of meat if they're not paying attention. But the virus has no class bias, and now Smithfield's and many other meat packing corporations are shut down because so many workers are infected.
JonF311 3 hours ago
Re: that doesn't change the fact that people would rather depend on voluntary transactions with their neighbors and employers than on government handouts.

This is an amazingly bizarre statement for which the evidence is exactly nill. Go out and ask the unemployed of they would prefer to receive unemployment benefits or go out and panhandle their neighbors up at the street corner. I doubt very few, if any, would say the latter.

Egyptsteve 3 hours ago
Of course they have a point, but the people they should be screaming at is not Nazi governors who want to destroy their civil liberties by locking them up in house arrest, but at an inept and stupid administration that has perversely refused, and still does refuse, to do what needs to be done to get this virus under control and make it safe to restart the economy. The only numbers you need to know to understand how true this is, are 250 and 50,000: the number of deaths in South Korea and the U.S. respectively since the day on which they both reported their first COVID cases.
SatirevFlesti Egyptsteve an hour ago
Ever heard of the federal system? The idea that the federal government possesses some magic ability to fix everything is is absurd. The only thing that will "get the virus under control" is herd immunity. Reliable and serious studies that have been done so far - real infection death rate is about .1-.2%, and herd immunity is well underway. But you'd rather give power-mad governors and mayors destroying civil and constitutional rights a pass just because the President is an idiot and world class jackass. Makes sense.

[Apr 24, 2020] Ted Arison, the Israeli-American founder of Carnival [Covid] Cruise Line is among those appointed to advise president Trump on how to open up the US economy.

Apr 24, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Paul , Apr 23 2020 20:14 utc | 53

Ted Arison, the Israeli-American founder of Carnival [Covid] Cruise Line is among those appointed to advise president Trump on how to open up the US economy. Perhaps, as music to the ears of a seasoned New York real estate shark, he will advise Trump to blame China and then default on the China debt mountain. Litigation pays as Arison is about to find out.

https://www.afr.com/companies/tourism/carnival-knew-it-had-a-problem-but-it-kept-the-party-going-20200420-p54lbb

[Apr 24, 2020] Real options and social distancing

Apr 24, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

likbez , April 24, 2020 2:07 pm

In a country with Gilded Age level of inequality implementing any meaningful social distancing is next to impossible. Ghettos prevents that and became permanent hotspots. See discussion of this problem at

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/04/23/covid-19-how-to-destroy-america-from-the-top-down/

IMHO the number of deaths from COVID-19 in the category "younger then 55" in a given country correlated well with the level of obesity. In other words the virus hits already deprive and weakened underclass -- the main consumer of junk food.

So what we see in the USA is far from surprising taking into account the level of neoliberalization of the country and a large permanent uninsured underclass including contractors and perma-temps.

Existence of nursing homes is another unsolvable problem. Like ships, they also automatically became hotspots and medical personnel involved became inflected spreading the infection in the vicinity.

Here is one interesting comment that I found:

The Grim Joker , says: Show Comment April 23, 2020 at 6:52 pm GMT

... ... ...

Yesterday's Action

My bank now has traffic pylons outside the door. They ask the following questions if you want to enter:

  • Have you been out of the country? Answer; How am I going to be out of the country when the airport is closed?
  • Do you have any symptoms? Answer: If I had I would be at the hospital
  • Have you associated with anyone who has the symptoms? Answer: If I thought they did I would ask them to go to the hospital and so would I.
  • Sir! There is no need to be rude. Answer: Far from it. You are asking questions parrot fashion. Questions that do not make any sense.

After getting MY money out of THEIR pockets I proceeded to the auto mechanic for front brakes.

Joker: Am I allowed to come inside ?

70 Year old Mechanic Unmasked: Sure, you are the only customer today. You can keep me company while I do the work. I cannot afford to lose customers.

[Apr 24, 2020] Poverty and coronavirus: the existence of large unensured underclass means that the USA might have permanent hotspots and troubles getting out of this epidemic

Notable quotes:
"... more than 9,000 medical workers, many not adequately protected from the disease, have already contracted it. ..."
Apr 24, 2020 | consortiumnews.com

About 31 million people are today uninsured in America and 14 states have not even expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. The healthcare system is seemingly structured in defiance of the people it should serve, functioning as yet another way to maximize profits at the expense of millions.

In this coronavirus moment, many more Americans are finally awakening to the bitter consequences, the damage, wrought when even a single person does not have access to the resources he or she needs to live decently or, for that matter, survive.

With the spread of a pandemic, the cost to a nation that often treats collective care as, at best, an afterthought should become apparent. After all, more than 9,000 medical workers, many not adequately protected from the disease, have already contracted it.

Today, more than 38 million people officially live below the federal poverty line and, in truth, that figure should have shocked the nation into action before the coronavirus even arrived here. No such luck and here's the real story anyway: the official measure of poverty, developed in 1964, doesn't even take into account household expenses like health care, child care, housing, and transportation, not to speak of other costs that have burgeoned in recent decades. The world has undergone profound economic transformations over the last 66 years and yet this out-of-date measure, based on three times a family's food budget, continues to shape policymaking at every level of government as well as the contours of the American political and moral imagination.

...the 53 percent of every federal discretionary dollar that goes to the Pentagon , the trillions of dollars that have been squandered in this country's never-ending war on terror, not to speak of the unprecedented financial gains the wealthiest have made (even in the midst of the current crisis). Of course, this economic order becomes a genuine moral scandal the moment attention is focused on the three billionaires who possess more wealth than the bottom half of society.

Since the government began transferring wealth from the poor to the very rich under the guise of "trickle-down" (but actually gusher-up) economics, key public institutions, labor unions , and the electoral process have been under attack. The healthcare system has been further privatized, public housing has been demolished, public water and sanitation systems have been held hostage by emergency managers, and the social safety net has been eviscerated.

In these same years, core government functions have been turned over to the private sector and the free market. The result: levels of poverty and inequality in this country now outmatch the Gilded Age . All of this, in turn, laid the groundwork for the rapid spread of death and disease via the Covid-19 pandemic and its disproportionate impact on poor people and people of color.

When the coronavirus first became a national emergency, the Fed materialized $1.5 trillion in loans to Wall Street, a form of corporate welfare that may never be paid back. In the following weeks, the Fed and a congressional bipartisan stimulus package funneled trillions more in bailouts to the largest corporations. Meanwhile, tens of millions of Americans were left out of that CARES Act : 48 percent of the work force did not receive paid sick leave; 27 million uninsured people and 10 percent of the insured who couldn't even afford a doctor's visit have no guarantee of free or reasonably priced medical treatment; 11 million undocumented immigrants and their 5 million children will receive no emergency provisions; 2.3 million of the incarcerated have been left in the petri dish of prison; 3 million Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients saw no increase in their benefits; and homeless assistance funds were targeted at only about 500,000 people, although eight to 11 million are homeless or housing insecure. Such omissions are guaranteed to prove debilitating, even potentially lethal, for many. They also represent cracks in a dam ready to break in a nation without a guaranteed living wage or universal healthcare as debt mounts, wages stagnate, and the pressures of ecological devastation and climate change intensify.

... ... ...

Across the Black Belt of the southern states, the poor and black are dying from the coronavirus at an alarming rate . In many of those states, wages are tied to industries that rely on now interrupted regular household spending. They also have among the least resources and the most vehement anti-union and wage-suppression laws. That, in turn, leaves so many Americans all that more vulnerable to the Covid-19 crisis, the end of which is nowhere in sight. Chalk this up, among other things, to decades of divestment in public institutions and the entrenchment of extremist agendas in state legislatures. The Black Belt accounts for nine of the 14 states that have not expanded Medicaid and for 60 percent of all rural hospital closures.

Nor are these the only places now feeling the consequences of hospitals being bought up or closed for private profit. In Philadelphia, for instance, Hahnemann Hospital, which had served that city's poorest patients for more than 170 years , was recently bought and closed by a real-estate speculator who then attempted to extract a million dollars a month from the local government to reopen it. Now, as the coronavirus ravages Philadelphia, Hahnemann's beds sit empty, reminiscent of the notorious shuttering of New Orleans' Charity Hospital in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

... ... ...

Liz Theoharis is a theologian, ordained minister, and anti-poverty activist. Director of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary and co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, she is the author of " Always With Us? What Jesus Really Said About the Poor ." She teaches at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.

[Apr 24, 2020] 'My child is not a guinea pig' petition gets thousands of signatures as Denmark re-opens schools amid Covid-19 pandemic

Apr 24, 2020 | www.rt.com

15 Apr, 2020 14:51 Get short URL 'My child is not a guinea pig' petition gets thousands of signatures as Denmark re-opens schools amid Covid-19 pandemic Parents with their children stand in a queue waiting to get inside Stengaard School following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak north of Copenhagen, Denemark, April 15, 2020 © Bo Amstrup via Reuters / Ritzau Scanpix Follow RT on RT Denmark has made the decision to reopen schools for younger children after a month-long lockdown, becoming the first country in Europe to relax coronavirus restrictions on education. Schools have been given new guidelines around limiting the number of children in classrooms and rearranging the desks two meters apart from each other. The measure was welcomed by some parents. Caroline, a 38-year-old mother of two, told AFP that she feels "really good about the kids going back to school."

However, others are still worried that the easing of restrictions may be coming too soon. A petition titled 'My child is not a guinea pig' – aimed at keeping children at home for longer – has already garnered almost 18,000 signatures.

The reopening is expected to be gradual, although all schools are expected to have resumed normal operations by April 20 for the youngest children.

Hairdressers, gyms, night clubs, restaurants and cafes in Denmark are remaining closed for the foreseeable future.

The country has so far reported 6,876 confirmed cases of infections, with a death toll of 299. These figures are relatively low compared to many of its European neighbors.

Also on rt.com Europe's 'mixed picture': Optimism fading in UK as lockdown may be extended, while some European nations ease restrictions

Denmark's decision comes as other European countries – such as Austria – are gradually beginning to ease their respective lockdown measures. Austria's schools are expected to remain closed until at least mid-May, however.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has recently warned that a speedy return to the 'business as usual' could trigger another wave of the deadly virus. According to the AFP tally, a total of more than two million people worldwide are now infected with the Covid-19.

[Apr 24, 2020] On Apr 10, 2020 Army's Seattle Field Hospital Closes After 3 Days, Without Treating a Single Patient

Apr 24, 2020 | www.unz.com

Agent76 , says: Show Comment April 23, 2020 at 4:23 pm GMT

Here is our sign folk's this is a fake pandemic.

Apr 10, 2020 Army's Seattle Field Hospital Closes After 3 Days, Without Treating a Single Patient

Medical equipment at the CenturyLink Field Event Center is being returned to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for use elsewhere, but the governor cautioned against reading too much into the move.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/04/10/armys-seattle-field-hospital-closes-after-3-days-without-treating-single-patient.html

[Apr 24, 2020] "What do you have to lose" - TTG - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Notable quotes:
"... A malaria drug widely touted by President Donald Trump for treating the new coronavirus showed no benefit in a large analysis of its use in U.S. veterans hospitals. There were more deaths among those given hydroxychloroquine versus standard care, researchers reported. ..."
"... The nationwide study was not a rigorous experiment. But with 368 patients, it's the largest look so far of hydroxychloroquine with or without the antibiotic azithromycin for COVID-19, which has killed more than 171,000 people as of Tuesday. The study was posted on an online site for researchers and has been submitted to the New England Journal of Medicine, but has not been reviewed by other scientists. Grants from the National Institutes of Health and the University of Virginia paid for the work. ..."
"... Researchers analyzed medical records of 368 male veterans hospitalized with confirmed coronavirus infection at Veterans Health Administration medical centers who died or were discharged by April 11. About 28% who were given hydroxychloroquine plus usual care died, versus 11% of those getting routine care alone. About 22% of those getting the drug plus azithromycin died too, but the difference between that group and usual care was not considered large enough to rule out other factors that could have affected survival. Hydroxychloroquine made no difference in the need for a breathing machine, either. ..."
"... Researchers did not track side effects, but noted hints that hydroxychloroquine might have damaged other organs. The drug has long been known to have potentially serious side effects, including altering the heartbeat in a way that could lead to sudden death. ..."
"... Earlier this month, scientists in Brazil stopped part of a hydroxychloroquine study after heart rhythm problems developed in one-quarter of people given the higher of two doses being tested. ..."
"... The interesting news is that ventilators are not required in all cases and indeed my do more harm for some. BoJo was only on a cpap. The harm mechanism may be impaired hemoglobin ..."
Apr 24, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"What do you have to lose?" - TTG

A malaria drug widely touted by President Donald Trump for treating the new coronavirus showed no benefit in a large analysis of its use in U.S. veterans hospitals. There were more deaths among those given hydroxychloroquine versus standard care, researchers reported.

The nationwide study was not a rigorous experiment. But with 368 patients, it's the largest look so far of hydroxychloroquine with or without the antibiotic azithromycin for COVID-19, which has killed more than 171,000 people as of Tuesday. The study was posted on an online site for researchers and has been submitted to the New England Journal of Medicine, but has not been reviewed by other scientists. Grants from the National Institutes of Health and the University of Virginia paid for the work.

Researchers analyzed medical records of 368 male veterans hospitalized with confirmed coronavirus infection at Veterans Health Administration medical centers who died or were discharged by April 11. About 28% who were given hydroxychloroquine plus usual care died, versus 11% of those getting routine care alone. About 22% of those getting the drug plus azithromycin died too, but the difference between that group and usual care was not considered large enough to rule out other factors that could have affected survival. Hydroxychloroquine made no difference in the need for a breathing machine, either.

Researchers did not track side effects, but noted hints that hydroxychloroquine might have damaged other organs. The drug has long been known to have potentially serious side effects, including altering the heartbeat in a way that could lead to sudden death.

Earlier this month, scientists in Brazil stopped part of a hydroxychloroquine study after heart rhythm problems developed in one-quarter of people given the higher of two doses being tested. (AP News)

-- -- -- --

This was not a rigorously designed experiment and from what I've seen, VA patients almost inevitably have multiple heath problems before they walk into the clinic or VA hospital. We're a pretty banged up, broken down lot. However, the VA is skilled at doing this kind of evaluation of their vast patient population. Through their Million Veteran Program, they are conducting myriad studies involving genetic samples and health records. The results of this VA study is sobering and seems to help answer Trump's question of what do you have to lose.

In response to this study and several prematurely ended studies, Fauci's "National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases recommends against doctors using a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin for the treatment of COVID-19 patients because of potential toxicities.

Maybe those with lupus and rheumatoid arthritis will have an easier time getting their medication. We have to do something with our stockpiled 29 million pills. Still, more studies need to be done. Perhaps an effective treatment involving hydroxychloroquine will be developed when we understand Covid-19 better. We're still learning of the full range of damage this virus is capable of inflicting. Maybe it will be an effective prophylactic, not a magic shield or miracle potion, but a helpful prophylactic. There's no reason to give up on this or any other proposed treatment or cure.

TTG

https://apnews.com/a5077c7227b8eb8b0dc23423c0bbe2b2

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.16.20065920v1.full.pdf

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/21/840341224/nih-panel-recommends-against-drug-combination-trump-has-promoted-for-covid-19


Laura Wilson , 22 April 2020 at 02:56 PM

More studies, for sure. I always find it interesting other your take on VA matters...thank you for sharing your perspective to those of us without experience with the VA.
steve , 22 April 2020 at 04:12 PM
To be clear, the Institue guidance recommends agains the combination of HCQ and AZ. It makes to recommendation for or against HCQ by itself. These recommendations are only fo hospitalized pts. There are no recommendations for or against drugs for prophylaxis.

In our own internal studies we found higher rates of arrhythmias on HCQ and AZ, and found more problems related to AZ. We have stopped that. HCQ is no longer part of our standard protocol but docs may order it if they choose.

Steve

will.2718 , 22 April 2020 at 04:29 PM
The brazil study was of the Chloroquine diphosphate which has greater side effects than of the hydroxy form. The big trial is the one in NY state. Those results are not yet in.

The interesting news is that ventilators are not required in all cases and indeed my do more harm for some. BoJo was only on a cpap. The harm mechanism may be impaired hemoglobin . These medcram youtubes linked below are topnotch!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc6VV7ue4cE

walrus , 22 April 2020 at 05:23 PM
Thank you for your thoughtful post TTG. It may still be that the drug has a useful effect. I know Fauci is infuriating a lot of people, but he is right: a double blind placebo controlled trial is the only way to really know.

Off topic, but when my wife had breast cancer she took part in such a trial of a new drug. That involved extra free visits to hospital for testing. We guessed she was given the drug afterwards because her oncologist and surgeon surprisingly found that her lymph nodes had been scoured clean of the cancer. It's now about four years of remission. The new drug is apparently going to be the new standard for treatment of that type of cancer.

Lars Moeller-Rasmussen , 22 April 2020 at 06:05 PM
I am surprised that "cloroquine phosphate", the name under which I know the drug, is now suddenly supposed to have serious side effects. When I was stationed in Egypt for one year with my family back in 1978, we all took cloroquine, as I remember it, once a week.
In my country, Denmark, drug regulation is pretty strict, so we assumed cloroquine was safe. Still, I went to ask my doctor when I had another one-year stationing to the Middle East coming up five years later. After looking at the guidelines, my doctor told me that cloroquine had been used for years without any side effects, and that the only side effects found after long trials on rabbits were some sort of residue settling in their eyes, though with no adverse effect on their eyesight.
Lars Moeller-Rasmussen
JMH , 22 April 2020 at 06:14 PM
This is not a controlled study. It is an analysis of medical records. It stands to reason that there were more fatalities amongst those who were given the drug, because it was desperation hour, so they therefore got the drug. The French guy says you have to use the drug early, not as a Hail Mary pass when the virus has done its work and left and all that remains in the pneumonia.

Oh the end-zone celebration on Morning Joe about this study! I guess you don't need a double blind six month controlled trial to have absolute metaphysical certainty after all. People who were given hydroxycloriquine died, said Mika when she spiked the football.

Deap , 22 April 2020 at 06:48 PM
From the CDC website right now: CDC information for travelers who want to avoid malaria:

CLOROQUINE
Drug Reasons that might make you consider using this drug Reasons that might make you avoid using this drug

Chloroquine
Adults: 300 mg base (500 mg salt), once/week.

Children: 5 mg/kg base (8.3 mg/kg salt) (maximum is adult dose), once/week. Begin 1-2 weeks before travel, once/week during travel, and for 4 weeks after leaving.

Some people would rather take medicine weekly
Good choice for long trips because it is taken only weekly

Some people are already taking hydroxychloroquine chronically for rheumatologic conditions. In those instances, they may not have to take an additional medicine

Can be used in all trimesters of pregnancy

Cannot be used in areas with chloroquine or mefloquine resistance
May exacerbate psoriasis

Some people would rather not take a weekly medication
For trips of short duration, some people would rather not take medication for 4 weeks after travel

Not a good choice for last-minute travelers because drug needs to be started 1-2 weeks prior to travel

Barbara Ann , 22 April 2020 at 07:12 PM
The quote cirsium provided above from Didier Raoult is worth repeating with emphasis IMO: "The HCQ-AZ combination, when started immediately after diagnosis , is a safe and efficient treatment for COVID-19..". The price of treatment only beginning when sufferers are bad enough to be hospitalized seems to be a one to two orders of magnitude increase in mortality rate.

Test, trace contacts & quarantine like the South Koreans and prescribe Didier's magic elixir to all positives right away. If this isn't accepted medical practice, then change the accepted medical practice.

English Outsider , 22 April 2020 at 07:21 PM
TTG - on treatment of the disease this protocol from the Eastern Virginia Medical School is interesting -

https://www.evms.edu/media/evms_public/departments/internal_medicine/EVMS_Critical_Care_COVID-19_Protocol.pdf

They haven't found that much use for ventilators, seems.

On the wider question of how the pandemic should be tackled an article in the Jerusalem Post led me to wonder how they were tackling it in Israel-

On contact tracing via Smartphone monitoring -

https://techcrunch.com/2020...

"Details of exactly how the tracking will work have not been released -- but, per the BBC, the location data of people's mobile devices will be collected from telcos by Israel's domestic security agency and shared with health officials."

Leads me to wonder whether the enthusiasm for smartphone tracking in the UK - HMG seems to be betting the farm on it - derives from the fact that GCHQ is geared up for that anyway.

Also group testing for speed -

https://www.tabletmag.com/s...

Plus what seems to be an extensive programme of testing both for antibodies and for detection of currently infected cases -

https://www.jpost.com/israe...

This seems to be a version of the American approach to containing local outbreaks after lockdown has been lifted -

"When we have more tests, we can open the economy in an aggressive way without any danger and without being surprised – and the moment there is an outbreak in a residential building or a school, you can go there [and close it] and not the whole city," Bennett said.

Also containing a reference to the progress made in ensuring the various tests are more accurate -

"There have been more than 20 rapid serological tests that have been developed worldwide – mainly in China – many of which have been found to provide inaccurate results.

"However, Roche and a handful of companies, such as US-based Abbott Laboratories and Becton Dickinson and Co., have created more sophisticated serological tests, which are expected to be validated.

"Ofer said that, "If we run these tests in conjunction with the molecular test, then we will get a full picture" – and as Bennett explained, "the closures will end."

Those are the roughly the references I put together to submit to an English site. On another English site I read a reference to how one Canadian area (unnamed) geared up for the pandemic -

We live in an Ontario health district, about the size of Connecticut (with 200,000 population), in a small city with a medical school. Our public health officer in January alerted nursing homes and hospitals to prepare, e.g. get supplies and train staff for higher hygiene standards. Example, auditing handwashing practices in nursing homes. As a result, we have 50 total positive cases, almost all cases traceable to travel. No nursing home outbreaks. No deaths. No ICU care. Two people currently in hospital."

So they got going on this back in January. If only ...

LJ , 22 April 2020 at 09:46 PM
Another discussion of chloroquine: only does any good if used early in the disease progress and with zinc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLSYRqcg0wo

[Apr 21, 2020] Ukrainegate partially paralyzed Trump administration and probably without it Trump would act quicker and more decisively

Apr 21, 2020 | www.unz.com

RationalRabbit , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:57 pm GMT

@Anonymous

There was nothing illegal in the Ukraine call, therefore no need for the IG to report it. And until someone got a bee under their bonnet, 2nd hand information did not legally qualify as "whistle-blowing" but someone changed the reporting form (a piece of paper not a law of Congress) to hide that little problem.

Exactly. Yes, Trump put people in in charge who wouldn't try to sabotage his agenda – how awful. Trump also put people in charge to stop the corruption and money laundering of the Obama appointees. For example, EPA funneling money to environmental groups by settling instead of fighting lawsuits and then these environmental groups taking that settlement money and funneling it back to Obama and the Democrats.

The people elected Trump not any of these technocrats. Philip Giraldi seems to be applauding their subversion of the Republic.

Skeptikal , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:51 pm GMT
Agreed. Trump is awful.

But I can't help thinking that it's payback time for those who wasted Americans' time and mental energy on the impeachment circus. Anyone who advanced the "get rid of Trump" agenda should have expected to get canned down the road if the game plan didn't work out.

the idea of Israeli companies feeding at the trough is stomach-churning. Again, those who do not like this picture maybe should have considered that trying to cut trump off at the knees and breaking a whole bunch of rules to do so might have blowback in the future. And, there doesn't seem to be anyone in congress with the stomach or cojones or even conviction to end the Zionist chumming.

Who in Congress is standing up for the interests of Americans as against those of rich Israeli entrepreneurs who are taking this country for a ride?

I don't give a flying eff about anyone who participated in the "Get Trump" theatrics. Or about anyone who gave Obama a pass of the same s -- that Trump does.

The show is all ending very badly for the American people, and the world.

Bizarro World Observer , says: Website Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 6:03 pm GMT
@Anonymous True enough, but neocons -- or neo-Trots, which is more accurate -- are not loyal to Trump, or anyone else except each other and Israel. And they are certainly not populists, patriots, or nationalists.

Trump has hired a bunch of fifth columnists, who will stab him in the back at every opportunity.

TG , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 6:03 pm GMT
Well, yes and no.

If anything, the greatest failing of Trump was that, after he took office, he surrounded himself with advisors who were opposed to his agenda – and the agenda that the American people elected him to enact.

It is true, government officials should not be personally loyal to the president. But they should dutifully try to enact his policies, or else resign in protest. To do less is to subvert democracy (or at least, whatever is left of it). Although it must be admitted Trump is increasingly doing the worst of both worlds: surrounding himself with hostile officials for things the people want (like no more pointless foreign wars), and surrounding himself with sycophants when its for crony capitalism

As far as stopping immigration being unconstitutional, with respect, unconstitutional is whatever 500 billionaires don't want. So you see, separating the alleged children of people illegally crossing the border from their parents is clearly unconstitutional, but separating people convicted of any other crime from their children is perfectly OK. Because the rich want cheap labor.

But if the rich no longer need massive immigration to lower wages – which may be the case for the near future – then the rich will no longer care about 'immigrants.' Indeed, if illegal immigration hurt the profits of the rich, it would be legal to machine gun migrants at the border – in fact, it would then be unconstitutional not to!

Sob Sob Sobbity Sob , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 8:59 pm GMT
The Obama-Trump continuities you cite are very relevant here. Both heads of state behave as figureheads, knuckling under to permit continued CIA impunity (Obama w.r.t. widespread and systematic torture and murder and aggression, Trump w.r.t. ARCA.) They behave identically in terms of abuse of function and trading in influence, subjecting all regulators to industry control.

The only difference between Obama and Trump is their inside v. outside strategy. Obama was third-generation dynastic CIA nomenklatura, and after his early misstep of promising to obey the supreme law of the land on torture, Obama took CIA direction without demur, up to and including the crime of aggression of TIMBER SYCAMORE. Trump, by contrast, follows the Nixon template, attempting to replace CIA focal points surrounding him with "loyalists." When Nixon did it, CIA cadres leveled the same charge. But Nixon put Schlesinger in as DCI to extract the crown jewels and shitcan a bunch of the worst criminals. Carter took the outsider's path too.

Nixon was purged in the CIA's bloodless Watergate coup; Carter was ousted by CIA's October Surprise. We should consider whether COVID-19 collateral damage will be used to discredit Trump, who evidently has less workplace discretion than a McDonald's fry cook. At a key juncture of the outbreak CIA frogmarched Trump through the synthetic crisis of the Soleimani assassination.

So of course the government is criminal. It was chartered as a criminal enterprise at inception in Sction 202, 73 years ago. In the resulting kleptocracy, IGs perform a superfluous function. And every CIA inspector general is paid specifically to be a criminal scumbag. The IG reviewing CIA's most open-and-shut crime against humanity, its torture gulag, criticized it because it didn't work, intently ignoring the supreme law of the land that says nothing justifies torture.

So let's not get all verklempt about some IGs. IGs are nothing but a Gehlen-type apparat generating legal pretexts for manifestly illegal acts. Fuck em if they can't take a joke.

[Apr 21, 2020] Trump just suspended all immigration due to the China virus

Apr 21, 2020 | www.unz.com

Alden , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:21 pm GMT

@Carlton Meyer Trump just suspended all immigration due to the China virus. Liberals and employers are furious and filing lawsuits and asking for emergency preliminary injunctions to overturn Trumps order. Same old same old that's happened since Trump took office.

Reporters for all media are totally, absolutely anti American born worker and absolutely totally in favor of a non White foreigner for every possible job from dishwasher to Doctor.

Except for the evil White Nationalist racist websites frequented by ignorant prole deplorables like me, I've never seen an anti immigration pro American worker word published in any mainstream media.

So it's extremely unlikely that a reporter would ask such a question. More likely, a reporter would ask why the government isn't facilitating more non White immigrants to do the " jobs Americans just won't do" such as coding engineering, research and medicine.

[Apr 21, 2020] Biting critique of Fauci and other experts who insisted on full scale "containment measures" without any discrimination between vulnerable groups and vulnerable states

Apr 21, 2020 | www.lewrockwell.com

It is becoming clearer with each passing day that the death toll from the Wuhan virus is not rising exponentially as the "experts" predicted but only modestly in some places while levelling off or even declining almost everywhere else in the country -- as well as the world . The incidence of infection borders on nil in the hot and humid countries, where the number of deaths remains in the double or very low triple digits four months after the virus emerged from the Wuhan province of China.

Common sense alone indicates that the number of deaths will ultimately be nowhere near the 2 million without "mitigation" or a best case 100,000 to 240,000 with "mitigation" as predicted by "Tony and Deborah" at the White House press briefings that have fueled nationwide panic. Tony and Deb have since revised their "models" downward to predict 40,000 to 178,000 deaths. And that prediction has already been lowered again as the IMHE model Tony and Deb have been touting during the briefings now "predicts" 81,766 deaths by August 4. That prediction would require some 18,000 people to die every month between now and then, even though at 10,000 deaths since February 29 -- a number consistent with a heavy flu season -- we appear to have reached the peak and a decline is already evident .

At some point, Tony and Deb will be "predicting" precisely what has already happened, as we saw with the "models" that first predicted Hillary Clinton was certain to win the Presidency. And when the final death toll fails even to approach what they first predicted in order to panic the whole country into a nationwide lockdown never before seen in human history, they will make the unprovable, non-falsifiable, junk science claim that "mitigation worked."

But it is becoming increasingly clear that "mitigation" has done nothing but cause a pointless, catastrophic disruption of social and economic life. This seems to delight the lying media and their Democrat partners, who are striving to keep fear alive, avoid or minimize any good news about the numbers, overstate the burden on local hospitals (without any unedited video or other reliable evidence), argue against curative treatment by hydroxychloroquine or otherwise, get everybody into masks after months of "expert" advice that masks are ineffective, and generally prolong the economic damage and loss of civil liberties for months to come.

As the actual numbers belie the pseudo-scientific prophecies of doom, however, the lockdown of America that began with Democrat governors and mayors now exhibits a curious and hardly coincidental fissure along party lines. As of today, nine states, all headed by Republican governors, refuse to join the lockdown regime and now provide embarrassing counterfactuals demonstrating that officially mandated lockdowns were never necessary and have probably made the situation worse by preventing the development of "herd immunity" to this virus, like all the others, from the normal interaction of large populations.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/lGC5sGdz4kg?wmode=transparent

The following are the nine states that have refused to impose lockdowns. All of them have minimal death tolls from the Wuhan virus, including the populous South Carolina, and five of them have not enacted even local lockdowns:

[Data as of this writing on April 6 at 9 p.m.]

Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas told the Fake News New York Times what we have been saying on these pages since the stupid lockdowns began: "the typical stay-at-home order was a misleading 'illusion' because it includes so many exemptions allowing people to go out in public, such as for groceries or exercise ordering people to stay at home would simply leave thousands jobless."

The Times demands to know why these nine states have seceded from the United States of Mitigation: "Holdout States Resist Calls for Stay-at-Home Orders: 'What Are You Waiting For?' screams the indignant headline. Editorial desperation leaps from the page, for the Fake News combine as a whole knows that these nine Republican-led holdout states are all counterfactual to the panic narrative, and that what they are waiting for is the rest of the country to discover that they have been had by the cheerleaders of "mitigation," who live in luxury and job security while the masses suffer. First and foremost, Deb and Tony, intimate associates of Bill Gates, whose "models" keep lowering predictions to catch up with the growing embarrassment of the real numbers.

Another embarrassing counterfactual is the Commonwealth of Virginia, now being suffocated by Democrat Governor Ralph ("Infanticide") Northam's absurd executive orders, which have ruined the state's economy while attempting to place its entire population under a fake quarantine that does nothing but create instant unemployment and bankruptcy. The Northam lockdown will remain in effect until June 10 unless Northam calculates he cannot get away with prolonging his virus-themed dictatorship past Trump's new control date of April 30. Yet, as of the week of March 28, the Virginia Department of Health "has received report of 1,352 pneumonia and influenza-associated deaths," including five pediatric deaths, during the 2019-20 flu season, while purported deaths from the Wuhan virus and related pneumonia stand at 54 as of today at 9 p.m., with no pediatric deaths.

Based on the example of Virginia alone, which provides an all-but-irrefutable counterfactual, it is time to call this fiasco what it is: Coronagate. In my view, Coronagate will go down as the single biggest fraud in the fraud-ridden history of American politics -- outside of the fraudulent inducement of America's belated entry into World War I, which sacrificed 116,000 American lives to an epochal disaster that destroyed the last remnants of Christendom, guaranteed World War II, and led to the rise of the Third Reich and the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, the White House press briefings have devolved into a black comedy with the same script every day: Trump recites a litany of statistics on the number of COVID-19 tests performed, the mass production and distribution of ventilators and N95 respirators, surgical masks, surgical gowns and surgical gloves; praises the captains of industry for pitching in with massive contributions of product; and lauds the branches of the military for their massive logistical operations, including the building of entire hospitals that remain almost empty.

Pence then delivers another sermon on how to "slow the spread in 30 days." Then Deb drones on about her ever-evolving models, followed by a very hoarse Tony, who croaks the same statements he made the day before about "the curve" and "mitigation, mitigation, mitigation" while assiduously avoiding any suggestion that the "pandemic" could be over any time soon or that there could be any proven effective treatment.

Then it's the media jackals' turn. Day after day these morons jabber at Trump with accusations disguised as questions: Why has governor so-and-so or such-and-such hospital not received enough test kits/ventilators/masks/gowns/gloves/breath mints?

... ... ...

At today's briefing, one reporter attempted to elicit from Fauci a declaration that, no matter what Trump might think, America cannot "return to normal" without a vaccine whose development is, conveniently enough for the media-DNC complex, at least a year away. Fauci's meandering response was a dog whistle that, if he has anything to say about it, the country will remain under some level of lockdown until there is a largely ineffective or even harmful vaccine, like the one he advocated for the swine flu of 2009.

The Fake News media are laboring to elevate Fauci, a star in the Leftist galaxy whose center is Bill Gates, to the status of Recovery Czar whose "medical opinion" will determine the fate of the nation

[Apr 20, 2020] NYC vs Singapore: Discipline, competence and sound management do matter

Apr 20, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

hopehely , Apr 19 2020 18:19 utc | 54

Posted by: vk | Apr 19 2020 17:49 utc | 53
NY has 8.4 million inhabitants - in an 302.6 square miles area.

Singapore has 5.6 million inhabitants in 280.2 square miles area.
Discipline, competence and sound management do matter.

[Apr 20, 2020] Trump's cuts to the WHO are self-serving, but he also has a point WHO has become a bloated bureaucracy riddled with politickin

Apr 20, 2020 | www.rt.com

The US is the biggest funder of the World Health Organization and his announcement drew widespread criticism. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, whose foundation was the second-biggest funder of the WHO in 2018-19, called the decision " as dangerous as it sounds ."

Halting funding for the World Health Organization during a world health crisis is as dangerous as it sounds. Their work is slowing the spread of COVID-19 and if that work is stopped no other organization can replace them. The world needs @WHO now more than ever.

-- Bill Gates (@BillGates) April 15, 2020

Trump also faces a battle with Congress, which is actually responsible for allocating funding. I'm not a fan of Trump, but to some extent he has a point.

There have been plenty of critics of the WHO's handling of the outbreak. The organization's initial response is now seen as far too accepting of the official Chinese government line in the first few weeks. In particular, a single social media message has come back to haunt it. On January 14, the organization said on Twitter: " Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China. "

Defenders of the WHO point to guidance sent to governments on January 10 and 11, outlining the way the virus spreads and asking health officials to be alert to any 'evidence of amplified or sustained human-to-human transmission.' Those WHO supporters also note that Trump himself had tweeted support for Beijing's handling of the situation in the early days of the outbreak. For many observers, Trump's attacks on the WHO are self-serving, designed to deflect criticism away from his initially slow and skeptical response to what he calls the "Chinese virus."

While the WHO was perhaps too slow on the uptake, we should be wary of critics' implication that it should be given the job of policing national governments. For now, the WHO is in an awkward position of having to deal with the politics of different member countries while responding to health emergencies. Moreover, the WHO 'cried wolf' over the 2009 swine flu pandemic. The WHO's director general at the time, Margaret Chan, famously said " All of humanity is under threat " from the outbreak, but it proved to be far less deadly than feared. A bit more caution over the new coronavirus was probably sensible.

[Apr 20, 2020] What If the Lockdown Was All A Big Mistake by Ron Paul

Goldman Sachs predicts that the economy will shrink 34 percent in the second quarter, with unemployment leaping to 15 percent.
Notable quotes:
"... Across the US, millions of businesses have been shut down by "executive order" and the unemployment rate has skyrocketed to levels not seen since the Great Depression. ..."
"... What if the "cure" is worse than the disease? ..."
Apr 20, 2020 | ronpaulinstitute.org

From California to New Jersey, Americans are protesting in the streets. They are demanding an end to house arrest orders given by government officials over a virus outbreak that even according to the latest US government numbers will claim fewer lives than the seasonal flu outbreak of 2017-2018.

Across the US, millions of businesses have been shut down by "executive order" and the unemployment rate has skyrocketed to levels not seen since the Great Depression. Americans, who have seen their real wages decline thanks to Federal Reserve monetary malpractice, are finding themselves thrust into poverty and standing in breadlines. It is like a horror movie, but it's real.

Last week the UN Secretary General warned that a global recession resulting from the worldwide coronavirus lockdown could cause "hundreds of thousands of additional child deaths per year." As of this writing, less than 170,000 have been reported to have died from the coronavirus worldwide.

Many Americans have also died this past month because they were not able to get the medical care they needed. Cancer treatments have been indefinitely postponed. Life-saving surgeries have been put off to make room for coronavirus cases. Meanwhile hospitals are laying off thousands because the expected coronavirus cases have not come and the hospitals are partially empty.

What if the "cure" is worse than the disease?

[Apr 19, 2020] Prophet: in 2017 Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said there is "no doubt" Donald J. Trump will be confronted with a surprise infectious disease outbreak during his presidency

This prophecy does not correlate well with his complete inability to predict how coronavirus epidemic unfolded in the USA and blunders around the road along with sleeping for two months after China informed the WHO about new coronavirus.
Fauci is a pretty sinister, not so much comical figure is we remembers his role in Gain of Function experiments proliferation
Apr 19, 2020 | www.unz.com

Linh Dinh , says: Website Show Comment April 13, 2020 at 7:20 pm GMT

@Alfa158 Fauci: 'No doubt' Trump will face surprise infectious disease outbreak

healio.com , January 11, 2017

Anthony S. Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said there is "no doubt" Donald J. Trump will be confronted with a surprise infectious disease outbreak during his presidency.

Fauci has led the NIAID for more than 3 decades, advising the past five United States presidents on global health threats from the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s through to the current Zika virus outbreak.

During a forum on pandemic preparedness at Georgetown University, Fauci said the Trump administration will not only be challenged by ongoing global health threats such as influenza and HIV, but also a surprise disease outbreak.

"The history of the last 32 years that I have been the director of the NIAID will tell the next administration that there is no doubt they will be faced with the challenges their predecessors were faced with," he said.

While observers have speculated since his election about how Trump will respond to such challenges, Fauci and other health experts said Tuesday that preventing disease pandemics often starts overseas and that a proper response means collaboration between not only the U.S. and other countries, but also the public and private health sectors.

"We will definitely get surprised in the next few years," he said. 'Risks have never been higher'

Trump, the real estate developer-turned-Republican politician, has worried some infectious disease experts with controversial and sometimes unclear views on certain health issues.

Ronald Klain, who coordinated the U.S.'s Ebola response for the Obama administration, said Trump's virtual silence about the Zika outbreak and harsh comments about American volunteers infected during the West African Ebola outbreak is "not the kind of leadership we need in our next president."

Experts speculated about the infectious disease threats Donald Trump will face as president.

"It's hard to think of a more important time to show a willingness to speak out in the public health community and the global health community than it is right now on the eve of Donald Trump becoming our next president," Klain said. "The risks have never been higher, and the question of his perspective on these issues has never been more dubious than it is with Donald Trump."

Fauci and others noted some of the disease outbreaks that recent administrations have faced, including current President Barack Obama, whose administration was tested early on with an H1N1 influenza pandemic in 2009. More recently, the administration was forced to repurpose almost $600 million in federal funds set aside for the Ebola outbreak when Republicans rejected Obama's request for $1.9 billion to fund the nation's Zika response.

Current Deputy Homeland Security Advisor Amy Pope, JD, said it was "typical" of the U.S. government that money meant for the Ebola epidemic was appropriated for Zika because of the proclivity of populations to worry about what is currently threatening them.

"We shouldn't ask the American public to make those choices in the future," she said. "It doesn't keep them safe."

Klain said pandemic preparedness should be approached from a nonpartisan angle. A Democrat, he referenced Republican President George W. Bush founding the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and said Republican Senators Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham collaborated with the Obama administration on the Ebola response.

"The mosquitoes don't know if they're biting Democrats or Republicans," Klain said. "They don't know what party you are."

Other highlights

According to some of the experts who spoke on Tuesday, preparing the U.S. for pandemics requires proper funding and starts by battling disease outbreaks overseas. This is not just the right thing to do, but the best way to keep Americans safe, Klain said.

"There is no safety for us and our populace when infectious diseases rage," he said. "The only way the American people can have safety and security in their lives is to promote safety and security around the world."

Some other highlights from the forum:

Hamid Jafari, MD, acting director of the Division of Global Health Protection at the CDC, said the CDC has been productive during past presidential transitions and expects the same will be true as control of the White House passes from Obama to Trump: "We have room for optimism that there will be continuing support," he said.

Pope said there is no playbook for fighting emerging infectious diseases: "We never know what's going to hit us, so we need to be prepared as possible," she said.

According to Pope, some in the health community are wary about working with the security community because they think it will be detrimental to their work, when the opposite is true: "Marrying these communities actually leads to more resources and more attention," she said.

Bill Steiger, PhD, chief program officer of Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon and former director of the HHS Office of Global Health Affairs, said his first piece of advice for the incoming administration would be to budget time for HHS to focus on things other than domestic health issues, because a larger problem is inevitable: "Some international global health crisis will happen that will divert that attention. It has happened over and over again," he said.

Steiger said the global health agenda, including programs like PEPFAR, is an "easy win" for the new administration: "Expand the funding if available, but at a minimum keep it going," he said.

Fauci said he is in favor of a public health emergency fund that would be used to combat outbreaks like those involving Ebola and Zika: "It's tough to get it but we need it. What we had to go through with Zika was very, very painful when the president asked for $1.9 billion in February and we didn't get [funding] until September."

Near the end, Fauci speculated about the possibility that there will be a resurgence of Zika this summer. The virus has caused many travel-related cases in the U.S. and some locally acquired cases in Florida and Texas. Fauci said other concerns for the Trump administration include the potential for a new influenza pandemic and outbreaks of diseases that are not yet on anyone's radar.

"What about the things we are not even thinking about?" he said. "No matter what, history has told us definitively that [outbreaks] will happen because [facing] infectious diseases is a perpetual challenge. It is not going to go away. The thing we're extraordinarily confident about is that we're going to see this in the next few years." – by Gerard Gallagher

Disclosures: Fauci, Jafari and Pope report no relevant financial disclosures. Infectious Disease News was unable to confirm relevant financial disclosures for Klain and Steiger at the time of publication.

[Apr 19, 2020] This old idiot Fauci

Apr 19, 2020 | twitter.com

MARK SIMONE ‏ 5:50 PM - 18 Apr 2020

Don't blame FOX, Mr. Fake News CNN. On March 9th, Dr. Anthony Fauci recommended taking a cruise, telling Forbes Magazine that if you're healthy, cruise ships are safe: https://www. forbes.com/sites/douggoll an/2020/03/09/fauci-says-cruising-is-ok-if-you-are-healthy/amp/ https:// twitter.com/oliverdarcy/st atus/1251615953978306564

[Apr 19, 2020] Bickering between two major parties: Trump slams 'rude nasty' Dems admitting Covid-19 cooperation bad between parties

Don't shoot the piano player...
Notable quotes:
"... "No matter what you do for the Do Nothing Democrats, no matter how GREAT a job you are doing, they will only respond to their Fake partners in the Lamestream Media in the negative, even in a time of crisis," ..."
"... "rude and nasty" ..."
"... "He gave them everything that they would have wanted to hear in terms of gaining ground on the CoronaVirus, but nothing that anyone could have said, including 'it's over,' could have made them happy," ..."
"... "They were RUDE and NASTY. This is their political playbook, and they will use it right up to the election on November 3rd," ..."
"... "America will not be fooled!!!" ..."
"... "never been so mad about a phone call" ..."
"... "the administration still doesn't have a plan to track daily testing capacity in every lab in the country, publicly release that data, and put forward a plan and timeline for identifying gaps." ..."
Apr 19, 2020 | www.rt.com

Donald Trump slammed Democrats for a "rude and nasty" phone call with the vice president over the Covid-19 pandemic, and theorized nothing will satisfy them as they try to "fool" America in November's election.

"No matter what you do for the Do Nothing Democrats, no matter how GREAT a job you are doing, they will only respond to their Fake partners in the Lamestream Media in the negative, even in a time of crisis," Trump tweeted on Saturday.

He added that his working relationship with Democrats during the Covid-19 pandemic has been "even worse" than before and revealed senators held a "rude and nasty" conference call with Vice President Mike Pence, who heads the White House Coronavirus Task Force, on Friday where little progress was made.

"He gave them everything that they would have wanted to hear in terms of gaining ground on the CoronaVirus, but nothing that anyone could have said, including 'it's over,' could have made them happy," the president vented.

"They were RUDE and NASTY. This is their political playbook, and they will use it right up to the election on November 3rd," he continued, adding that "America will not be fooled!!!"

No matter what you do for the Do Nothing Democrats, no matter how GREAT a job you are doing, they will only respond to their Fake partners in the Lamestream Media in the negative, even in a time of crisis. I thought it would be different, but it's not. In fact, it's even worse...

-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 18, 2020

....them happy, or even a little bit satisfied. They were RUDE and NASTY. This is their political playbook, and they will use it right up to the election on November 3rd. They will not change because they feel that this is the only way they can win. America will not be fooled!!!

-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 18, 2020

Some lawmakers have expressed just as much animosity over the talk as the president. Maine Sen. Angus King (I) said he has "never been so mad about a phone call" in his life.

A point of contention appears to be Trump's desire to begin rolling back stay-at-home orders and reopening the US economy next month, while many Democrats insist more Covid-19 testing must be done first.

Also on rt.com 'We're being held hostage!' Minnesota governor eases coronavirus lockdown after angry outcry from #ReopenMN protesters

Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-New Hampshire) tweeted after the call that she is concerned "the administration still doesn't have a plan to track daily testing capacity in every lab in the country, publicly release that data, and put forward a plan and timeline for identifying gaps."

Various governors, such as New York's Andrew Cuomo, continue to insist more thorough testing and tracing of the virus is needed before they consider reopening their states and easing back lockdown orders, while places like Texas, Minnesota, and Florida have already begun dropping restrictions as more and more citizens take to demonstrating and protesting against the measures.

Also on rt.com 'Fire Fauci, let us work': No social distancing as Alex Jones joins hundreds in rally against Covid-19 lockdown measures in Texas

[Apr 19, 2020] The coronavirus crisis has exposed the relative merits of nations, so the entire world can see, for example, how broken and corrupt the US is, with no leadership to speak of

Level of mismanaging of epidemic in Trump administration is staggering. Initially they ignored it, but then switch to full panic mode facilitated by such questionable experts as Fauci. Panic reaction with "one size fits all" quarantine measures created record unemployment.
BTW NIH fiscal year 2020 budget totals $41.6 billion.
The fact that Fauci did nothing to protect NY metropolitan areas means that he is incompetent to hold this position.
Apr 19, 2020 | www.washingtonpost.com

More than a dozen U.S. researchers, physicians and public health experts, many of them from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were working full time at the Geneva headquarters of the World Health Organization as the novel coronavirus emerged late last year and transmitted real-time information about its discovery and spread in China to the Trump administration, according to U.S. and international officials.

A number of CDC staffers are regularly detailed to work at WHO in Geneva as part of a rotation that has operated for years. Senior Trump-appointed health officials also consulted regularly at the highest levels with the WHO as the crisis unfolded, the officials said.

The presence of so many U.S. officials undercuts President Trump's charge that the WHO's failure to communicate the extent of the threat, born of a desire to protect China, is largely responsible for the rapid spread of the virus in the United States.

Saggy April 19, 2020 at 1:54 pm GMT

What a great paragaph – summary ..

There is hope. The coronavirus crisis has exposed the relative merits of nations, so the entire world can see, for example, how broken and corrupt the US is, with no leadership to speak of. Dawdling, it failed to prevent needless deaths, then shut down much of the country, bankrupting thousands of businesses and throwing millions out of work. As a fix, it throws mere crumbs at desperate citizens, while bailing out the big banks, again.

[Apr 19, 2020] Fire Fauci, let us work

Notable quotes:
"... "fascist Fauci," ..."
"... "Do you think Anthony Fauci should be fired?" ..."
"... "Fire Fauci." ..."
Apr 19, 2020 | www.rt.com

Texans flocked to the state's Capitol in Austin to protest Covid-19 lockdown measures, refusing to practice social distancing and cheering for Dr. Anthony Fauci to be fired by President Donald Trump. In attendance at Saturday's 'You Can't Close America' Rally were InfoWars founder Alex Jones and host Owen Shroyer, who led the crowd of some 200 people in chants against the mainstream media and officials like Fauci.

Shroyer, who referred to the doctor as "fascist Fauci," asked the crowd: "Do you think Anthony Fauci should be fired?" , before leading them in chants of "Fire Fauci."

[Apr 18, 2020] I did get an impression while reading the article that the CDC had its arms twisted to grant re-accreditation to the facility due to pressure from the White House

Apr 18, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jen , Apr 18 2020 21:40 utc | 65

Peter AU 1 @ 46, James @ 52:

Parts of that Wired.com story read like a stenographed PR release so I am not sure really what to make of it. The story seems to make light of the safety breaches that were occurring at the Fort Detrick lab. While it is likely that most breaches (apart from the waste disposal issue and the use of chemical rather than thermal treatment of waste) appeared to be minor OHS-type breaches and appropriate staff training was all that was required, I did get an impression while reading the article that the CDC had its arms twisted to grant re-accreditation to the facility due to pressure from the White House to get a vaccine ready in time before November this year.

Bemildred , Apr 18 2020 21:43 utc | 66

Some interesting bits:

Coronavirus testing delayed by contamination at US government lab, report says

Cheap gas is back:

How much is gas? Prices continue to drop due to coronavirus. Here's where gas is selling for under $1.

[Apr 18, 2020] Cuomo extends New York lockdown 'in coordination with other states' to mid-May despite claim that 'worst is over' -- RT USA News

Apr 18, 2020 | www.rt.com

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is extending his state's social-distancing measures to May 15, along with unspecified "other states," while claiming his policies have worked to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The stay-at-home directives, social-distancing guidelines and closures of " non-essential " businesses that comprise the governor's " New York Pause " executive order have been extended a further two weeks, Cuomo revealed during his daily coronavirus press conference on Thursday. The order was previously due to expire on April 30.

[Apr 17, 2020] Ranting In A Time Of Plague by Michael Brenner

Notable quotes:
"... FEMA and Homeland Security are but the most glaring example of departments stocked with hacks capable only of crippling the organizations that they are supposed to direct. They even corrupted the Center for Disease Control. ..."
"... The readiness of executives to do anything necessary to protect against exposure of their own failures or illicit actions has become commonplace within our institutions. ..."
"... As to the Crozier scandal, let's be clear: it is not a matter of ethics alone, but also of ability to meet critical obligations. ..."
"... Naval Secretary Thomas Motly – who missed his calling as a political commissar in the old Red Army, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Miley and Chief of Naval Operations Mike Gilday who both are testament to the Peter Principle that determines promotion in today's military. ..."
"... An [neoliberal] "oligarchy" has no interest in the long-term prosperity and strength of the nation - or perhaps, they simply have no faith in it. They are motivated to strip-mine the nation of all wealth while it lasts, because if they don't someone else will. They can live in walled compounds and go to private doctors, and if it all falls apart they can just gather up their loot and sail away on their yachts. ..."
"... After all the agony and hysteria surrounding the election of Trump for 3 years, they will nominate an elderly warmonger with obvious signs of dementia, who can't seem to keep his hands off women in a creepy fashion - as the alternative. It's as if there was a contest on how extreme a "lesser of two evils" can get. Tack on Covid and financial ruin. It's astounding. ..."
"... Come this epidemic and what do we see? What we see is that at least the UK government, the US government and the Canadian government were lying. It is quite clear that they were NOT expecting to be attacked. How do I know they were not expecting to be attacked? They had NO stores of hand sanitizer, NO stores of masks, NO goggles, NO stores of PPE, No factories for making any of them. NO troops of Bio/Chem warfare soldiers ready to spring into action and NO PLANS, as far as I can see. Are we to assume that if they were attacked by, say, the Russians, they were going to rely on the Chinese to supply them? (Sarcasm!) ..."
"... Lol. Trump has under 4 years working for the federal gov. It isn't his system. It is the typical repugs and dingbats system. He is an idiot for leaving his cushy life to join these idiots. It certainly doesn't speak well of his judgement. The people who work there and the people he has hired... Pompeo, Bolton, Esper, etc have worked there for decades. Bolton is an especially rotten character that seems to just keep popping up. ..."
"... i would like to emphasize a key point you make - accountability, and how there is none.. that to me is the number uno issue in the world today and it is very stark with regard to the usa - accountability... of course obama kicked that concept down the road too... no accountability.. it sucks big time.. we need it desperately... ..."
"... Okay... he's not a psychoapath, Don. I'll settle malignant sociopathic narcissist, which means by definition and demonstration that he would not know empathy were it to leap up and smack him in the face. Liar? We can soften that too. He is a serial fantasists living in the worlds he creates and like a spoiled child demands, raging when his wishes are not instantly gratified. ..."
"... When I was young I was always looking up for US, don't know why, maybe I have been fascinated by a culture, lifestyle, innovations.. when I got older and started to read about what actually happens in the world, I realized that US is not what it seemed to be anymore and I think its just getting worse.. ..."
"... Basically, no matter if is there Trump, Obama, Bush, Biden, Hillary or Easter Bunny.. your government to its core is really sick.. ..."
"... Everytime i read about decision US made, how is profit driven at expense of regular people, its a disgrace.. and more and more people in the world can see it.. just Trump himself exposed more the whole thing, chaotic, selfish, rude and arrogant government, not ashamed of anything. ..."
Apr 17, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?

Collective tragedy is always a learning experience. So it has been for great wars, natural disasters, economic collapses, political revolutions. The COVID-19 pandemic is such a tragedy. Although the number of casualties may pale compared to the carnage of war, there are ancillary effects that leave us shocked and sobered. Most obviously, there is sudden onset of a severe economic depression with attendant social distress whose toll we will be registering for years to come. Then, there is the exposure of how incompetent our public institutions have become – the callous inhumanity of those who rule in Washington matched only by their clownish ineptitude. It is in the realm of these latter intangibles that we should look first for morals and lessons.

Overriding all else is the spectacle of a President, duly elected by the American people, who is a malicious psychopath with not a single redeeming trait. A physical, intellectual and emotional spectre who would defy our imaginative powers were he not on display before our eyes. He has gathered around him a witch's coven of scoundrels, crooks and crackpots as bereft of mind and ethics as he is. They also are inveterate liars; Trump himself is a congenital liar since clinical narcissism is inborn. Yet, we refer to this motley assemblage as an 'administration' – in our impulse to 'normalize' the abominable. No dry bill of particulars is necessary, nor could it do justice, to the squalid theater we see played out before us on a daily basis. This man, at this moment, is viewed favorably by 46% of the public. That reality eclipses everything else.

There is no organized opposition worthy of the name. This is the second great failure of our democracy. The Democratic Party creaks under the weight of geriatric nominal leaders – plodding along without conviction, without will, without the integrity to free itself from the monied interests and the self-serving careerists who have dragged it into the mire. Yes, they may succeed, come November, in sparing the Republic the coup de grace of four more Trumpian years. This despite their suicidal instinct in choosing Joe Biden to bear the standard – a man barely robust enough to keep the banner from dragging in the dust on his slog along the campaign trail. This bunch can't even get themselves to a microphone for a news clip at a time of historic crisis aggravated by the atrocious sins of the existing government. Surely, a first. Worried about Covid-19 contagion? Order a box of alcohol wipes from China. Instead, Biden makes a call to Trump for what both agree was a 'nice conversation.' What does that get him?

Cuomo has to placate Trump with soothing words – even at the expense of lying about how much aid New York actually received from Washington – since the lives of his people are at stake. For Biden, the opposite is true; avoiding soothing words is crucial since the November election is dependent on undercutting Trump and discrediting him.

Three, the United States is a poorly governed country. Manifest ineptitude in performing collective functions is by no means limited to Washington under Trump. It has become a feature of the institutional landscape. True, the Trumpites have launched a dedicated campaign to realize the anti-government fanatics' wet dream of disabling all public agencies. FEMA and Homeland Security are but the most glaring example of departments stocked with hacks capable only of crippling the organizations that they are supposed to direct. They even corrupted the Center for Disease Control. Its leaders, evidently eager to curry favor with the madman in the Oval Office, gave its stamp of approval to the unproven – and dangerous drug HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE that Trump's been promoting as the Silver Bullet to cure Covid-19. (April 4-6) Luckily, saner heads prevailed, or a conscience was pricked, and these panting spaniels withdrew the recommendation from their website.

... ... ...

At local levels, just look at the condition of infrastructure, of pension funds – of public health. The extremity – and, frankly, the absurdity - of what's happening in the health sector is highlighted by what we see elsewhere in the world. Face masks, including ones that actually provide protection, are readily available throughout East Asia – and elsewhere. A personal anecdote: relatives in Tunisia are mailing me N95 masks which they purchased in their neighborhood pharmacies. Indeed, as of April 8, Tunisia had produced by their own resources, and distributed 30 million masks to a population of 11 million. The equivalent here would be 1 billion masks! (Minus the 1 million sent express to Israel by the Pentagon as a ritual gift of fealty.) In America, we are offered instructions on how to sew a (probably useless) mask out of discarded T-shirts. MAGA!! Hospital directors fire nurses who buy their own equipment out of concern that they will be upstaged and exposed as the callous, profit obsessed bozos they are. Yet, we blind ourselves to the realities of other nations – because to do so is embarrassing, because our so-called leaders are protecting their behinds, and because we compulsively retain our dogmatic faith in American superiority.*

The readiness of executives to do anything necessary to protect against exposure of their own failures or illicit actions has become commonplace within our institutions. The current Corona crisis puts that reality into the headlines – as with the despicable act of the Pentagon in dismissing summarily Captain Brett Crozier whose petition made known that his superiors were prepared to sacrifice his crew's lives to the imperative of hiding their own errors. Is this notion that 'anything goes except accountability' any different from Harvard's studied silence about its embrace of Jeffrey Epstein or its abrupt sacking of a professor who dared reveal that the President was sweeping under the academic rug rampant sexual abuses? We all have personal experience of similar stories.

As to the Crozier scandal, let's be clear: it is not a matter of ethics alone, but also of ability to meet critical obligations. In the event that the country found itself at war against a serious enemy, it is a dangerous liability to have in positions of command people like Secretary of Defense Mark Esper (hack lobbyist for Raytheon and the Aerospace Industries Association ), Naval Secretary Thomas Motly – who missed his calling as a political commissar in the old Red Army, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Miley and Chief of Naval Operations Mike Gilday who both are testament to the Peter Principle that determines promotion in today's military. They would either be washed out in the wake of gross failures, or continue to be albatrosses dragging out pointless missions like the 17 bemedaled but clueless U.S. generals who have proven so useless in Afghanistan. As it is, they seem unable to keep their warships from slamming into inanimate objects in placid waters.

Here are Motly's last remarks before riding off to join corporate boards: "The men and women of the Department of the Navy deserve a continuity of civilian leadership befitting our great Republic, and the decisive naval force that secures our way of life he acknowledged that he "lost situational awareness" during his address to the Roosevelt's crew." "There is no excuse, but perhaps a glimpse of understanding, and hopefully empathy. I am deeply sorry for some of the words and for how they spread across the media landscape like a wildfire." (The New York Times – ever twisting its hat with eyes averted in the presence of intimidating Presidential authority – features a long letter from Motly justifying his actions, 4/7. Only 3, 1 Republican, 2 Democrats, protested Crozier's mistreatment. Among the silent chorus were the 22/23 aspirants to the Democratic nomination who bored us stiff for fifteen months with their unceasing calls for "LEADERSHIP!" 'Profiles In Courage' is not a best-seller at the Capitol. Even Dr. Fauce doesn't have a copy.

Absence of accountability is incompatible with good governance. That is especially true in democracies where accountability is ultimately downwards. In a country like China, where accountability is primarily upward, the circle can be squared by the occasional resort to putting some miscreant up against the wall. We don't have that luxury. Here, it is only the weak, the indigent and the naïve who need fear punishment – of any kind. The powerful and well-connected worry less about a last cigarette than about their first.

In compiling a list of factors that have contributed to the drastic decline in the performance of American institutions, this parochialism figures prominently among them. We put up with levels of dereliction matched in the developed world only by Britain. Think of the debate over Medicare-for-All and like proposals. As alluded to in an earlier commentary, the best national medical insurance systems (as confirmed by the WHO and other independent bodies) are in Western Europe, Canada and Japan – France topping the list. Yet, their expenditure on those systems is only 2/3 of what we pay for our own ramshackle non-system. That fact is ignored. Instead, the political class agonizes over the specious issue of whether we can afford it. Joe Biden has pledged to veto any such plan on grounds that it would cost $35 trillion – or whatever number has floated into his fog-bound mind. This lethal combination of ignorance, dogmatism and fidelity to special interests has come to be a hallmark of how we approach government and the meeting of collective needs.

A full treatment of the several intertwined, mutually reinforcing elements that have led us along the path of decline is well beyond the limits of a brief commentary. A few, though, do deserve to be mentioned for what – one hopes – might be future reference. One is the 'privatization ' craze. It has become the preferred method for transferring public assets to private profiteers. The effects are degraded services, the loss of expertise in public bodies, the exploitation of workers and the abandonment of intelligent planning (ventilators anyone?). With the COVID-19 affair, we've reached the ultimate privatization: the Federal Reserve has hired BlackRock to conduct its operations on the bond market as the central component of its $4 trillion Quantitative Easing strategy (BlackRock itself being the dominant player on that market). The same effects have been produced by the swarm of hedge funds and private equity who are parasites feeding on the prostrate host that is the real economy and its dependents. American society celebrates, and empowers, these critters. Then there are the ' consultants ' – the locust hordes which our culture designates as vital contributors to the good works of government, of business, of universities, of charities, of sports teams, of hospitals, of failing marriages, of the US Army that puts guns in their hands. They, too, add to the toll on public competence and collective services.

Another anecdote: the city of Austin, Texas has hired a consulting firm to advise them on designs for a reconfiguration of the street that runs in front of the University of Texas. Should the sidewalks be 8' wide or 10' wide? Curbed or uncurbed? With bicycle racks or without? These matters evidently are beyond the competence of the city government, and of the University's 3,000 strong expert faculty.

'My Kingdom for a tape measure!' How about a 69-cent face mask?

*Consider this. During WW II, the Kaiser shipyard in Richmond, CA – along with its 17 counterparts - were able to construct 2,710 Liberty ships between 1941 and 1945 (an average of three ships every two days), In other words, it took each yard just twelve days to put a ship in the water. That was the work of Rosie the Riveter and her colleagues. Today, we struggle to produce a few thousand $1 face masks - much less reliable COVID-19 test kits. Of course, back then the country was led by responsible adults – not the bunch of clods and delinquents we're stuck with nowadays.

Posted by b on April 17, 2020 at 14:00 UTC | Permalink


Walter , Apr 17 2020 14:27 utc | 3
Well and artfully crafted rant. I wish all rants were are cogent!

The picture sketched? It seems to be a detailed description of.."collapse".

Wally thinks of the coyote and roadrunner...coyote runs off cliff, but falls only when he realizes that the ground has collapsed under himself.

For the moment...people, like 'b', are looking down...

What's next? QED

"film at 11" they used to say...

Jose Garcia , Apr 17 2020 14:29 utc | 5
If this virus is not a nasty flu, then what is it? A plague? Similar in effect as the Black Death? Had 2 members of my family and a dear friend catch this thing. 2 of them suffered just 3 days of a fluctuating fever and cold symptoms. After that it disappeared. Only one, my aunt, in her early seventies, had to be put on a respirator. But is recovering well. Is it worth it to bring our economy to absolute devastation, where good people lose everything, end up destitute, having to live in the streets, with no where to go? \

And rely on bureaucrats, our government, whether state or federal, Democrat or Republican or Socialist, for their daily bread? What about people with severe mental health, who need to be away from home, need a job to maintain their stability, now with no work or money, will fall off the deep end, even commit suicide because they have no where to turn? Is it worth it ? Everything we've been doing? Why in other periods in history, with similar diseases, nothing was shut down as profoundly as being done these days, and life went on? People did die, not to mock their passing. But it brings me back. If not a nasty flu, is it worth it?

Seward , Apr 17 2020 14:30 utc | 6
Agree with #1. Our leader, as imperfect as he is, as we all are, is the only leader we have. If he fails to lead us through this crisis, we all fail. IMHO aside from occasional politic-ing, answering charges of one kind or another against him, often the opposite from day to day (e.g. one day he's trying to control everything, now he's abandoned control to the overwhelmed governors), is doing an acceptable job, considering the problems he;'s facing.
M , Apr 17 2020 14:33 utc | 7
Hello,

Couldn't agree more with Don in comment 1, the newfound lust for censorship and evangelism for official right think found here is disappointing, this seems no longer to be a place to ask questions and seek truth sincerely.

Thank you and good bye,

M

Trisha , Apr 17 2020 14:40 utc | 8
What is now obvious has for a long time been concealed: the U.S. is not a democracy, there is no such thing as a "free market", capitalism has proved incapable of meeting the most basic needs during a crisis, there are no leaders accountable to anyone other than our ruling oligarchs, the U.S. is anything but a "bastion of freedom", and most other nations have plenty of justifiable reasons to hate the U.S.

The only question remaining is how long will folks in the U.S. hide from these truths and do nothing about them?

gm , Apr 17 2020 14:43 utc | 9
@ Don Wills | Apr 17 2020 14:14 utc | 1

I agree this is ridiculous. Trump may be a lot of things, but the last thing he would EVER want to do/happen in this election year where was cruising along home-free, is to have this horrible pandemic blow up in front of him.

Also, he would NEVER have taken along and risked his entire family on a useless state visit to India where all they did was attend meaningless photo-op events and watch Indian kids dance the Hindi cha-cha.

Not even his chief of staff Mike Mulvaney went alond (unheard-of for CoS to not accompany a potus on official state visits).

This tells me Trump was (kept?) in the dark about true depth of pandemic risk brewing.

TG , Apr 17 2020 14:44 utc | 10
A fine rant. Well said.

An honest economist (back in the day when there actually were still a few) once said that the key to a nation is whether it ruled by an establishment, or an oligarchy.

An "establishment" is old-money connected etc., but has some sense of ownership and duty. An establishment is willing to forgo short-term profits in favor of long-term strength, because they expect that they or their heirs will be around to have a piece of it. "Establishment" leaders would be FDR, Eisenhower, DeGaulle, Bismarck, Lee Kuan Yew...

An [neoliberal] "oligarchy" has no interest in the long-term prosperity and strength of the nation - or perhaps, they simply have no faith in it. They are motivated to strip-mine the nation of all wealth while it lasts, because if they don't someone else will. They can live in walled compounds and go to private doctors, and if it all falls apart they can just gather up their loot and sail away on their yachts.

bevin , Apr 17 2020 14:45 utc | 11
Very good. I particularly liked:" ..We put up with levels of dereliction matched in the developed world only by Britain..."

See below link for example https://www.rt.com/op-ed/486065-uk-care-homes-disregard/

As to Jose Garcia@5 any decent community would do all that it could to save the lives of its members.

krypton , Apr 17 2020 14:48 utc | 12

For Trump, Brenner can thank the silver-tongued Obama and his murderous secretary of state, both of whom are worst kind of liars - the kind that tell people what they want to hear while doing the opposite.
Eighthman , Apr 17 2020 14:59 utc | 14
Thank you for posting this. The US seems to be like coming to your home and finding Bigfoot seated in a living room chair - with no one expressing any surprise or even interest in his presence.

After all the agony and hysteria surrounding the election of Trump for 3 years, they will nominate an elderly warmonger with obvious signs of dementia, who can't seem to keep his hands off women in a creepy fashion - as the alternative. It's as if there was a contest on how extreme a "lesser of two evils" can get. Tack on Covid and financial ruin. It's astounding.

The only positives I can find are evidence that the elite aren't totally in control ( or there would be no Biden or Trump running) AND that the US is too big and dominant to collapse anytime soon - a sort of geo-political inertia. Same goes for the dollar, even if they turn it into high grade toilet paper.

Susan , Apr 17 2020 15:00 utc | 15
This is the first time I have commented on your site but read daily. This is one of the best reads I have seen. It defines the failure of the country so clearly, to bad Don was unable to hear the criticism of his fearless leader and move beyond it. This failure has long roots and the writer nails it. I remember a few years back sitting down with our commissioner and having her explain to us why they were getting nothing done. city and state moneys were lower and the federal government that had always provided grants no longer did. This was under Obummer.

The long strip mining of the US and the rest of the world by the elite should have made itself completely obvious under trump but I am beginning to think that we humans are no more than a plague upon the earth. We seem to be so intent on sticking to our team the Rs or Ds we are no different then sports fans, who's obsessed behavior and willingness to spend thousands to watch sports is mind boggling, when often the same people bitch about teachers pay.

Or during the healthcare debates I went to hear the town hall that my congressmen had. 2000 people showed up most screaming about Obama and free hand outs. The 2000 people where mostly over 65, and in this case military so all these people had theirs but didn't think their own kids or grandkids should have medical care.. what the hell! The Republican Party built the montra of evil government well and the Democratic Party used it the build up the pentagon to the point it takes over 70% of the discretionary budget, to slaughter people in 3rd world countries so we can strip mine them or threaten Russia and China . The virus shows one thing the elites have lots of money to build military stuff that they fleece , so what we have is crap. What the poor soldiers in this country are is fodder for the wealthy.

oglalla , Apr 17 2020 15:06 utc | 17
lol. - Some partisans mount a partisan defense of Trump. I didn't know such incredibly partisan dummies read MoA. You guys are more than welcome to leave.
foolisholdman , Apr 17 2020 15:11 utc | 18
Something occurred to me this afternoon.

Thinking about the Covid-19, it occurred to me that the governments of the UK, the USA, of Canada and probably many other countries that have had biological warfare labs have all said to their people "We have to do this research because the USSR, the Russians The Chinese, The North Koreans or thr Terrorists may use biological/chemical weapons against us and WE MUST BE PREPARED!!. If they were telling the truth they should have been well prepared as they have spent billions on this research. So, now we can see they were lying because, THERE WAS NO PREPARATION WHEN IT WAS NEEDED? Precisely NONE!

Come this epidemic and what do we see? What we see is that at least the UK government, the US government and the Canadian government were lying. It is quite clear that they were NOT expecting to be attacked. How do I know they were not expecting to be attacked? They had NO stores of hand sanitizer, NO stores of masks, NO goggles, NO stores of PPE, No factories for making any of them. NO troops of Bio/Chem warfare soldiers ready to spring into action and NO PLANS, as far as I can see. Are we to assume that if they were attacked by, say, the Russians, they were going to rely on the Chinese to supply them? (Sarcasm!)

The Chinese government which may or may not be developing biological weapons, (I have no way of knowing) obviously, was relatively well prepared. This is hardly surprising; as they think they have been under biological attack, on and off since the Korean war when they were so attacked. They had factories making the kit they needed and it took only days to ramp up production and get other factories to join in. They had medical troops who were trained and ready to take an important part in controlling the outbreak. They had plans that enabled them to build hospitals for mass intensive care in a matter of days and (I would imagine) plans to turn other structures into holding areas for less serious cases. It also looks as though they had either very versatile organizers or well laid plans for feeding and monitoring people under lock down.

Et Tu , Apr 17 2020 15:15 utc | 19
@ Don Wills,

You may understandably reject criticism to Your chosen party of faith, but i believe the essence of his message was not about partisanship, rather an honest appraisal of the current sad state of affairs, which, if you had bothered reading further, was just as scathing about Obama et al. as it was about your beloved Stable Genius.

I'm afraid your choice to not read further was a far stronger statement of partisanship than anything the author laid out. Your loss, and ours too.

Jackrabbit , Apr 17 2020 15:17 utc | 20
TPTB channel all dissatisfaction in USA into partisan politics where it can be managed, and ultimately dismissed or diffused.

This rant plays into that game. Only a genuine Movement for democracy (like Yellow Vests in France) will change anything.

!!

Bemildred , Apr 17 2020 15:22 utc | 21
Posted by: foolisholdman | Apr 17 2020 15:11 utc | 19

Yep, exactly. What they have is the CCP, an army that can be called on command, which thinks it's job is to govern, not just get paid extra. And legitimacy, the Chinese people accept their governing, mostly, because they try to do a good job. It's like all this unity bullshit they feed us here (see above), but it's real.

Goldhoarder , Apr 17 2020 15:24 utc | 22
Lol. Trump has under 4 years working for the federal gov. It isn't his system. It is the typical repugs and dingbats system. He is an idiot for leaving his cushy life to join these idiots. It certainly doesn't speak well of his judgement. The people who work there and the people he has hired... Pompeo, Bolton, Esper, etc have worked there for decades. Bolton is an especially rotten character that seems to just keep popping up.

If Trump did win another term I wouldnt be surprised to see him back. Remember when that nutjob from Israel that delights in murdering defenseless people came over and gave a speech to Congress? He received an enthusiastic standing ovation. What more needs to be investigated or discussed? It needs to fail and the people will have to suffer in order for more responsible leadership to emerge. The US has waged war on the people of Iraq for 30 fucking years.

Everytime the system is about to collapse from its own corruption they just create more money and threaten other countries with destruction if they attempt to divorce themselves from the IMF "global" economy. The idea that the empire exists to help the average citizen is insane and rather childish thinking. The empire exists to maintain power, control, and a dominant position. By the way... during all this crazyness has anybody bothered to follow what is going on with US/China trade? There was a much publicized 1st stage agreement over the easy issues but CNN warned it might collapse putting the global economy at severe risk. Has the US lost billions of dollars worth of economic inputs the last couple months? What is the USA going to look like if that continues? Without China propping up the US economy the US will have to rely on its own resources. As you mention the US cant produce N95 masks let alone coronavirus test kits. Testing might allow the powers that be to not feel frightened about coming into contact with the drooling masses. They might let us out of our cages so we can start foraging for food.

bevin , Apr 17 2020 15:31 utc | 24
Entirely predictable, (knee jerk motion, robotic) Jackrabbit@22.

Your real objection to this, extremely reasonable, statement:

" ...They even corrupted the Center for Disease Control. Its leaders, evidently eager to curry favor with the madman in the Oval Office, gave its stamp of approval to the unproven – and dangerous drug HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE that Trump's been promoting as the Silver Bullet to cure Covid-19. (April 4-6) Luckily, saner heads prevailed, or a conscience was pricked, and these panting spaniels withdrew the recommendation from their website..."

It is an indication of your general irresponsibility, also exemplified in your casual use of the internet to give, potentially dangerous, medical advice, that you pretend to be dissenting from Brenner because he critiques government. You imply that by doing so he is urging people to support one or other political party. In fact his is a comprehensive critique of the entire political system, whose purpose, for 230+ years has been to prevent the people from governing themselves.

It is a pity to see those tireless and sincere campaigners the Yellow Vests of France drafted into an argument for apathy and defeatism.

james , Apr 17 2020 15:39 utc | 26
thanks michael... i can apply some of these ideas directly to other countries.. i don't care for the usa centric world point view, but i am sure many readers will get into it.. i would like to emphasize a key point you make - accountability, and how there is none.. that to me is the number uno issue in the world today and it is very stark with regard to the usa - accountability... of course obama kicked that concept down the road too... no accountability.. it sucks big time.. we need it desperately...
John , Apr 17 2020 15:42 utc | 27
Okay... he's not a psychoapath, Don. I'll settle malignant sociopathic narcissist, which means by definition and demonstration that he would not know empathy were it to leap up and smack him in the face. Liar? We can soften that too. He is a serial fantasists living in the worlds he creates and like a spoiled child demands, raging when his wishes are not instantly gratified.

His dictatorial moments would be familiar to anyone who ever worked at his jumped up mom 'n pop real estate shop. His blustering, bullying, blaming, bragging, bloviating, and berating are on display each day now at the late afternoon campaign commercial live-from-the-White-House. He's all yours Don.

Martin , Apr 17 2020 15:54 utc | 30
Hey everyone.. not sure how to start

When I was young I was always looking up for US, don't know why, maybe I have been fascinated by a culture, lifestyle, innovations.. when I got older and started to read about what actually happens in the world, I realized that US is not what it seemed to be anymore and I think its just getting worse..

Im not speaking about regular people, of course not, they have worries, goes thru hardships in life, same as me here in Europe.. Basically, no matter if is there Trump, Obama, Bush, Biden, Hillary or Easter Bunny.. your government to its core is really sick..

Everytime i read about decision US made, how is profit driven at expense of regular people, its a disgrace.. and more and more people in the world can see it.. just Trump himself exposed more the whole thing, chaotic, selfish, rude and arrogant government, not ashamed of anything.

I wish you all.. you good and smart people of the US, to win this struggle, get back on track and have a better future, god bless you in your fight.

[Apr 17, 2020] The WHO provided validated working test kits on 16th of January. The USA botched the delopyment due to CDC incompetence and NIH syndrom

Highly recommended!
The USA government was paralyzed by Ukrainegate and impeachment in January.
Notable quotes:
"... Another factor was that any real measures against the virus were a huge blow to the neoliberal globalization and the USA as the central force that pushed neoliberal globalization was vary to implement them. ..."
"... Pentagon treatment of the USS Theodor Roosevelt epidemic was worse than incompetent because clearly, this was just the tip of the iceberg. Instead of looking into the core problem, they decided to find a scapegoat. Why they did not react as soon as problems on Diamond Princess surfaced are unclear to me. They failed even to provide masks. That's simply incredible. I think a bunch of perfumed princes of Pentagon needs to be fired. I wonder what is the situation on submarines. ..."
Apr 17, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Ulenspiegel | 17 April 2020 at 07:18 AM
The WHO provided validated working test kits on 16th of January.

Even if I am not happy with the Chinese policy overall, the main problem in most advanced western countries was and still is that the response of the governments are often poor:

  1. Not implementing a coherent communication strategy. It does not make sense when one minister tells that the virus situation is an real issue and another minister tell you at the same time that everything is not so bad.
  2. Downplaying the infection numbers for domestical political reasons. Complete lack of understanding of an exponential function or more precise the combination of an virus operating on an exponential function, while the own resources are more or less a constant.
  3. Too late start of testing, be it a result of faulty administrative structures, rooky mistakes during test kit development or combination of both.

Fighting a virus is like warfare on the operational level, you start with incomplete information, but have to make important decisions, time is a very important resource, lost time is almost impossible to regain.

likbez , 17 April 2020 at 12:22 PM

@Ulenspiegel | 17 April 2020 at 07:18 AM

Fighting a virus is like warfare on the operational level, you start with incomplete information, but have to make important decisions, time is a very important resource, lost time is almost impossible to regain.
Very true. But we should not forget the role of Pelosi in this mess: Trump administration was partially paralyzed in January by impeachment proceedings. She acted like the fifth column in this respect.

Another factor was that any real measures against the virus were a huge blow to the neoliberal globalization and the USA as the central force that pushed neoliberal globalization was vary to implement them.

IMHO, Trump demonstrated some level of courage by closing flights from China on Jan 31. I guess pressure to postpone this measure further was tremendous. But they missed the time, and it was too late.

3) Too late start of testing, be it a result of faulty administrative structures, rooky mistakes during test kit development, or a combination of both.
That's true, and the CDC needs to be investigated for this blunder. But also implementing social distancing measures and the obligatory wearing of masks in large cities was completely botched.

Retired persons can be quarantined without a major blow to the economy. And that should have been done first. The nursing homes are starkly vulnerable to the coronavirus. It was clear from the beginning. That means that the medical personnel in them need to be provided with full protection gear and isolated with patients. That was not done. On the contrary, they became hotspots that spread the disease.

Treatment of medical personnel, who along with patients in nursing homes are the most vulnerable category, was abysmal. No free hotel stay (for those without children), no special transportation and free meals were provided for them. Even basic protection equipment was absent in home hospitals until late March.

The USA did not have strategic storage of masks and, which is more important, equipment to make them and materials from which they are made. That was a big blunder for which previous administrations also share responsibility.

Pentagon treatment of the USS Theodor Roosevelt epidemic was worse than incompetent because clearly, this was just the tip of the iceberg. Instead of looking into the core problem, they decided to find a scapegoat. Why they did not react as soon as problems on Diamond Princess surfaced are unclear to me. They failed even to provide masks. That's simply incredible. I think a bunch of perfumed princes of Pentagon needs to be fired. I wonder what is the situation on submarines.

[Apr 17, 2020] For Trump, expecting unemployment to hit 45%,reopening of the economy is paramount:

Apr 17, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Likklemore , Apr 16 2020 16:25 utc | 159

... ... ...

Trump to push for reopening economy despite coronavirus testing concerns

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Thursday is expected to lay out a strategy to phase out the month-long economic shutdown aimed at stanching the coronavirus pandemic, despite concerns from health experts, state governors and business leaders about the dangers of lifting restrictions without widespread testing in place.[.]

The state restrictions have strangled the U.S. economy to an extent not seen since the Great Depression nearly a century ago. Another 5.2 million more Americans sought unemployment benefits last week, the Labor Department reported on Thursday, lifting total filings for claims over the past month to more than 20million.

The Republican president, who has staked his re-election in November on the strength of the U.S. economy, is scheduled to hold a call with the nation's governors at 3 p.m. (1900 GMT) and said he would announce his plan at a news conference later on Thursday. The White House coronavirus task force is scheduled to hold its daily public briefing at 5 p.m.
[.]
"The worst thing that could happen would be for us to throw everyone back into the economic cycle and have to go back to having 97% of our people being told to stay home again," Trump's former White House chief economic adviser Gary Cohn told CBS News on Thursday.[.]

Trump v. Biden. That's the choice and we are doomed.

[Apr 17, 2020] Trump had better be seen to be fighting the lockdown-shysters, not acquiescing to them, if he wants to get re-elected. If he spends the summer continuing to genuflect before Dr. Falsie, Trump is toast come November.

Apr 17, 2020 | www.unz.com

Digital Samizdat , says: Show Comment April 13, 2020 at 9:16 pm GMT

Great piece from CJ, as usual. Just one quibble:

People will forget all that populism nonsense, and just be grateful for whatever McJobs they can get to be able to pay the interest on their debts, because, hey global capitalism isn't so bad compared to living under house arrest!

Hard to imagine that happening in Americastan, where the economy has been completely destroyed by the lockdown. We'll be lucky 'merely' to have Great Depression levels of unemployment when this madness finally ends.

For all the MAGApedes out there: Trump had better be seen to be fighting the lockdown-shysters, not acquiescing to them, if he wants to get re-elected. If he spends the summer continuing to genuflect before Dr. Falsie, Trump is toast come November.

[Apr 17, 2020] Cutting military spending to fund human security is 'THE LEAST' world leaders can do after pandemic Gorbachev -- RT World News

Apr 17, 2020 | www.rt.com

The Covid-19 pandemic shows that governments that think of security in mostly military terms are simply wasting money, Mikhail Gorbachev has said.

Defence spending must be cut globally to fund things that humanity actually needs.

The former Soviet leader called on the world to move away from hard power in international affairs. He remains especially worried about the kind of military brinkmanship that lately has almost led to a shooting war in the Middle East.

"What we urgently need now is a rethinking of the entire concept of security," he wrote , in an op-ed published by TIME magazine. "Even after the end of the Cold War, it has been envisioned mostly in military terms. Over the past few years, all we've been hearing is talk about weapons, missiles and airstrikes." The Covid-19 outbreak has highlighted once again that the threats humanity faces today are global in nature and can only be addressed by nations collectively. The resources currently spent on arms need to go into preparation for such crises, Gorbachev said.

All efforts will fail if governments continue to waste money by fueling the arms race.

"The overriding goal must be human security: providing food, water and a clean environment, and caring for people's health," he said.

The first thing that nations should do after the coronavirus is dealt-with is to make a commitment to a massive demilitarization.

I call upon [world leaders] to cut military spending by 10 percent to 15 percent. This is the least they should do now, as a first step toward a new consciousness, a new civilization.

Gorbachev, the former leader of the USSR who is credited with de-escalating the Cold War against the US and with negotiating a dramatic reduction in the nuclear arsenals of the two powers, shared his opinions and aspirations as the global number of Covid-19 cases surpassed the two-million benchmark. The pandemic has led to over 130,000 deaths and is projected to plunge the world economy into a recession of a magnitude unseen since the 1920s.

[Apr 15, 2020] 'We scared the hell out of the American people' over 'flu,' says Fox News guest -- RT USA News

Notable quotes:
"... "For this, we scared the hell out of the American people, we lost 17 million jobs, we put a major dent in the economy, we closed down the schools... shut down the churches," ..."
"... "You know, this was not, and is not a pandemic. But we do have panic and pandemonium as a result of the hype of this." ..."
"... "aggressively stupid" ..."
"... "Bill Bennett may be a self-proclaimed ethics expert, but he obviously knows very little about logic and cause-and-effect," ..."
"... "It is deeply irresponsible to air this view on national television," ..."
"... "the hell out of the American people." ..."
"... " crucial" ..."
"... "no need to change anything you're doing on a day-to-day basis." ..."
"... "could have saved lives" ..."
"... "the virus decides" ..."
Apr 15, 2020 | www.rt.com

Former education secretary Bill Bennett has been savaged online for suggesting that the coronavirus is "not a pandemic," calling for the lifting of lockdown measures, as the debate rages over reopening the shuttered US economy. More than half a million Americans have caught the coronavirus, with just over 22,000 deaths. While the numbers are dire, the University of Washington's forecasters revised their total predicted Covid-19 deaths down to 60,000 last week, a number comparable to deaths from influenza in 2017-2018, and significantly lower than the six-figure death toll floated by President Donald Trump's top medical adviser, Dr Anthony Fauci, last month.

"For this, we scared the hell out of the American people, we lost 17 million jobs, we put a major dent in the economy, we closed down the schools... shut down the churches," Bennett said on Monday's edition of Fox and Friends. "You know, this was not, and is not a pandemic. But we do have panic and pandemonium as a result of the hype of this."

Fox News contributor Bill Bennett compares coronavirus to the flu, claiming that "this was not and is not a pandemic." pic.twitter.com/Q4oBcXKISV

-- Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) April 13, 2020

The World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic on March 11 and it has been reported in almost every country around the world. Bennett was flayed online for his "aggressively stupid" statement.

"Bill Bennett may be a self-proclaimed ethics expert, but he obviously knows very little about logic and cause-and-effect," wrote author Ward Carroll.

Aggressively stupid Bill Bennett may be a self-professed ethics expert, but he obviously knows little about logic or cause-and-effect.Hey, Billy Boy, do you think there's any relationship between actions taken and the number of #COVID19 fatalities?And get a haircut, old man.

-- Ward Carroll (@wardcarroll) April 13, 2020

"It is deeply irresponsible to air this view on national television," tweeted CNN's Chris Cillizza, while neoconservative pundit Bill Kristol suggested the low death toll was a direct result of the government scaring "the hell out of the American people."

Needless to say, if we have "only" 60,000 deaths, it's BECAUSE "we scared the hell out of the American people," and they radically changed behavior. Or rather: "We" didn't scare anyone. People were alarmed by the facts and adjusted -- despite dangerous happy talk from our president. https://t.co/yTeivjA82F

-- Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) April 13, 2020

My doctor told me he presumes I had #COVID19 and then related #coronavirus pneumonia. I can assure Bill Bennett that even though I exercised and ate well, covid kicked my ass. It was terrifying. I couldn't breathe and thought I was dying.It was nothing like the flu, fool. https://t.co/9BjQvC2yyU

-- Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) April 13, 2020

Bill Bennett doesn't understand that the only reason my "only" 60,000 people will die is because we're all stuck at home.I've said before. If the GOP thinks this is a hoax then go throw a huge party and invite yours entire family and Trump, and see how it goes. https://t.co/6TR3I0MyXC

-- John Aravosis 🇺🇸 (@aravosis) April 13, 2020

Modeling the spread of infectious diseases is an imprecise science. While the University of Washington's researchers attribute their revised predictions to " crucial" social distancing measures and recommend they remain in place until the end of May, many initial predictions about the virus were wrong. When it first entered the US in January, media outlets urged Americans not to panic, warning them that the flu was a more imminent threat. These same outlets now tell a different story .

Likewise, Fauci himself said in February that there was "no need to change anything you're doing on a day-to-day basis." On Sunday, he told CNN's Jake Tapper that the government "could have saved lives" if social distancing started earlier.

With commentators on the right demanding a relaxation of lockdown rules, and Trump's advisers telling the president – to quote Fauci – that "the virus decides" when things return to normal, no clear path forward is obvious.

[Apr 15, 2020] Does the longer economic depression kill more people younger than the Covid lives saved from suppression

Apr 15, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Michael Droy , Apr 14 2020 19:41 utc | 28

I am still awaiting a sensible discussion (anywhere not just here) on whether suppression actually makes sense as a policy. As opposed to a null policy (which is what herd immunity is).

Does the longer economic depression kill more people younger than the Covid lives saved from suppression, and does suppression just flatten the infection curve* or does it actually lengthen it so that just as many get infected and the opportunity costs of devoting hospitals to Covid for months and months become very high. (Closed health services, the psychology of unemployment = suicide, and just the known wealth effects on health all come with suppression).

The unit of such a discussion would be QALYs. If there are government science based comparisons of Suppression with the null policy, they are certainly calculated in terms of QALYs (quality-adjusted life years).

If you haven't heard of a QALYs analysis (and I haven't) you can be sure that no existing analysis supports current policies.
Either they haven't done one (unlikely) or it doesn't come out clearly on the side of suppression).

What we have instead is policy by Overton's window.
Gotta be seen to be doing something.


*b used to do a nice chart with suppression showing a flatter but much longer curve. We don't see that here or anywhere else now.

[Apr 15, 2020] Anthony Fauci role in proliferation of gain of function research

Apr 15, 2020 | nlm.nih.gov

A distinct aspect of the shift in debate from framing in terms of "dual-use research" to "gain-of-function research" has been focus on biosafety concerns -- e.g., that a devastating pandemic could potentially result from a laboratory accident involving an especially dangerous pathogen created via GOFR. In light of Ron Fouchier's claim that the ferret-transmissible strain of H5N1 he produced is "probably one of the most dangerous viruses you can make" (Enserink 2011 ) and (previous) NSABB chair Paul Keim's claim that "I can't think of another pathogenic organism as scary as this one [created by Fouchier's team] I don't think anthrax is scary at all compared to this" (Enserink 2011 ), for example, some critics argued that the study in question should have been, and/or that future similar research should be, conducted in laboratories with the highest bio-containment level -- i.e., biosafety level 4 (BSL-4), as opposed to BSL-3 ("enhanced") in which this research was done (Swazo 2013 ). Fouchier has, in response, pointed out that his research received necessary institutional biosafety review/approval; and others have argued that his research (given employment of safety measures beyond ordinary BSL-3, including vaccination of lab workers against H5N1) in effect involved safety equivalent to BSL-4 (Roos 2012 ). Anthony Fauci (Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) has concluded that "the scientists who triggered this debate [including Fouchier] have conducted their research properly and under the safest and most secure conditions" (Fauci 2012 , p. 1).

[Apr 14, 2020] Fauci is an amazing man who can literally see into the future

Apr 14, 2020 | www.unz.com

Colin Wright , says: Website Show Comment April 12, 2020 at 6:05 am GMT

Anything's possible, but if I had to put money on one and only one hypothesis, I'd go with an accidental leak from a lab in Wuhan.
Gilad Atzmon , says: Show Comment April 12, 2020 at 1:19 pm GMT
@Colin Wright Accidental yes, China? I am not sure at all
Nuncle , says: Show Comment April 12, 2020 at 10:03 am GMT
@Colin Wright If that's the case, then Fauci is an amazing man who can literally see into the future:

https://www.healio.com/infectious-disease/emerging-diseases/news/online/%7B85a3f9c0-ed0a-4be8-9ca2-8854b2be7d13%7D/fauci-no-doubt-trump-will-face-surprise-infectious-disease-outbreak

[Apr 13, 2020] Fauci talked about continuing lockdowns until there were *no* new cases being reported

Papers, please! Covid-19 'immunity cards' may be required of Americans, Fauci says, 10 Apr, 2020 , RT.com
Apr 13, 2020 | caucus99percent.com
@travelerxxx

Fauci talked about continuing lockdowns until there were *no* new cases being reported.

I can confidently predict that will happen about a day after we win the War on Drugs and the War on Terror.

[Apr 13, 2020] Eisenhower: we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite

Apr 13, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Pft , Apr 13 2020 2:42 utc | 103

A few Easter musings.

No church on Easter for the faithful. The illuminati must feel like they are in heaven. Their goal of achieving a godless society is in reach. Well, not exactly godless since they think the elites among them have a mission to become like God, as man was made in Gods image for the purpose of knowing himself through man. We shall all worship God, which are our elites, and the priests of this Man-God religion are technocratic scientists. Some call it scientism or gnosticism or transhumanism

The idea is to transhumanistly "upgrade" humanity, create an Internet of Us, and to geocybernically control the processes of the earth system (this is known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution 4IR)

Capitalism. How strange so many here recognize the evils of Bad capitalism, more properly defined as Monopoly Capitalism, or Neoliberalism to distinguish it from good Capitalism -which is competitive capitalism well regulated in the interests of society as a whole, with a dash of socialism and monopoly (state or private) capitalism in certain industries as needed.

When we talk of Bad Capitalism of the sort Marx no doubt had in mind, we must look back and recall something Marx never envisioned, perhaps because it was a reaction to the globalist socialist theories he espoused. That was Mussolini's and then later Hitlers National Socialism, or economic Fascism. This was more accurately defined as a public private partnership (P3) that is so often referred to by the Gates funded WOrld Economic Forum and those talking about UN Sustainable Development Projects, and has become a religion of sorts in the West and also in China (more about that in a separate comment when I have time) and is really the essence of todays neoliberalism (not the propaganda you read about neoliberalism from its supporters)

Back in the 30's Mussolini's economic fascism was greatly admired by the Capitalists of that day, even FDR who has been mislabelled as socialist and anti-capitalist despite coming from the financial elite (much like Trump who is mislabelled as nationalist snd antiestablishment despite being a globalist and financial elite in private life).

Indeed just before and after Hitler took over in Germany with his partnership with German companies - the Capitalists in the US and UK/France rushed in via cartel agreements with German companies to invest and transfer technology. FDR did little to stop this.

FDR if we recall was the father of NRA which was his first priority after confiscating the peoples gold and devaluing the dollar. Fortunately his fascist NRA economy was struck down by the Supreme Court only to later reemerge during WWII. This is when P3 really crystallized in the US although it would take decades to morph into todays beast, and required another Pearl Harbor to gain acceptance for the purpose of keeping us safe from Islamic Terrorism and now the virus terrorists

One might argue that the difference between Mussolini's and Hitlers P3 and today is the government was the dominant power then, and today its at best an equal partner or more likely dominated by the corporate side (in China the private ownership is largely in the hands of the party elite as individuals and not the state which serves to subsidize their enterprises while socializing losses and privatizing profits-like the West) . Those in government, after public retirement go on to lucrative employment on the private side as their reward. Regulatory agencies are all captured by the private side of this public private partnership

This is apparent in many industries. Many of you see it with Military, intelligence and homeland security, Big Tech/Data, finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE), etc.

However, when it comes to Medical -Pharma Industry and other "science" based industries like the Climate Industry you are blinded by scientism promoted by the MSM spinmeisters supporting the Green-Virus Globalist Agenda. Yet both of these industries are driven by Public Private Partnerships to achieve Global Capitalist and Global Government Control objectives.

As Eisenhower said in his 1961 exit speech where he warned of the dangers of the MIC he also said "we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."

So looking specifically at the actors involved in the latest Pandemic, and one sees many of them are the same players behind the Climate Terror Industry, one sees a tremendous amount of collaboration between Big Pharma, UN agencies, national health agencies, military, academia and tax free philanthropic foundations (Gates, Rockefeller, etc).

Government funds basic science via military and health/science agencies to search for new viruses or enhancing known viruses with gain of function research, that Big Pharma then exploits to develop vaccines with government and philanthropic funds in the event such viruses are released. All kinds of money gets spent in preparing for a pandemic, stockpiling supplies , medicines, vaccines in advance of a pandemic, studying ways to control people once a pandemic arrives, and studying more ways to control people to prevent another pandemic (digital id, health certificates, mandatory vaccines) . When a pandemic does arrive, all those exercises and simulations (Crimson Orange, Event 201, Dark Winter, etc) pay off, trillions of dollars are unleashed out of thin air thanks to the Fed Reserve and handed out to the private partners.

Disaster Capitalism at its finest, public private partnership working toward total control of people and earning plenty of money while doing so. Companies having nothing to do with the Pandemic but affected (Airlines, hotels) , some of which are already in trouble (Boeing) are bailed out. Small business owners get crushed.


[Apr 13, 2020] Yes Trump truly fumbled the ball on the response but he isn't the only one solely responsible for how many people have gotten sick and have died.

Apr 13, 2020 | caucus99percent.com

Trump failed to respond. But in January and February, it was clear coronavirus would hit NY. Cuomo and de Blasio could have instituted full lockdowns by early March when first cases appeared. Meanwhile, Washington State and California moved more quickly and saved many lives.

-- Ross Barkan (@RossBarkan) April 11, 2020

pic.twitter.com/X7pVPmrBTL

-- ragonepr (@ragonepr) April 11, 2020

Countless other state governors didn't close things down as quickly as Newsom in California and other governors. Florida let spring break go one and once finished no state put kids in quarantine. The blame for this response falls on many shoulders. And the lack of response is hiding the biggest transfer of wealth in history. Not here of course. As usual the blue blog has been on top of most issues and way ahead of others.

I'm very concerned about how this country will look once it's open again. I think it's going to be unrecognizable because of how many businesses will have permanently closed down and how many people will stay unemployed. Lots of businesses are going to be bought out at Fire sale prices by those who got all the money. Like usual. Workers desperate for a job might have to take less than minimum wage cuz of the demand for jobs. But whoboy congress better be thinking about that or they will be in for a big surprise. OWS will look like just a warmup for what might be coming.

Hospitals have been closed down for decades or been asset stripped after they were bought out by hedge funds. Obama and Biden didn't replenish the supplies for epidemics after they dealt with the H1N1 flu. Blame goes to both parties and especially their embrace of neoliberalism.

He's thinking of reopening the country. Hardily and bigly.

"I don't know that I've had a bigger decision. But I'm going to surround myself with the greatest minds. Not only the greatest minds, but the greatest minds in numerous different businesses, including the business of politics and reason," Trump told reporters.

Trump's labor leader doesn't want people to get used to being on government assistance and is trying to restrict who can get unemployment benefits and for how long. Now it takes brass balls for little Anthony Scalia to say that to desperate people after the corrupt and especially the banks have gotten trillions! This guy should be embarrassed to show his face in public ever again. But he isn't.

up 25 users have voted. --

"I will be the best, the best, you know, you know the thing!"

- Joe Biden

Roy Blakeley on Sat, 04/11/2020 - 10:57pm

The CDC blew the test kits as well

@snoopydawg They decided to go with their own unnecessarily complex kit instead of going with the Qiagen kit or some variant (RT-PCR is a pretty routine procedure in labs). They initially stuck with the influenza model of having the samples sent to Atlanta for analysis. This is fine if you are just monitoring the flu, but useless for trying to stop a pandemic. Tens of thousands of people in the US have died and will die unnecessarily.

but he isn't the only one solely responsible for how many people have gotten sick and have died.

Trump failed to respond. But in January and February, it was clear coronavirus would hit NY. Cuomo and de Blasio could have instituted full lockdowns by early March when first cases appeared. Meanwhile, Washington State and California moved more quickly and saved many lives.

-- Ross Barkan (@RossBarkan) April 11, 2020

pic.twitter.com/X7pVPmrBTL

-- ragonepr (@ragonepr) April 11, 2020

Countless other state governors didn't close things down as quickly as Newsom in California and other governors. Florida let spring break go one and once finished no state put kids in quarantine. The blame for this response falls on many shoulders. And the lack of response is hiding the biggest transfer of wealth in history. Not here of course. As usual the blue blog has been on top of most issues and way ahead of others.

I'm very concerned about how this country will look once it's open again. I think it's going to be unrecognizable because of how many businesses will have permanently closed down and how many people will stay unemployed. Lots of businesses are going to be bought out at Fire sale prices by those who got all the money. Like usual. Workers desperate for a job might have to take less than minimum wage cuz of the demand for jobs. But whoboy congress better be thinking about that or they will be in for a big surprise. OWS will look like just a warmup for what might be coming.

Hospitals have been closed down for decades or been asset stripped after they were bought out by hedge funds. Obama and Biden didn't replenish the supplies for epidemics after they dealt with the H1N1 flu. Blame goes to both parties and especially their embrace of neoliberalism.

He's thinking of reopening the country. Hardily and bigly.

"I don't know that I've had a bigger decision. But I'm going to surround myself with the greatest minds. Not only the greatest minds, but the greatest minds in numerous different businesses, including the business of politics and reason," Trump told reporters.

Trump's labor leader doesn't want people to get used to being on government assistance and is trying to restrict who can get unemployment benefits and for how long. Now it takes brass balls for little Anthony Scalia to say that to desperate people after the corrupt and especially the banks have gotten trillions! This guy should be embarrassed to show his face in public ever again. But he isn't.

[Apr 13, 2020] He Could Have Seen What Was Coming Behind Trump's Failure on the Virus by Eric Lipton , David E. Sanger at all

This is a case study of bureaucratic incompetence, when conflicting institutions and agenda paralyze any efforts. Trump incompetence is only the tip of the iceberg. the whole Deep State proved to be too rigid to properly react to the epidemic, because each measure looked too drastic until it was late to implement it. and then it was implemented anyway. One effect of any large bureaucracy is that rare oasises of reliable and timely information that exist are to be suppressed. and this is not Trump fault. This is iron logic of any large bureaucracy.
What is interesting is that the epidemic is localized in few hot spots with the largest being New York metropolitan areas. So governments could took measures immediately even without federal government prompting them. And that would be much better that nationwide shutdown. And FBI and CIA have the local governments in pocket anyway (this is a national security state, not something else after all). So where was the CIA boss when we needed her ? Or she is just capable of running Russiagate gaslighting operation type of operations? CIA honchos used to have audacity to launch the efforts to depose Trump. Can we believe that they can't bypass Trump when they need to?
Notable quotes:
"... The National Security Council office responsible for tracking pandemics received intelligence reports in early January predicting the spread of the virus to the United States, and within weeks was raising options like keeping Americans home from work and shutting down cities the size of Chicago. Mr. Trump would avoid such steps until March. ..."
"... Despite Mr. Trump's denial weeks later, he was told at the time about a Jan. 29 memo produced by his trade adviser, Peter Navarro, laying out in striking detail the potential risks of a coronavirus pandemic: as many as half a million deaths and trillions of dollars in economic losses. ..."
"... By the last week of February, it was clear to the administration's public health team that schools and businesses in hot spots would have to close. But in the turbulence of the Trump White House, it took three more weeks to persuade the president that failure to act quickly to control the spread of the virus would have dire consequences. ..."
"... It was becoming apparent that the administration had botched the rollout of testing to track the virus at home, and a smaller-scale surveillance program intended to piggyback on a federal flu tracking system had also been stillborn. ..."
"... A 20-year-old Chinese woman had infected five relatives with the virus even though she never displayed any symptoms herself. The implication was grave -- apparently healthy people could be unknowingly spreading the virus -- and supported the need to move quickly to mitigation. ..."
"... These final days of February, perhaps more than any other moment during his tenure in the White House, illustrated Mr. Trump's inability or unwillingness to absorb warnings coming at him. He instead reverted to his traditional political playbook in the midst of a public health calamity, squandering vital time as the coronavirus spread silently across the country. ..."
"... Over nearly three weeks from Feb. 26 to March 16, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States grew from 15 to 4,226. ..."
"... The earliest warnings about coronavirus got caught in the crosscurrents of the administration's internal disputes over China. It was the China hawks who pushed earliest for a travel ban. But their animosity toward China also undercut hopes for a more cooperative approach by the world's two leading powers to a global crisis. ..."
Apr 11, 2020 | www.nytimes.com

By Eric Lipton , David E. Sanger , Maggie Haberman , Michael D. Shear , Mark Mazzetti and Julian E. Barnes

An examination reveals the president was warned about the potential for a pandemic but that internal divisions, lack of planning and his faith in his own instincts led to a halting response.

"Nobody knew there would be a pandemic or epidemic of this proportion," President Trump said last month. He has repeatedly said that no one could have seen the effects of the coronavirus coming. Credit... Erin Schaff/The

WASHINGTON -- "Any way you cut it, this is going to be bad," a senior medical adviser at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Dr. Carter Mecher, wrote on the night of Jan. 28, in an email to a group of public health experts scattered around the government and universities. "The projected size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe."

A week after the first coronavirus case had been identified in the United States, and six long weeks before President Trump finally took aggressive action to confront the danger the nation was facing -- a pandemic that is now forecast to take tens of thousands of American lives -- Dr. Mecher was urging the upper ranks of the nation's public health bureaucracy to wake up and prepare for the possibility of far more drastic action.

"You guys made fun of me screaming to close the schools," he wrote to the group, which called itself "Red Dawn," an inside joke based on the 1984 movie about a band of Americans trying to save the country after a foreign invasion. "Now I'm screaming, close the colleges and universities."

His was hardly a lone voice. Throughout January, as Mr. Trump repeatedly played down the seriousness of the virus and focused on other issues, an array of figures inside his government -- from top White House advisers to experts deep in the cabinet departments and intelligence agencies -- identified the threat, sounded alarms and made clear the need for aggressive action.

The president, though, was slow to absorb the scale of the risk and to act accordingly, focusing instead on controlling the message, protecting gains in the economy and batting away warnings from senior officials. It was a problem, he said, that had come out of nowhere and could not have been foreseen.

Even after Mr. Trump took his first concrete action at the end of January -- limiting travel from China -- public health often had to compete with economic and political considerations in internal debates, slowing the path toward belated decisions to seek more money from Congress, obtain necessary supplies, address shortfalls in testing and ultimately move to keep much of the nation at home.

Unfolding as it did in the wake of his impeachment by the House and in the midst of his Senate trial, Mr. Trump's response was colored by his suspicion of and disdain for what he viewed as the "Deep State" -- the very people in his government whose expertise and long experience might have guided him more quickly toward steps that would slow the virus, and likely save lives.

Decision-making was also complicated by a long-running dispute inside the administration over how to deal with China. The virus at first took a back seat to a desire not to upset Beijing during trade talks, but later the impulse to score points against Beijing left the world's two leading powers further divided as they confronted one of the first truly global threats of the 21st century.

The shortcomings of Mr. Trump's performance have played out with remarkable transparency as part of his daily effort to dominate television screens and the national conversation.

But dozens of interviews with current and former officials and a review of emails and other records revealed many previously unreported details and a fuller picture of the roots and extent of his halting response as the deadly virus spread:

When Mr. Trump finally agreed in mid-March to recommend social distancing across the country, effectively bringing much of the economy to a halt, he seemed shellshocked and deflated to some of his closest associates. One described him as "subdued" and "baffled" by how the crisis had played out. An economy that he had wagered his re-election on was suddenly in shambles.

He only regained his swagger, the associate said, from conducting his daily White House briefings, at which he often seeks to rewrite the history of the past several months. He declared at one point that he "felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic," and insisted at another that he had to be a "cheerleader for the country," as if that explained why he failed to prepare the public for what was coming.

Mr. Trump's allies and some administration officials say the criticism has been unfair. The Chinese government misled other governments, they say. And they insist that the president was either not getting proper information, or the people around him weren't conveying the urgency of the threat. In some cases, they argue, the specific officials he was hearing from had been discredited in his eyes, but once the right information got to him through other channels, he made the right calls.

"While the media and Democrats refused to seriously acknowledge this virus in January and February, President Trump took bold action to protect Americans and unleash the full power of the federal government to curb the spread of the virus, expand testing capacities and expedite vaccine development even when we had no true idea the level of transmission or asymptomatic spread," said Judd Deere, a White House spokesman.

There were key turning points along the way, opportunities for Mr. Trump to get ahead of the virus rather than just chase it. There were internal debates that presented him with stark choices, and moments when he could have chosen to ask deeper questions and learn more. How he handled them may shape his re-election campaign. They will certainly shape his legacy.

The Containment Illusion

By the last week of February, it was clear to the administration's public health team that schools and businesses in hot spots would have to close. But in the turbulence of the Trump White House, it took three more weeks to persuade the president that failure to act quickly to control the spread of the virus would have dire consequences.

When Dr. Robert Kadlec, the top disaster response official at the Health and Human Services Department, convened the White House coronavirus task force on Feb. 21, his agenda was urgent. There were deep cracks in the administration's strategy for keeping the virus out of the United States. They were going to have to lock down the country to prevent it from spreading. The question was: When?

There had already been an alarming spike in new cases around the world and the virus was spreading across the Middle East. It was becoming apparent that the administration had botched the rollout of testing to track the virus at home, and a smaller-scale surveillance program intended to piggyback on a federal flu tracking system had also been stillborn.

In Washington, the president was not worried, predicting that by April, "when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away." His White House had yet to ask Congress for additional funding to prepare for the potential cost of wide-scale infection across the country, and health care providers were growing increasingly nervous about the availability of masks, ventilators and other equipment.

What Mr. Trump decided to do next could dramatically shape the course of the pandemic -- and how many people would get sick and die.

With that in mind, the task force had gathered for a tabletop exercise -- a real-time version of a full-scale war gaming of a flu pandemic the administration had run the previous year. That earlier exercise , also conducted by Mr. Kadlec and called "Crimson Contagion," predicted 110 million infections , 7.7 million hospitalizations and 586,000 deaths following a hypothetical outbreak that started in China.

Facing the likelihood of a real pandemic, the group needed to decide when to abandon "containment" -- the effort to keep the virus outside the U.S. and to isolate anyone who gets infected -- and embrace "mitigation" to thwart the spread of the virus inside the country until a vaccine becomes available.

Among the questions on the agenda, which was reviewed by The New York Times, was when the department's secretary, Mr. Azar, should recommend that Mr. Trump take textbook mitigation measures "such as school dismissals and cancellations of mass gatherings," which had been identified as the next appropriate step in a Bush-era pandemic plan .

The exercise was sobering. The group -- including Dr. Anthony S. Fauci of the National Institutes of Health; Dr. Robert R. Redfield of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Mr. Azar, who at that stage was leading the White House Task Force -- concluded they would soon need to move toward aggressive social distancing, even at the risk of severe disruption to the nation's economy and the daily lives of millions of Americans.

If Dr. Kadlec had any doubts, they were erased two days later, when he stumbled upon an email from a researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who was among the group of academics, government physicians and infectious diseases doctors who had spent weeks tracking the outbreak in the Red Dawn email chain.

A 20-year-old Chinese woman had infected five relatives with the virus even though she never displayed any symptoms herself. The implication was grave -- apparently healthy people could be unknowingly spreading the virus -- and supported the need to move quickly to mitigation.

"Is this true?!" Dr. Kadlec wrote back to the researcher. "If so we have a huge whole on our screening and quarantine effort," including a typo where he meant hole. Her response was blunt: "People are carrying the virus everywhere."

The following day, Dr. Kadlec and the others decided to present Mr. Trump with a plan titled "Four Steps to Mitigation," telling the president that they needed to begin preparing Americans for a step rarely taken in United States history.

But over the next several days, a presidential blowup and internal turf fights would sidetrack such a move. The focus would shift to messaging and confident predictions of success rather than publicly calling for a shift to mitigation.

These final days of February, perhaps more than any other moment during his tenure in the White House, illustrated Mr. Trump's inability or unwillingness to absorb warnings coming at him. He instead reverted to his traditional political playbook in the midst of a public health calamity, squandering vital time as the coronavirus spread silently across the country.

Dr. Kadlec's group wanted to meet with the president right away, but Mr. Trump was on a trip to India, so they agreed to make the case to him in person as soon as he returned two days later. If they could convince him of the need to shift strategy, they could immediately begin a national education campaign aimed at preparing the public for the new reality.

A memo dated Feb. 14, prepared in coordination with the National Security Council and titled "U.S. Government Response to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus," documented what more drastic measures would look like, including: "significantly limiting public gatherings and cancellation of almost all sporting events, performances, and public and private meetings that cannot be convened by phone. Consider school closures. Widespread 'stay at home' directives from public and private organizations with nearly 100% telework for some."

The memo did not advocate an immediate national shutdown, but said the targeted use of "quarantine and isolation measures" could be used to slow the spread in places where "sustained human-to-human transmission" is evident.

Within 24 hours, before they got a chance to make their presentation to the president, the plan went awry.

Mr. Trump was walking up the steps of Air Force One to head home from India on Feb. 25 when Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, publicly issued the blunt warning they had all agreed was necessary. But Dr. Messonnier had jumped the gun. They had not told the president yet, much less gotten his consent.

On the 18-hour plane ride home, Mr. Trump fumed as he watched the stock market crash after Dr. Messonnier's comments. Furious, he called Mr. Azar when he landed at around 6 a.m. on Feb. 26, raging that Dr. Messonnier had scared people unnecessarily. Already on thin ice with the president over a variety of issues and having overseen the failure to quickly produce an effective and widely available test, Mr. Azar would soon find his authority reduced.

The meeting that evening with Mr. Trump to advocate social distancing was canceled, replaced by a news conference in which the president announced that the White House response would be put under the command of Vice President Mike Pence.

The push to convince Mr. Trump of the need for more assertive action stalled. With Mr. Pence and his staff in charge, the focus was clear: no more alarmist messages. Statements and media appearances by health officials like Dr. Fauci and Dr. Redfield would be coordinated through Mr. Pence's office. It would be more than three weeks before Mr. Trump would announce serious social distancing efforts, a lost period during which the spread of the virus accelerated rapidly.

Over nearly three weeks from Feb. 26 to March 16, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States grew from 15 to 4,226. Since then, nearly half a million Americans have tested positive for the virus and authorities say hundreds of thousands more are likely infected. The China Factor

The earliest warnings about coronavirus got caught in the crosscurrents of the administration's internal disputes over China. It was the China hawks who pushed earliest for a travel ban. But their animosity toward China also undercut hopes for a more cooperative approach by the world's two leading powers to a global crisis.

It was early January, and the call with a Hong Kong epidemiologist left Matthew Pottinger rattled.

Mr. Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser and a hawk on China, took a blunt warning away from the call with the doctor, a longtime friend: A ferocious, new outbreak that on the surface appeared similar to the SARS epidemic of 2003 had emerged in China. It had spread far more quickly than the government was admitting to, and it wouldn't be long before it reached other parts of the world.

Mr. Pottinger had worked as a Wall Street Journal correspondent in Hong Kong during the SARS epidemic, and was still scarred by his experience documenting the death spread by that highly contagious virus.

Now, seventeen years later, his friend had a blunt message: You need to be ready. The virus, he warned, which originated in the city of Wuhan, was being transmitted by people who were showing no symptoms -- an insight that American health officials had not yet accepted. Mr. Pottinger declined through a spokesman to comment.

It was one of the earliest warnings to the White House, and it echoed the intelligence reports making their way to the National Security Council. While most of the early assessments from the C.I.A. had little more information than was available publicly, some of the more specialized corners of the intelligence world were producing sophisticated and chilling warnings.

In a report to the director of national intelligence, the State Department's epidemiologist wrote in early January that the virus was likely to spread across the globe, and warned that the coronavirus could develop into a pandemic. Working independently, a small outpost of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Center for Medical Intelligence, came to the same conclusion. Within weeks after getting initial information about the virus early in the year, biodefense experts inside the National Security Council, looking at what was happening in Wuhan, started urging officials to think about what would be needed to quarantine a city the size of Chicago.

By mid-January there was growing evidence of the virus spreading outside China. Mr. Pottinger began convening daily meetings about the coronavirus. He alerted his boss, Robert C. O'Brien, the national security adviser.

The early alarms sounded by Mr. Pottinger and other China hawks were freighted with ideology -- including a push to publicly blame China that critics in the administration say was a distraction as the coronavirus spread to Western Europe and eventually the United States.

And they ran into opposition from Mr. Trump's economic advisers, who worried a tough approach toward China could scuttle a trade deal that was a pillar of Mr. Trump's re-election campaign.

With his skeptical -- some might even say conspiratorial -- view of China's ruling Communist Party, Mr. Pottinger initially suspected that President Xi Jinping's government was keeping a dark secret: that the virus may have originated in one of the laboratories in Wuhan studying deadly pathogens. In his view, it might have even been a deadly accident unleashed on an unsuspecting Chinese population.

During meetings and telephone calls, Mr. Pottinger asked intelligence agencies -- including officers at the C.I.A. working on Asia and on weapons of mass destruction -- to search for evidence that might bolster his theory.

They didn't have any evidence. Intelligence agencies did not detect any alarm inside the Chinese government that analysts presumed would accompany the accidental leak of a deadly virus from a government laboratory. But Mr. Pottinger continued to believe the coronavirus problem was far worse than the Chinese were acknowledging. Inside the West Wing, the director of the Domestic Policy Council, Joe Grogan, also tried to sound alarms that the threat from China was growing.

Mr. Pottinger, backed by Mr. O'Brien, became one of the driving forces of a campaign in the final weeks of January to convince Mr. Trump to impose limits on travel from China -- the first substantive step taken to impede the spread of the virus and one that the president has repeatedly cited as evidence that he was on top of the problem.

In addition to the opposition from the economic team, Mr. Pottinger and his allies among the China hawks had to overcome initial skepticism from the administration's public health experts.

Travel restrictions were usually counterproductive to managing biological outbreaks because they prevented doctors and other much-needed medical help from easily getting to the affected areas, the health officials said. And such bans often cause infected people to flee, spreading the disease further.

But on the morning of Jan. 30, Mr. Azar got a call from Dr. Fauci, Dr. Redfield and others saying they had changed their minds. The World Health Organization had declared a global public health emergency and American officials had discovered the first confirmed case of person-to-person transmission inside the United States.

The economic team, led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, continued to argue that there were big risks in taking a provocative step toward China and moving to curb global travel. After a debate, Mr. Trump came down on the side of the hawks and the public health team. The limits on travel from China were publicly announced on Jan. 31 .

Still, Mr. Trump and other senior officials were wary of further upsetting Beijing. Besides the concerns about the impact on the trade deal, they knew that an escalating confrontation was risky because the United States relies heavily on China for pharmaceuticals and the kinds of protective equipment most needed to combat the coronavirus.

But the hawks kept pushing in February to take a critical stance toward China amid the growing crisis. Mr. Pottinger and others -- including aides to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- pressed for government statements to use the term "Wuhan Virus."

Mr. Pompeo tried to hammer the anti-China message at every turn, eventually even urging leaders of the Group of 7 industrialized countries to use "Wuhan virus" in a joint statement.

Others, including aides to Mr. Pence, resisted taking a hard public line, believing that angering Beijing might lead the Chinese government to withhold medical supplies, pharmaceuticals and any scientific research that might ultimately lead to a vaccine.

Mr. Trump took a conciliatory approach through the middle of March, praising the job Mr. Xi was doing.

That changed abruptly, when aides informed Mr. Trump that a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman had publicly spun a new conspiracy about the origins of Covid-19: that it was brought to China by U.S. Army personnel who visited the country last October.

Mr. Trump was furious, and he took to his favorite platform to broadcast a new message. On March 16, he wrote on Twitter that "the United States will be powerfully supporting those industries, like Airlines and others, that are particularly affected by the Chinese Virus."

Mr. Trump's decision to escalate the war of words undercut any remaining possibility of broad cooperation between the governments to address a global threat. It remains to be seen whether that mutual suspicion will spill over into efforts to develop treatments or vaccines, both areas where the two nations are now competing.

One immediate result was a free-for-all across the United States, with state and local governments and hospitals bidding on the open market for scarce but essential Chinese-made products. When the state of Massachusetts managed to procure 1.2 million masks, it fell to the owner of the New England Patriots, Robert K. Kraft, a Trump ally, to cut through extensive red tape on both sides of the Pacific to send his own plane to pick them up.

The Consequences of Chaos

The chaotic culture of the Trump White House contributed to the crisis. A lack of planning and a failure to execute, combined with the president's focus on the news cycle and his preference for following his gut rather than the data cost time, and perhaps lives.

Inside the West Wing, Mr. Navarro, Mr. Trump's trade adviser, was widely seen as quick-tempered, self-important and prone to butting in. He is among the most outspoken of China hawks and in late January was clashing with the administration's health experts over limiting travel from China.

So it elicited eye rolls when, after initially being prevented from joining the coronavirus task force, he circulated a memo on Jan. 29 urging Mr. Trump to impose the travel limits, arguing that failing to confront the outbreak aggressively could be catastrophic, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths and trillions of dollars in economic losses.

The uninvited message could not have conflicted more with the president's approach at the time of playing down the severity of the threat. And when aides raised it with Mr. Trump, he responded that he was unhappy that Mr. Navarro had put his warning in writing.

From the time the virus was first identified as a concern, the administration's response was plagued by the rivalries and factionalism that routinely swirl around Mr. Trump and, along with the president's impulsiveness, undercut decision making and policy development.

Faced with the relentless march of a deadly pathogen, the disagreements and a lack of long-term planning had significant consequences. They slowed the president's response and resulted in problems with execution and planning, including delays in seeking money from Capitol Hill and a failure to begin broad surveillance testing.

The efforts to shape Mr. Trump's view of the virus began early in January, when his focus was elsewhere: the fallout from his decision to kill Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani , Iran's security mastermind; his push for an initial trade deal with China ; and his Senate impeachment trial, which was about to begin .

Even after Mr. Azar first briefed him about the potential seriousness of the virus during a phone call on Jan. 18 while the president was at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Mr. Trump projected confidence that it would be a passing problem.

"We have it totally under control," he told an interviewer a few days later while attending the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. "It's going to be just fine."

Back in Washington, voices outside of the White House peppered Mr. Trump with competing assessments about what he should do and how quickly he should act.

The efforts to sort out policy behind closed doors were contentious and sometimes only loosely organized.

That was the case when the National Security Council convened a meeting on short notice on the afternoon of Jan. 27. The Situation Room was standing room only, packed with top White House advisers, low-level staffers, Mr. Trump's social media guru, and several cabinet secretaries. There was no checklist about the preparations for a possible pandemic, which would require intensive testing, rapid acquisition of protective gear, and perhaps serious limitations on Americans' movements.

Instead, after a 20-minute description by Mr. Azar of his department's capabilities, the meeting was jolted when Stephen E. Biegun, the newly installed deputy secretary of state, announced plans to issue a " level four " travel warning, strongly discouraging Americans from traveling to China. The room erupted into bickering.

A few days later, on the evening of Jan. 30, Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff at the time, and Mr. Azar called Air Force One as the president was making the final decision to go ahead with the restrictions on China travel. Mr. Azar was blunt, warning that the virus could develop into a pandemic and arguing that China should be criticized for failing to be transparent.

Mr. Trump rejected the idea of criticizing China, saying the country had enough to deal with. And if the president's decision on the travel restrictions suggested that he fully grasped the seriousness of the situation, his response to Mr. Azar indicated otherwise.

Stop panicking, Mr. Trump told him.

That sentiment was present throughout February, as the president's top aides reached for a consistent message but took few concrete steps to prepare for the possibility of a major public health crisis.

During a briefing on Capitol Hill on Feb. 5, senators urged administration officials to take the threat more seriously. Several asked if the administration needed additional money to help local and state health departments prepare.

Derek Kan, a senior official from the Office of Management and Budget, replied that the administration had all the money it needed, at least at that point, to stop the virus, two senators who attended the briefing said.

"Just left the Administration briefing on Coronavirus," Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, wrote in a tweet shortly after. "Bottom line: they aren't taking this seriously enough."

The administration also struggled to carry out plans it did agree on. In mid-February, with the effort to roll out widespread testing stalled, Mr. Azar announced a plan to repurpose a flu-surveillance system in five major cities to help track the virus among the general population. The effort all but collapsed even before it got started as Mr. Azar struggled to win approval for $100 million in funding and the C.D.C. failed to make reliable tests available .

The number of infections in the United States started to surge through February and early March, but the Trump administration did not move to place large-scale orders for masks and other protective equipment, or critical hospital equipment, such as ventilators. The Pentagon sat on standby , awaiting any orders to help provide temporary hospitals or other assistance.

As February gave way to March, the president continued to be surrounded by divided factions even as it became clearer that avoiding more aggressive steps was not tenable.

Mr. Trump had agreed to give an Oval Office address on the evening of March 11 announcing restrictions on travel from Europe, where the virus was ravaging Italy. But responding to the views of his business friends and others, he continued to resist calls for social distancing, school closures and other steps that would imperil the economy.

But the virus was already multiplying across the country -- and hospitals were at risk of buckling under the looming wave of severely ill people, lacking masks and other protective equipment, ventilators and sufficient intensive care beds. The question loomed over the president and his aides after weeks of stalling and inaction: What were they going to do?

The approach that Mr. Azar and others had planned to bring to him weeks earlier moved to the top of the agenda. Even then, and even by Trump White House standards, the debate over whether to shut down much of the country to slow the spread was especially fierce.

Always attuned to anything that could trigger a stock market decline or an economic slowdown that could hamper his re-election effort, Mr. Trump also reached out to prominent investors like Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chief executive of Blackstone Group, a private equity firm.

"Everybody questioned it for a while, not everybody, but a good portion questioned it," Mr. Trump said earlier this month . "They said, let's keep it open. Let's ride it."

In a tense Oval Office meeting, when Mr. Mnuchin again stressed that the economy would be ravaged, Mr. O'Brien, the national security adviser, who had been worried about the virus for weeks, sounded exasperated as he told Mr. Mnuchin that the economy would be destroyed regardless if officials did nothing.

Soon after the Oval Office address, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and a trusted sounding board inside the White House, visited Mr. Trump, partly at the urging of Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law. Dr. Gottlieb's role was to impress upon the president how serious the crisis could become. Mr. Pence, by then in charge of the task force, also played a key role at that point in getting through to the president about the seriousness of the moment in a way that Mr. Azar had not.

But in the end, aides said, it was Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the veteran AIDS researcher who had joined the task force, who helped to persuade Mr. Trump. Soft-spoken and fond of the kind of charts and graphs Mr. Trump prefers, Dr. Birx did not have the rough edges that could irritate the president. He often told people he thought she was elegant.

On Monday, March 16, Mr. Trump announced new social distancing guidelines , saying they would be in place for two weeks. The subsequent economic disruptions were so severe that the president repeatedly suggested that he wanted to lift even those temporary restrictions. He frequently asked aides why his administration was still being blamed in news coverage for the widespread failures involving testing, insisting the responsibility had shifted to the states.

During the last week in March, Kellyanne Conway, a senior White House adviser involved in task force meetings, gave voice to concerns other aides had. She warned Mr. Trump that his wished-for date of Easter to reopen the country likely couldn't be accomplished. Among other things, she told him, he would end up being blamed by critics for every subsequent death caused by the virus.

Within days, he watched images on television of a calamitous situation at Elmhurst Hospital Center, miles from his childhood home in Queens, N.Y., where 13 people had died from the coronavirus in 24 hours.

He left the restrictions in place.

[Apr 13, 2020] "Nobody knew there would be a pandemic or epidemic of this proportion,"

Apr 13, 2020 | caucus99percent.com

CB on Sat, 04/11/2020 - 4:46pm Timeline on how Donald Trump completely failed America.

This expose by the New York Times is the best reporting I have seen on Trump's complete inability and subsequent failure to lead during this time of acute crisis.

He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump's Failure on the Virus

An examination reveals the president was warned about the potential for a pandemic but that internal divisions, lack of planning and his faith in his own instincts led to a halting response.

April 11, 2020
Updated 4:33 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON -- "Any way you cut it, this is going to be bad," a senior medical adviser at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Dr. Carter Mecher, wrote on the night of Jan. 28, in an email to a group of public health experts scattered around the government and universities. "The projected size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe."

A week after the first coronavirus case had been identified in the United States, and six long weeks before President Trump finally took aggressive action to confront the danger the nation was facing -- a pandemic that is now forecast to take tens of thousands of American lives -- Dr. Mecher was urging the upper ranks of the nation's public health bureaucracy to wake up and prepare for the possibility of far more drastic action.
...
The Containment Illusion

By the last week of February, it was clear to the administration's public health team that schools and businesses in hot spots would have to close. But in the turbulence of the Trump White House, it took three more weeks to persuade the president that failure to act quickly to control the spread of the virus would have dire consequences.
...
The China Factor

The earliest warnings about coronavirus got caught in the crosscurrents of the administration's internal disputes over China. It was the China hawks who pushed earliest for a travel ban. But their animosity toward China also undercut hopes for a more cooperative approach by the world's two leading powers to a global crisis.
...
The Consequences of Chaos

The chaotic culture of the Trump White House contributed to the crisis. A lack of planning and a failure to execute, combined with the president's focus on the news cycle and his preference for following his gut rather than the data cost time, and perhaps lives.

[Apr 13, 2020] State of emergency means the establishment of a regime of dictatorship.

Apr 13, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Apr 12 2020 17:24 utc | 22

WHERE WE ARE NOW – PART 1 OF 4

Analysis by Alexander Dugin
Edited by Pepe Escobar

"I have read virtually EVERYTHING, East and West, in terms of detailed analysis of our current, game-changing, global stage of siege – not to mention private conversations with top analysts and the tsunami of think tank reports I have to sift through in my inbox.

"The insights by my friend Dugin are right at the very top. I am publishing an edited version in 4 successive, condensed posts. I personally agree with 90% of his conceptualization – especially the notion of the state in mutation (like the virus) turning ever more dictatorial, and the collapse of the global liberal world.

"This is an effort to invite an informed discussion with you – a global audience. Any entity with zero informed comment to offer, or prone to debased ad hominem attacks stay away – and I'm being very polite about it. For now.

"Part 1:

"The coronavirus has already struck a blow from which neither politics, economics, nor ideology will recover. The pandemic would have to have been dealt with by the existing institutions, in normal mode without changing the basic rules:
- neither in politics (meaning no quarantine, no forced isolation, let alone a state of emergency);
- nor in the economy (no remote work, no stopping of production, exchanges and financial- industrial institutions or trading platforms, no vacation, etc.);
- nor in ideology (no restrictions, albeit temporary on essential civil rights, freedom of movement, the cancellation or postponement of elections, referenda, etc.).

"...but all of this has already happened on a global scale, including in Western countries, i.e., in the territory of the 'world government' itself. The very foundations of the global system have been suspended.

"For the 'world government' to take such a step, it had to be forced to do so. By whom?

Part-2:

"The state, mutating as fast as the virus:

"Everywhere in the world - whether openly or by default - a state of emergency has been declared. According to the classics of political thought, and in particular Carl Schmitt, this means the establishment of a regime of dictatorship. The sovereign, according to Schmitt, is he who makes the decision in an emergency situation (Ernstfall), and today this is the state. However, it should not be forgotten that today's state has until the altogether recent last moment been based on the principles of liberal democracy, capitalism, and the ideology of human rights.

"In other words, this state is, in some sense, deciding on the liquidation of its own philosophical and ideological basis (even if such are for now formalized, temporary measures, the Roman Empire still began with the temporary dictatorship of Caesar, which gradually became permanent). Thus, the state is rapidly mutating, just as the virus itself is mutating, and the state is following the coronavirus in this constantly evolving struggle, which is taking the situation ever further from the point of global liberal democracy. All the extant borders which until yesterday seemed to be erased or half-erased are once again gaining fundamental meaning."

Part-3

"New algorithms engendering a new dictatorial state:

"Over the course of this epidemic, a new state is emerging which is beginning to function with new rules. It is very likely that in the process of the state of emergency there will be a shift of power from formal rulers to technical and technological functionaries, e.g., the military, epidemiologists, and institutions especially created for such extreme circumstances.

"As legal norms are suspended, new algorithms of behavior and new practices are beginning to be deployed. Thus is born the dictatorial state, which, unlike the liberal-democratic state, has completely different goals, foundations, principles and axioms. In this case, the "world government" is dissolved, because any supranational strategy loses all meaning. Power is rapidly moving to an ever lower level - but not to society and not to citizens, but to the military-technological and medical-sanitary level. A radically new rationality is gaining force - not the rationale of democracy, freedom, the market and individualism, but that of pure survival, for which responsibility is assumed by a subject combining direct power and the possession of technical, technological, and medical logistics. Moreover, in the network society, such is based on a system of total surveillance excluding any kind of privacy.

"Thus, if at one end we have the virus as the subject of transformation, then at the other end we have military-medical surveillance and punitive dictatorship fundamentally differing in all parameters from the state that we knew until yesterday. It is not at all guaranteed that such a state, in its fight against the secular 'plague gods', will precisely coincide with the borders of existing national entities."

Part-4

"The state of emergency and the collapse of the global liberal order:

"Agamben has been more radical than others and opposed the measures taken against the coronavirus, preferring even death to the introduction of a state of emergency. He clearly saw that even a small step in this direction will change the entire structure of the world order. Entering the stage of dictatorship is easy, but exiting it is sometimes impossible.

"It is impossible to go back to the world order that existed only recently and which seemed so familiar and natural that no one thought about its ephemerality. Liberalism either did not reach its natural end and the establishment of a 'world government', or nihilistic collapse was its original goal, merely covered by an increasingly less convincing and increasingly perverse 'humanist' decor.

"The end of globalization will not mean, however, a simple transition to the Westphalian system, to realism and a system of closed trade states (Fichte). Such would require the well-defined ideology that existed in early Modernity, but which was completely eradicated in late Modernity, and especially in Postmodernity. The demonization of anything remotely resembling 'nationalism' or 'fascism' has led to the total rejection of national identities, and now the severity of the biological threat and its crude physiological nature makes national myths superfluous. The military-medical dictatorship does not need additional methods to motivate the masses.

"The global liberal world has collapsed before our very eyes, just as the USSR and the world socialist system fell in 1991. Our consciousness refuses to believe in such colossal shifts, and especially in their irreversibility. But we must. It is better to conceptualize and comprehend them in advance - now, as long as things have not yet become so acute."

Dugin does provoke the mind to think. I certainly have my own comments to make, but they'll need to wait for later after today's Easter program here at my hermitage on the shoreline where it's a superb Spring day and the grill will be lit to flame broil our small feast.

[Apr 13, 2020] The economic consequences of lockdown - which are guaranteed - would land squarely on Trump head even as the implementation would be out of his control.

Apr 13, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

c1ue , Apr 12 2020 16:40 utc | 13

@JackRabbit #3

I've noted before: it isn't really clear to me that the federal government can force all the states to lock down.
That's not how the government in the United States works.

Nor does the CDC - now or ever - have the operational and legal means to directly do contract tracing or even force/enforce quarantines on recalcitrant people. They normally work in conjunction with state and local authorities - serving to provide services which don't make sense for state/local and to coordinate between different state/local departments.

Trump could have called for a lockdown in January in theory - note called, not forced. Then the economic consequences - which are guaranteed - would land squarely on his head even as the implementation would be out of his control.

Hence my question as to what you think - in retrospect from today - what Trump should have done and when?

ADKC , Apr 12 2020 16:51 utc | 14

Jackrabbit @3

Also, you should add that the US has increased its sanctions and war-manoeuvring. During a pandemic this is despicable, but, broadly, US/Western people are unconcerned.

Abby Martin does a review of what the US has been up to during the pandemic:

US Empire Exploits COVID-19 For More War

Everybody seems to believe in the 'magic money tree' but I have difficulty in believing in Santa Claus. If the US economy is in ruins (as it may well be) then, it seems to me that a military-backed resource grab (a war, in other words) has to happen and that Venezuela is the most likely target.

I don't believe that Abby Martin covers Ukraine in her video:- Ukraine have abrogated Minsk II (they would not have done so with US/NATO/West direction), shelling of Donbas appears to have increased, and the MH17 trial will continue throughout 2020 and possibly longer.

The MH17 trial outcome is predetermined and, I would imagine, the timescale is largely under US/NATO/West control - what happens if a verdict is given (effectively against the breakaway republics and Russia) during the pandemic or depression that follows?

[Apr 12, 2020] I wouldn't expect the privateering to come to much, but perhaps entertaining in a perverse sort of way.

Apr 12, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Bemildred , Apr 11 2020 15:53 utc | 178

Posted by: Walter | Apr 11 2020 12:40 utc | 164

Re: privateers, etc.

The operative feature of the situation is no oversight, Congress is interested in it's own affairs, the regulatory agencies are privatized, and journalism is mostly dead. So what you have is various power centers pursuing their own agendas and feeling entitled to speak for all about what they consider to be their baliwicks. Every once in a while one of those comes into conflict with the White House or powerful Congresspersons, and then a head or two may roll, as with Modly, but nothing much changes institutionally.

Jared's private enterprise in the PPE business is a perfect example, and representative of Trumpist governance, very old school.

So yeah, I wouldn't expect the privateering to come to much, but perhaps entertaining in a perverse sort of way.

There does appear to be plenty of piracy already going on in some places, not under cover of government authority, and USA has been stealing stuff right and left since Trump came into office, if not before.

[Apr 12, 2020] Anglo-saxon countries have a very strong culture of individual independence, therefore a high demand for nursery homes as the population gets older. They became COVID-19 hot spots

Apr 12, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , Apr 11 2020 14:54 utc | 172

Meanwhile, the SARS CoV-2 had quite a feast in NY yesterday:

Nearly 2,000 Dead as Coronavirus Ravages Nursing Homes in N.Y. Region

Anglo-saxon countries have a very strong culture of individual independence, therefore a high demand for nursery homes as the population gets older. Contrary to the Latin countries, old people don't stay to live with their adult children, but are exiled in nursery homes instead.

Nursery homes are a banquet for the SARS CoV-2. We already had a case of 11 deaths at the same time in a nursery home in Japan some weeks ago, and also the Seattle nursery home fiasco when the pandemic first reached the USA, so it's not that this was an unknown unknown.

[Apr 11, 2020] The virus has successfully installed itself in the population and is impossible to eradicate without a year-long lock down, making herd immunity the preferential goal to achieve.

Apr 11, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

mk , Apr 10 2020 16:13 utc | 5

A German team lead by virologist Hendrick Streeck has now researched the German Hot Spot Heinsberg. They tested 1000 randomized people and found that a whopping 15% was infected - most of them without showing any symptoms.

Based on this preliminary findings the scientists conclude that the lethality of COVID-19 is 0,37%. They also conclude that the virus has successfully installed itself in the population and is impossible to eradicate without a year-long lock down, making herd immunity the preferential goal to achieve.

Video of press conference (in German):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on8rqsikm88

[Apr 11, 2020] Coronavirus spread in UK is a 'crime' as NHS had 4 years to prepare for pandemic – John Pilger

Apr 11, 2020 | www.rt.com

Award-winning journalist John Pilger has revealed that the NHS staged an exercise in London in 2016 which proved it was unable to cope with a pandemic like Covid-19, but its findings were suppressed. Speaking to RT's Going Underground , Pilger said that back in 2016, the UK government ran a drill in London that showed the health service was incapable of dealing with an outbreak.

He described the failure as a "crime" and told host Afshin Rattansi that the findings from the exercise, titled Cygnus, had been concealed by the government.

"The result of the drill was that the health service was overwhelmed, there weren't enough beds, there weren't enough ventilators, there weren't enough clinicians in the right places. The whole system, which had been battered by cuts and privatization for years, failed," he said.

The journalist explained that the NHS had been "devastated" by the Tory-led government's decision to bring in the Health and Social Care Act in 2012.

Pilger's scathing comments come a day after the UK recorded its most deaths in a single day since the crisis began. The 854 fatalities took the total to 6,159.

Projections by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, US, warned that the UK could become the European country worst-hit by Covid-19, possibly accounting for 40 percent of the continent's deaths.

The documentary film maker, whose most recent works include 'The Dirty War on the NHS,' also blasted successive British governments since the 1980s for slashing NHS funding and pursuing a policy of privatization by "stealth."

[Apr 11, 2020] The outbreak at the MSC South shelter comes after weeks of people pleading with the mayor to make change

Apr 11, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Richard Steven Hack , Apr 11 2020 2:57 utc | 109

Said this would happen...

COVID-19 Outbreak: 70 Test Positive for Coronavirus at San Francisco Homeless Shelter
https://tinyurl.com/wot2hmx

This is just the start of an outbreak that will likely result in San Francisco having more cases than New York...and more deaths.

And then add in the people in SROs...


The outbreak at the MSC South shelter comes after weeks of people pleading with the mayor to make changes. The shelter is near the corner of 5th and Bryant streets. Mayor London Breed made the sobering announcement of the large amount of cases during the San Franciso's daily COVID-19 update on Friday and warned the worst is yet to come.

No shit, you dumb bitch...

[Apr 11, 2020] COVID-19 Outbreak: 70 Test Positive for Coronavirus at San Francisco Homeless Shelter

This shows the limits of quarantine...
Apr 11, 2020 | tinyurl.com

OVID-19 Outbreak: 70 Test Positive for Coronavirus at San Francisco Homeless Shelter
https://tinyurl.com/wot2hmx

This is just the replay of the situation we have in New York and NJ.

And then add in the people in retirement homes and "Houston, we have a problem"...

The outbreak at the MSC South shelter comes after weeks of people pleading with the mayor to make changes. The shelter is near the corner of 5th and Bryant streets. Mayor London Breed made the sobering announcement of the large amount of cases during the San Franciso's daily COVID-19 update on Friday and warned the worst is yet to come.

No shit, you dumb bitch...

Quoting "... that is merely the reflection of the abdication of social responsibility by whole populations whose disinterest in politics has allowed the [neoliberal] scum to rise to the top."

BTW the above is a good description of our latest administration. BTW I still can't understand how with one trillion military budget the navy does not have masks and visors to protect that sailors on ships. Nothing was supplied since January. And I think we do have navy intelligence among other agencies.

We also have a problem with this brave soldier Švejk -- Cuomo with this unhealthy fascination with the number of ventilators instead of solving the problem with hot-spots in homeless shelters and retirement homes (he wants 40K as if they will fight the infection for him). I would put him on ventilator just to silence such an incompetent politician ;-)

Ventilator-associated lung injury - Wikipedia 

Of couse it is easier to give reommentrations the do the actual fight, but still...

[Apr 10, 2020] A relative and her husband returned to China recently from UK expecting to go to hotel for 14 days quarantine. Instead another passenger developed symptom on flight so all passengers isolated for testing.

Apr 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Ghost Ship , Apr 9 2020 8:47 utc | 97

Peter AU1 @ 88

A relative and her husband returned to China recently from UK expecting to go to hotel for 14 days quarantine. Instead another passenger developed symptom on flight so all passengers isolated for testing. Relative and husband tested positive but were asymptomatic (except she lost sense of taste & smell). Now in isolation hospital for minimum of 14 days until given all clear, then they'll spend another minimum of 14 days in quarantine in hotel until cleared again. How many western countries are doing/planning to do this?

[Apr 10, 2020] We are awash in examples of U.S. government incompetence - look up incompetence on Wikipedia has Pompous' photo (OK but it should).

Apr 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

jared , Apr 8 2020 16:58 utc | 52

@45 Posted by: JohninMK | Apr 8 2020 16:05 utc | 45

If I comprehend, the issue was that they knew there was a problem in November rather than December.
Not sure the point really, we are awash in examples of U.S. government incompetence - look up incompetence on Wikipedia has Pompous' photo (OK but it should).

Realistically:
- the government is slow to respond
- the government is bad at planning
- the government is around 1 million people all pulling in different directions
- it is only when problem is obvious and damaging that the government gets somewhat focused
- the virus is invisible
- the extent of damage was uncertain

I think at this point it has their attention.

[Apr 10, 2020] US Department of Defense give 1 million masks to IDF for coronavirus use

From comments: "Of course, Israel is the Pentagons biggest ally in keeping the military budget up. "
Apr 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Brendan , Apr 8 2020 8:49 utc | 5
April 7: Hospitals say feds are seizing masks and other coronavirus supplies without a word

bigger

April 8: US Department of Defense give 1 million masks to IDF for coronavirus use


bigger

Posted by b on April 8, 2020 at 7:43 UTC | Permalink

The Jpost article that b links to says that a million masks from China (donated by the US Department of Defense) arrived in Tel Aviv on Tuesday night. But Israel should have already had two million masks if this report from last weekend is correct:
The shipment will include two million masks, landing in Israel on Monday morning,
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-april-4-2020/

So that appears to be three million masks from China, plus those seized from American hospitals. Or are they fiddling the figures and pretending that those seized masks were legally purchased in China?


Brendan , Apr 8 2020 9:53 utc | 8

It appears that Mossad and others have recently acquired about two surgical masks per Israeli:

"5 April 2020,
(...)Last week, the Health Ministry said that security services and government ministries had managed to obtain 27 ventilators and a hoard of other medical equipment from abroad.

Hebrew media reported that the Mossad intelligence service, which has been tasked with securing medical equipment from abroad from unspecified countries amid worldwide shortages, helped obtain 25,000 N95 respiratory masks , 20,000 virus test kits, 10 million surgical masks , and 700 overalls for ambulance workers who usually carry out the initial testing for the virus.

It was the third such shipment by the Mossad over the past few weeks, aimed at addressing shortages in Israel."
https://www.timesofisrael.com/with-11-planes-israel-airlifts-huge-quantities-of-medical-equipment-from-china/

Mao , Apr 8 2020 9:58 utc | 9
Pompeo: "America remains the world's leading light of humanitarian goodness."

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1247559857206628354

Emily , Apr 8 2020 10:12 utc | 11
One million masks for the IDF.
Eat your heart out US Theodore Roosevelt and Guam.
US sailors right at the bottom of the Pentagon's priorities, thats for sure.
American military?.
Have one duty - die as required for Israel.
Including death by coronavirus by looks of things.....
More fool them.
Richard Steven Hack , Apr 8 2020 10:13 utc | 12
Bloody hell. The Pentagon procures a million masks from China, then gives them to Israel - when US doctors are running low in almost every city - not to mention that the military itself has soaring coronavirus cases it can't handle.

You gotta know some rich Jewish corporate billionaire was behind that crap and Kushner was just the conduit to get Trump to agree to it - probably in exchange for a big donation to Trump's campaign.

If there was ever a country that deserved to be on the end of a US bombing campaign - it's Israel - a racist, fanatical. colonialist, fascist, illegal terrorist state. Zionists - the biggest scumbags on the planet. But instead the US bombs everyone else Israel doesn't like.

But cheer up. Israel is a doomed nation. There is no way they can continue their path forever, historically speaking. I suspect they won't exist within another fifty years. They'll either be annihilated by their own nuclear weapons, or transformed into a bi-national state that is no longer primarily Jewish. And I don't particularly care which.

Mao , Apr 8 2020 12:41 utc | 17
The U.S. government's efforts to clean up Cold War-era waste from nuclear research and bomb making at federal sites around the country has lumbered along for decades, often at a pace that watchdogs and other critics say threatens public health and the environment.

Now, fallout from the global coronavirus pandemic is resulting in more challenges as the nation's only underground repository for nuclear waste finished ramping down operations Wednesday to keep workers safe.

Over more than 20 years, tons of waste have been stashed deep in the salt caverns that make up the southern New Mexico site. Until recently, several shipments a week of special boxes and barrels packed with lab coats, rubber gloves, tools and debris contaminated with plutonium and other radioactive elements were being trucked to the remote facility from South Carolina, Idaho and other spots.

That's all but grinding to a halt.

Shipments to the desert outpost will be limited for the foreseeable future while work at the country's national laboratories and defense sites shift to only those operations considered "mission critical."

Officials at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant warned state regulators in a letter Tuesday that more time would be needed for inspections and audits and that work would be curtailed or shifts would be staggered to ensure workers keep their distance from one another.

https://apnews.com/36eec1b19f113b62fa94f2f0388e240d

Ghost Ship , Apr 8 2020 12:41 utc | 18
... ... ...

BTW, the Al Quds Post (aka Jerusalem Post to Zionists) has changed the headline on that article to "Israel brings 1 million masks from China for IDF soldiers" Looks like the "New York Purchasing and Logistics Division" is part of the Israeli Ministry Of War All The Time. So the original was a nice story but fake news. Since there was no correction attached to the new version, it could be that Washington/Tel Aviv reckoned that this was a step to far even for Trump and the new version is the fake news.

Willy2 , Apr 8 2020 12:45 utc | 20
- This news simply confirms again that the US, under Trump, has become more corrupt. But this is a development that already started years, decades ago before Trump became president.
William Gruff , Apr 8 2020 13:00 utc | 22
Willy2 @20

I think the possibility should be considered that Trump just made preexisting corruption more visible rather than adding significantly to it. There are elaborate protocols and circuitous speech that professional politicians learn to use to obfuscate the corruption and make their own participation in that corruption seem not only acceptable but necessary or even in the public interest. Trump is either ignorant of these protocols or he just doesn't care.

vk , Apr 8 2020 13:26 utc | 24
This is not surprising at all. Israel's economy is completely dependent on American constant aid:

All is not what it seems: Israeli economy's relative success based on massive direct aid from the US and donations from the Jewish diaspora

Even with all this help (of which most go to the military sector), the Isreali economy can barely keep itself afloat:

[...] inequality of income and wealth is huge in Israel, the second worst in the 36 nation OECD group. The relative poverty rate for Haredim and Arabs (25% of the population) is near 50%, and even for other Israelis, it is higher than the OECD average. The gap in median wage levels from skilled to unskilled; from Haredim/Arabs to others is huge - and yet the former will constitute 50% of the population by 2060.

And this mask fiasco is the lesser problem for the American working class right now. A significant portion of its people is going hungry . That magic USD 1,200 check is not coming soon:

"the checks are not in the mail."

And the problem isn't just in the USA. The periphery of Western Civilization is also going to suffer:

Germany and France: the sharpest contractions in national output for 75 years.

Germany's economy will shrink almost 10 per cent in the three months to June, according to the country's top economic research institutes, the sharpest decline since quarterly national accounts began in 1970 and double the size of the biggest drop in the 2008 financial crisis.

The shutdown of vast swaths of economic activity to contain the spread of the pandemic is knocking 1.5 percentage points off French growth for every two weeks that it continues, the Banque de France warned on Wednesday.

After more than three weeks in lockdown, French economic output is expected to have fallen by the sharpest rate since the second world war, the central bank said, forecasting that gross domestic product contracted 6 per cent in the first three months of the year.


jared , Apr 8 2020 13:41 utc | 26
However, to the matter of Israel and the virus:
I thought they were having strangely little impact from virus.

Anyway, this is all very revealing.

You know how people always question:
Why did that woman remain in that abusive relationship?

Nathan Mulcahy , Apr 8 2020 14:18 utc | 29
"US Department of Defense give 1 million masks to IDF for coronavirus use"

MIGA

Phryne's frock , Apr 8 2020 14:23 utc | 31
Get everyone you know to read "Against Our Better Judgment" by Alison Weir. Absolutely the best short, supereasy read to open eyes of those who are unaware that they are unaware, I promise. If you can afford to, buy copies to give away.
red1chief , Apr 8 2020 14:34 utc | 32
Very brief, "b", but one of your best posts. This is an unmitigated outrage. The arrogance of the ruling class knows no bounds, and they are acting with impunity. Seems the ruling class doesn't even care anymore how widely known it is that the US has little sovereignty.
Circe , Apr 8 2020 14:41 utc | 35
Is Trump charging for the masks or are they an added bonus to the 4 billion Israel already gets annually?

In 2018 Trump cut all aid to UNRWA destined for Palestine.

Screw Trump. Palestinians have started producing their own masks; up to 50,000 per day as well as protective gowns.

[Apr 09, 2020] Dr. Fauci Says US COVID-19 US Deaths Could Be As Low As 60K After Warning Millions Could Die

This guy is really a fearmonger who after sleeting for two months greatly contributed with his idiotic interviews to the botched reaction of the US government to this crisis. He should go
Notable quotes:
"... And now, after the Trump Administration scrambled to ramp up testing capacity and the states worked with the Feds, private entities, and others (including in some cases foreign nations) to distribute ventilators as Gov. Andrew Cuomo painted a horrifying portrait of sickened New Yorkers suffocating to death in hospital hallways because there were no ventilators available. ..."
"... Well, yesterday, NYC Mayor de Blasio said that, after a few days of near capacity numbers, hospitalizations have dropped by such a steep degree that the city believes it has enough ventilators on hand, and won't need any more. ..."
Apr 09, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

And now, after the Trump Administration scrambled to ramp up testing capacity and the states worked with the Feds, private entities, and others (including in some cases foreign nations) to distribute ventilators as Gov. Andrew Cuomo painted a horrifying portrait of sickened New Yorkers suffocating to death in hospital hallways because there were no ventilators available.

Well, yesterday, NYC Mayor de Blasio said that, after a few days of near capacity numbers, hospitalizations have dropped by such a steep degree that the city believes it has enough ventilators on hand, and won't need any more.

Now on Thursday, Dr. Fauci is taking to cable news to spread the message of optimism that has lifted US stocks over the past few days: Instead of the 240k figure used by President Trump as recently as two weeks ago, Dr. Fauci told NBC News that if the public continued to stick to the "mitigation efforts", that the death toll might be as low as 60k.

[Apr 09, 2020] Pennsylvania nursing home says all 800 patients and staff have COVID-19 by Samuel Davidson

Nurse: "Not providing staff with masks and other personal protective gear is criminal"
Apr 09, 2020 | www.wsws.org

After being unable to do the required testing, one of the largest nursing homes in western Pennsylvania is operating under the assumption that all of the facility's nearly 800 patients and staff have been infected with COVID-19.

As of Tuesday, three patients had died and at least 42 patients and 10 staff members at the Brighton Rehabilitation and Wellness Center have tested positive for COVID-19. The center has also stopped listing the number of patients and staff infected along with the number of deaths on their daily posting.

Family and friends of those in the nursing home are distraught as they are unable to see their loved ones and are now unable to find out whether they are infected or not.

Keri Boyer, the daughter of 73-year-old Earl Denbow, who died Monday from COVID-19, told Channel 11 news how fast her father died. "They called me last Monday to say that he wasn't feeling well, and they started him on an IV and he had a slight fever. They tested him Thursday. They got the (positive) results on Friday. They called hospice in on Sunday, and he was gone yesterday ... that quick."

Nurses and other staff at the facility were outraged at the speed the infection was growing inside the home and the lack of action by management to stop the spread and provide staff protective gear. Nurses report that they have been sent to work with patients with COVID-19 and were denied N95 masks.

On Thursday, nurses and other health care workers at the facility walked off the job demanding management provide them with protective equipment as the coronavirus spread through the 589-bed facility.

Tamera Witherspoon, a nurse, told WTAE-TV that she was sent to work with COVID-19 patients, but was denied access to even a face mask. "I can't believe I was denied as a health care worker, from another health care worker, to work in unsafe conditions," Witherspoon told the Pittsburgh TV station.

"I was livid, but I was also on duty," she said. "There are patients that need to be cared for so I'm in a predicament." Witherspoon told the station that she was angry but continued to care for her patients, but was outraged when she saw administrators wearing the protective gear.

"You're not doing patient care and I'm at the bedside doing patient care, and I have three kids at home and I ask you and you're denying me to have an N95? I just think that's deplorable," she said.

Union officials worked quickly to end the walkout and get staff to return to work, promising workers would receive N95 masks and "frontline" workers' hazard pay.

In a contemptuous press release, SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania President Matthew Yarnell said, "This crisis has highlighted how vulnerable our health care system is and that caregivers' input and voice is absolutely essential if we want to provide high-quality care in this country."

Rather than fighting for full protective gear, universal testing and emergency action to stop the spread and protect the patients and workers, the union works as a second level of management to ensure the nursing home remains running with enough staff.

On Monday, unable to test all the patients and staff that showed symptoms, management at the nursing home, along with local health officials, decided to designate anyone with symptoms COVID-19 positive and assume that all 450 patients and 300 staff members are also infected.

While local news is treating this as management finally recognizing the severity of the crisis, in reality they are accepting the possibility that scores of patients and staff will die while taking no action to further stop the spread of the virus.

Support the World Socialist Web Site and its coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. Donate today.

No attempt is being made to isolate and remove those who are not yet infected. No additional equipment is being brought into the home to treat the sick, no facilities are in place to house the staff and protect their families and the community from its spread.

The virus continues to spread through Pennsylvania. State health officials reported that there was a surge in deaths, climbing 48 percent on Tuesday, with 78 new deaths bringing the total to 240. The total number of cases has climbed to 14,669.

"We assume that the true rate of [COVID-19] is much higher than the one we're reporting," State Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine, said.

Throughout Pennsylvania, 664 health care workers have been infected; 674 people living in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities outside the Beaver nursing home have also been infected.

A nurse who works at a long-term care home near Pittsburgh, a sister facility of the Brighton Rehabilitation and Wellness Center, told the World Socialist Web Site that the company only cares about profits and not the patients or the staff.

"To think that they are not providing staff with masks and other personal protective gear is criminal," said the nurse, who asked not to be identified for fear of losing her job. "They say they don't want to scar the patients, but without protection you are spreading the virus."

She explained that about a month ago, they had to move one of their patients to the Brighton facility to get her away from another patient who was bullying her. "We were all sickened when we learned that she was one of the ones who died," she said.

"This is a long-term facility. You get to know all the patients here and they become like family. It is very hard when something like this happens that didn't have to."

"This wouldn't have happened if we had universal health care," the nurse said. "We could send a patient to a facility that best suited them. But because this company only wants to make money, she was sent to one of their facilities."

The nurse also explained that the lack of support for staff helps to explain the rapid spread of COVID-19 inside the nursing home. "Nurses don't get any sick days until they've worked a year."

Aides and other staff in nursing homes are some of the lowest paid and overworked workers in the country. In many facilities, aides don't even make $15 an hour, with some paid as low as $10, $11 and $12 with little or no benefits.

"Being an aide was the hardest job I ever had," the nurse said. "You are constantly working and in direct contact with patients, feeding them, taking them to the bathroom, cleaning them, bathing them, getting them dressed."

Without proper protection and training, workers can unwillingly transfer COVID-19 from one patient to another. The center says that they have only 600 masks and 2,500 surgical gowns on hand, meaning staff will be forced to reuse masks. The cloth-type surgical gowns will not protect an employee from COVID-19 and can even transfer the virus from one person to another.

Following the line of the Trump administration to downplay the danger, as the pandemic spread throughout Pennsylvania and the US, neither the local nor state Departments of Health laid down guidelines to protect nursing home patients and health care workers from COVID-19.

[Apr 09, 2020] An Amazon Warehouse Is Dealing With a Coronavirus Outbreak

Notable quotes:
"... By ..."
"... By ..."
off-guardian.org
A cluster of Covid-19 cases at the AVP1 facility in eastern Pennsylvania has spooked workers and sparked a federal investigation. By Matt Day , Spencer Soper , and Josh Eidelson Amazon Warehouse Warned Staff Not to Touch Shipments for 24 Hours A cluster of Covid-19 cases at the AVP1 facility in eastern Pennsylvania has spooked workers and sparked a federal investigation. By Matt Day , Spencer Soper , and Josh Eidelson , ‎April‎ ‎08‎, ‎2020‎ ‎2‎:‎50‎ ‎PM
A worker carries Amazon boxes in New York on March 26.

A worker carries Amazon boxes in New York on March 26.

Photographer: Angus Mordant/Bloomberg
SHARE THIS ARTICLE Share Tweet Post Email In this article AMZN AMAZON.COM INC 2,043.00 USD +31.40 +1.56%
A worker carries Amazon boxes in New York on March 26.
A worker carries Amazon boxes in New York on March 26. Photographer: Angus Mordant/Bloomberg
Photographer: Angus Mordant/Bloomberg

Last week, a manager at an Amazon.com Inc. warehouse in eastern Pennsylvania issued a stark warning to his team on how to handle shipments from another Amazon facility afflicted with the coronavirus: Don't touch them for 24 hours.

"As a precaution surrounding Covid-19 concerns, a directive came in today to let ALL loads from AVP1 sit for 24 hours prior to opening/receiving," the manager said in an email reviewed by Bloomberg. "Please do not process any AVP1 trailers before the 24-hour mark."

The AVP1 warehouse in Hazle Township is among dozens of Amazon facilities where employees have been diagnosed with Covid-19, including a warehouse on Staten Island that has been roiled by worker protests. But the cluster of at least 21 positive tests at AVP1 appears to be one of the most severe in Amazon's sprawling logistics network. With many workers now afraid to come to work, employees said the company is struggling to keep the facility open and orders flowing, which an Amazon spokeswoman disputed. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Wednesday that it is opening an investigation into working conditions at AVP1.

Amazon Workers At Staten Island Warehouse Strike Over Coronavirus Protection
Employees protest at Amazon.com's Staten Island distribution facility on March 30. Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

One of 10 such warehouses in Amazon's U.S. fulfillment network, AVP1 is an important cog in the smooth functioning of the online retailer's logistics machine, according to Marc Wulfraat, a consultant who studies the company's operations. Extended closures of Amazon facilities could fracture the company's finely tuned network, delaying deliveries to customers who would rather avoid stores and shop online instead.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-coronavirus-dash/

Employees at AVP1 were informed of at least 21 cases in their ranks, according to voicemails and text messages from the facility's management reviewed by Bloomberg. Three employees said more cases disclosed in meetings may not be included in the tally of 21. The employees, two of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from their employer, said paranoia is rife that the virus is spreading from employee to employee in the building, though they have no hard evidence to back up that suggestion. In the meantime, absenteeism has surged, the employees said.

relates to Amazon Warehouse Warned Staff Not to Touch Shipments for 24 Hours
Andrea Houtsch Source: Andrea Houtsch

"It's kind of a Petri dish," said Andrea Houtsch, who last worked March 27 and has been taking unpaid time off so she doesn't catch the virus. "Any time you've got hundreds of people in the same building, breathing the same air, no matter how far you stay apart, there's that chance." She added: "Amazon is not responsible for this pandemic, nobody was prepared for this. They just need to be realistic about what's happening here. Once things get better, I have no problem going back."

Amazon said the guidance about goods coming from AVP1 was a mistake. "This was an error in communication made locally with positive intentions but was misinformed -- it has since been corrected," Kristen Kish, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in an emailed statement. "Based on guidance from the CDC, the WHO, and the Surgeon General, there is currently no evidence that COVID-19 is being spread through packages. It's a belief within the infectious disease community that if there was transmission through packages there would have been immediate global spread early in the outbreak, that did not happen and it confirms the risk as incredibly low."

Kish declined to provide a complete count of Covid-19 cases at AVP1 or comment on the OSHA investigation. Amazon says it has stepped up cleaning measures at all of its facilities, in line with federal guidance for employers allowed to stay open as state orders close many businesses. The Seattle company has staggered shift start times, reorganized break rooms and repositioned workstations to prevent employees from congregating.

This week, Amazon is rolling out temperature screenings and a limited supply of masks for employees to wear during their shifts. The company has also offered temporary raises and more lucrative overtime to people who keep working, and said it will give two weeks of sick pay to those diagnosed with Covid-19 or quarantined after being exposed to someone with the disease.

Still, concerns about getting sick, or infecting loved ones, continue to fester. Hazleton, home to about 25,000 people, has been hit hard by the coronavirus. It is in Luzerne County, which has the third most cases per capita in Pennsylvania, behind nearby Lehigh and Monroe counties, according to Pennsylvania Department of Health data. Commodities giant Cargill Inc. this week idled a beef plant located near AVP1 after workers there tested positive for Covid-19. "People are scared to death," said another employee at AVP1. One worker, afraid of spreading the disease to family members at home, last week broke down and started crying in the break room, two colleagues said.

The Hazle Township facility, west of the town of Hazleton, opened in 2008, one of the first in a decade-long expansion from a handful of warehouses to hundreds across the U.S. AVP1 is the anchor of a cluster of depots Amazon built in Pennsylvania to take advantage of cheap real estate, a workforce reeling from the loss of manufacturing jobs and a relatively short trip to major cities like New York and Philadelphia.

Amazon's warehouses are best known for orange robots zipping around, ferrying products to workers who place them in bins and send them along a conveyor belt to be shipped out. AVP1 is different. Called an inbound cross-dock, it receives pallets of goods from manufacturers, many of them overseas, breaks them down and then ships them on to Amazon warehouses. The facility handles all manner of goods, and shipments in recent weeks included sought-after items such as Lysol wipes, as well as bedsheets, books and toys, workers said.

On March 26, AVP1 staff were informed of the first Covid-19 cases and quickly shared the information with the Hazelton News 1 website. More people began calling in sick, or staying home, in the following days as managers disclosed more cases at impromptu meetings, the employees said. Some people, worried they weren't being informed of cases from other shifts or departments, started comparing notes on social media and sharing contact details of local and federal authorities. Amazon said it's informing all workers as new cases are confirmed.

The next week, dozens of new staffers arrived at AVP1, according to two employees, part of a hiring surge Amazon has unleashed to keep warehouses open and meet rising demand. Workers said Amazon is using the new hires to fill gaps left by employees who have chosen to stay away to avoid being exposed or to take care of children whose schools have closed.

Trainers at AVP1, worried about working with people they don't know or who hail from from the hard-hit New York area, refused to train the new hires, according to two employees. Instead of six hours of supervised, hands-on work in small groups, the batch of recruits spent last Monday in the break room watching instructional videos before a question and answer session with a manager.

Early last week, more than half of one shift's 500 or so workers didn't show up, according to an employee briefed on the numbers. Then about 30 minutes before the end of the shift, managers announced there were seven additional Covid-19 cases among their coworkers. That prompted all but a handful of the more than 100 workers in the shipping department to leave rather than finish their shift, said one employee who was there. Before long, products started backing up, triggering an alarm and halting the conveyors, the employee said, and managers had to help clear the backlog and send out the final shipments.

Amazon says it has adjusted staffing at its facilities to make it possible for employees to practice social distancing.

Meanwhile, workers at a warehouse in nearby Pittston were told to let goods coming from the warehouse sit for at least 24 hours. "It just made us more anxious," said an employee at the Pittston warehouse. The employee said the guidance was still in effect as of Tuesday.

Workers at AVP1 last weekend were told by automated text message and voice call of four additional Covid-19 cases. On Monday evening, they were informed of nine more. The messages said the site had undergone "enhanced cleanings" since the sick employees last worked and that Amazon would send home, with pay, those who have been in close contact with the sick. The company this week also began encouraging employees to wear face masks, in line with updated federal health guidance. Employees were welcome to bring their own, and Amazon will also have "limited quantities" on site, the messages said. (Amazon on Wednesday said it had enough masks for all employees in its facilities.)

"We understand the risk of exposure is low for those who weren't in close contact with the affected associate," the message said.

[Apr 08, 2020] WATCH Perspectives on the Pandemic #2

Apr 08, 2020 | off-guardian.org

The Interviewer : John Kirby is the director of FOUR DIED TRYING, a feature documentary and series on the major assassinations of the 1960's and their calamitous impact on the country. To join the struggle for justice for Dr. King, Malcolm X, and John and Robert Kennedy.

The Interviewee: Professor Knut Wittkowski was head of The Rockefeller University's Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design for 20 years.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/lGC5sGdz4kg

Journeyman Pictures sits down with Prof Knut Wittkowski to discuss lockdowns, social-distancing and the best way to handle the spread of a new disease.


Dennis Brown ,

Another superb contribution by Off Guardian.

In Canada, according to the Covid-19 Daily E.P.I Update of April 7th there have been 17,046 confirmed cases out of a total population in Canada of 37.6M.

344 have died.

62% of all reported hospitalizations, 62% reported I.C.U. admissions , and 92% of deaths occurred among individuals 60-79 years of age. 73% of hospitalized cases reported having one or more pre-existing conditions.

The data in Canada , at least, seems to conform very closely to Prof. Knut Wittkowski's hypothesis in this video. What a outrage that this information is being deliberately ignored by the mainstream media!

Thank you again Off Guardian for providing this vitally needed information.

Fair dinkum ,

Oligarchs and their underlings (politicians and corporate types) love to hold court, particularly over a banquet at their preferred eating establishments.
With most of these establishments closed due to lockdowns, where are the parasites dining?
Do they have five star glutton rooms hidden away?
Will they tire of take away meals?
How can they strut their stuff without the requisite surroundings?
It's a problem that must keep them awake at night.

Gary Weglarz ,

We were moved to tears and ready to go to war when they told us about those non-existent "Kuwaiti incubator babies" that Iraqi soldiers were throwing on the cold hard ground to die – but weren't!

We were paralyzed and terrified when they told us that steel and concrete buildings can simply vaporize into billowing dust clouds in mid- air – so we in America gladly became in effect a surveillance police state complete with torture chambers.

We were filled with anger and fear when they told us about those non-existent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction about to obliterate us at any moment but, uhh, it appears in retrospect they didn't happen to exist in this particular universe that we currently inhabit! Perhaps in another dimension?

We were revolted and filled with outrage when they told us about Gaddafi's non-existent "viagra fueled rape camps" – just before we turned Libya into rubble and an open slave market – "in order to save the women" – who weren't being raped in non-existent viagra fueled rape camps. Many admire Hillary because she valiantly stood with those women, who weren't being raped, in those non-existent rape camps – and Hillary of course could not contain her glee when publicly discussing the murder of a head of state and the destruction of an entire nation – cackling like the psychopath that she is.

We were repulsed when they told us about Assad's deranged non-existent gas attacks on his own people done for "kicks" no less – as the valiant White Helmeted jihadist crazies we in the West supported fearlessly slaughtered innocent civilians – well, let's not talk about that right now – let's focus on something upbeat, like those film awards the White Helmets got for their feature length – "documentary" – entered in the "complete freaking fantasy" category – always a Hollywood favorite.

And we were no doubt all moved to loathing and contempt and to deranged Cold War deja vu fervor when they told us for three straight years that – "Russia hacked American democracy" – installing in office an orange haired, gonad grabbing, "Putin Puppet!" Surely there is a good reason they then gave said "Putin Puppet" renewed "Patriot Act" powers and more military spending money than he asked for – all in such defiance of rational thought and argument that it should make one's head hurt. Alas, here in America the ability to experience cognitive dissonance appears to have evaporated among the masses simultaneously with the loss of critical thinking abilities.

So buoyed by this brief trip down memory lane we should quite naturally all credulously believe Western MSM and our political class now as they tell us that "they" – (err, uhh, I mean "the virus") – crashed the global economy – leading them to then have no choice but to bail out our wealthiest corporations and our biggest banks – "for our own good" – of course, well, it goes without saying doesn't it?

And unfortunately they now will have to keep us all under house arrest until this all blows over – "for our own good!" I mean it is certainly only "for our own good" that they don't want to risk another Occupy Wall Street insurrection, or want to take the risk that the Yellow Vests might start building working guillotines in every village and every neighborhood in Paris.

I mean and sure it may kind of look bad that American elites have continued to use amoral sanctions to brutalize, starve and kill the poor in Iran, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Yemen and elsewhere – WHILE they are showing their vast concern for the rest of us by placing us under house arrest, but let's face it – "it is for those poor people's own good," I mean their starvation and dying of course, because we have to regime-change those folks governments "in order to save them." Or something like that.

I mean think about it, what have our elites ever done to cause us to so much as question their humanitarian values and actions? Ok, ok, that half million dead Iraqi children "are worth it" shtick wasn't their best PR moment, but hey, they obviously "meant well" by killing a half a million kids -- right? I mean I'm sure they had their "reasons." Just like they have their reasons for killing poor people all around the world every day.

– I must confess that I am absolutely stunned and disheartened by how few people I know who are so much as registering even a faint whiff of skepticism about what is happening globally, and the narratives being spun by MSM and the political class. I know so few who are asking even the most basic and fundamental questions about our so called "pandemic," our lock down, and our collective loss of liberties – even among those who didn't swallow the propaganda narratives on Russiagate or Syria. Instead we appear to have a massive segment of the American population simply willing to allow the same amoral always lying war-criminal media and political class – (which ALWAYS serve elite interests) – to "tell them how to think" and "what to think" and "how high" to jump – and now even "when they can leave their own home." An absolutely stunning level of obedience – to say the least.

Maxwell ,

"I'm not paid by the [corporation] government, so I'm entitled to actually do science."

Says it all.

Shaking My Head ,

I am not some kind of anti-government conservative at all, but I do think the dependencies academics, doctors, and scientists have on what can be very uncertain government funding is the reason why I haven't seen any loud critical voices from them in Canada. All the scholars whether of humanities or law, where are they in denouncing an obvious transformation into a police state? All the talk about 'civil liberties' over the years and how they must be protected, where did all of that go? Not one peep these last weeks! And as for doctors and scientists, why aren't there are any like the Germans such as Sucharit Bhakdi or Wolfgang Wodarg or Knut Wittkowski, or Americans such as John Ioannidis, Jay Bhattacharya, Michael Levitt, (John/Jay/Michael all at Stanford), Shiva Ayyadurai (I'm a bit suspicious of his political aspirations though). And there are other Germans I saw mentioned in the experts article on Off-Guardian or Swiss Propaganda Research article. Yet in Canada, it's total silence. But if you look on Twitter, there are a number of everyday people from the US and UK who are criticizing the phoniness and deception as they see it. So if the common people can call things out, where are the others with more status and reach? It's sickening.

Sam ,

I've been thinking this since this all blew up. Bhattacharya said (in this interview) that he got a deal of backlash from colleagues over his WSJ article raising questions about the fatality estimates: he was told to "get with the program". Groupthink is very powerful today, more powerful than I remember in my lifetime, and few will buck the party line. It's indeed sickening and disturbing.

Ken ,

But as self-appointed lord and emperor of the world, Bill Gates, has said we can't have herd immunity.

Shaking My Head ,

Bill Gates has recently been granted some very accommodating interviews all of a sudden. Here he is with Trevor Noah operating as a good PR rep: https://twitter.com/21WIRE/status/1246577506309857280 And here he was on PBS News Hour today: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/bill-gates-on-outlook-for-a-covid-19-vaccine-and-where-pandemic-will-hurt-most Not a single tough question about anything towards him. Maybe he funds PBS directly or indirectly. This is so fishy.

Shaking My Head ,

Bill Gates has also donated to Imperial College (I saw a comment stating he was the biggest donor but I didn't have time to research that): https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/gates-foundation-awards-35-million-for-mosquito-research "With its latest award of $35 million, the foundation has now invested a total of $75 million in the Target Malaria project, which is based at Imperial College, London"

[Apr 08, 2020] WHO can we trust Just when coronavirus gave the World Health Organization its moment to shine, it bottled it -- RT Op-ed

Apr 08, 2020 | www.rt.com

The WHO had been made aware of Covid-19 by December last year. In January, it posted a tweet saying: "Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in Wuhan, China."

Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan , #China 🇨🇳. pic.twitter.com/Fnl5P877VG

-- World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 14, 2020

Then in February, Ghebreyesus declared that there was no need for travel bans, saying the spread of the virus outside China was "minimal and slow." Fast forward to March 11, and Dr Tedros was telling the world that coronavirus was officially a pandemic and that he was "deeply concerned by alarming levels of inaction" as it spread. Days later, he tweeted that the "pandemic is accelerating."

Then, at a press conference, he said that "all countries should be able to test all suspected cases" because "they cannot fight this pandemic blindfolded." Perhaps if countries had been warned about the need for widespread testing sooner; they would have been better placed to implement such measures?

The #COVID19 pandemic is accelerating. It took 67 days from the 1st reported case to reach the first 100K cases, 11 days for the second 100K cases & just 4 days for the third 100K cases.These numbers matter, these are people, whose lives & families have been turned upside down. https://t.co/VydhLBNq36

-- Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) March 23, 2020

Obviously, hindsight is 20/20 and it is very easy to criticize a person or an organization for not predicting something after it has happened. But the WHO should have been better prepared for this, not least because it already had experience of the spread of SARS, MERS, H5N1 and swine flu in recent years to draw on. Admittedly, none spread as virulently as Covid-19, but it was obvious from those outbreaks that measures such as testing and restricting travel would help slow the spread.

Perhaps it was concerned about again being accused of overreacting, as it had been by some in response to the 2009 swine flu outbreak. Possibly, it too readily believed the low figures being reported by China during the early part of this year. Maybe it assumed countries were more prepared to deal with pandemics than they turned out to be. Whatever the reasons may or may not be, the fact remains that when the world turned to the WHO, it failed. No amount of publicity stunts, like today's appearance by Lady Gaga, will change that.

WHO will have a special guest at today's #COVID19 press conference: @ladygaga will be joining us to announce the One World: #TogetherAtHome virtual global special on 18 April 2020. 📺 at 15.30 GMT

-- World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) April 6, 2020

Exactly where in the organization's structure the blame lies is impossible for an outsider to say, but surely the buck must stop eventually with Dr Tedros. His messaging early on in this crisis hugely downplayed the risks and has without question led to a situation that at least had a chance of being avoided. When the dust has settled, and the virus is finally brought under control, a serious question will have to be asked: who can trust the WHO?

[Apr 08, 2020] Americans Likely to Suffer Serious Health Issues if Drinking Rates Surge Amid Pandemic

Looks like propaganda. As bars are now closed it might well be a fake surge, just a shift in consumption pattern. The surge of domestic violence is probably very real... But it happens in all countries under quarantine, and the USA in no exception.
Apr 08, 2020 | sputniknews.com
Nielsen data , for the week ending March 14, US liquor and grocery stores saw sales of wine up 27.6%, spirits by 26.4% and beer, cider and malt beverages by 14% compared to the same time last year. Some of this is a result of people buying in bulk for the purpose of stockpiling, with sales of 3-liter boxes of wine rising by 53% and purchases of 24-packs of beer increasing by 24%. Online alcohol sales for that week were similarly up 42% compared to the same time last year.
Health researchers caution that the increase in alcohol consumption will have both short- and long-term consequences on personal health and safety. Because alcohol abuse suppresses the body's immune system, excessive drinking could increase the likelihood of contracting COVID-19.

Long-term effects of binge drinking during the coronavirus crisis may include people normalizing patterns of such behavior, which increases the probability of alcohol dependency disorders in the future.

Amid the lockdown and higher rates of alcohol abuse, safety risks have also gone up. In San Antonio, Texas, domestic violence calls have surged 21% amid the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders.

[Apr 08, 2020] Feudal Japan Edo and the US Empire by Hiroyuki Hamada

Notable quotes:
"... This article is from a Chinese state media outlet repeating some questions regarding the origin of the Coronavirus. The questions are serious ones which can easily topple entire official US narratives on the matter and beyond. ..."
"... If the illness has originated from the US military facility as it has been concluded by some, and the US has covered it up and blamed the illness on China, the US didn't only exposed its own citizens to the virus, but it knowingly caused deaths and sufferings among its own people. It erroneously blamed China for not acting fast enough against the situation, while adding the coronavirus deaths to the US annual flu deaths -- which is always high due to its dysfunctional healthcare system. ..."
"... When a crisis situation is identified in mobilizing the population, one common technique to contain dissenting voices is a use of false equivalency. For example, in discussing the US imperial war against Syria, one might have said that Russia was bombing just like the US. ..."
Apr 08, 2020 | off-guardian.org

Lastly, as I describe the historical trajectory of the US empire, one can not not examine the nature of the current coronavirus situation. Although the event is still very much developing some of us have already raised many questions. This article is from a Chinese state media outlet repeating some questions regarding the origin of the Coronavirus. The questions are serious ones which can easily topple entire official US narratives on the matter and beyond.

If the illness has originated from the US military facility as it has been concluded by some, and the US has covered it up and blamed the illness on China, the US didn't only exposed its own citizens to the virus, but it knowingly caused deaths and sufferings among its own people. It erroneously blamed China for not acting fast enough against the situation, while adding the coronavirus deaths to the US annual flu deaths -- which is always high due to its dysfunctional healthcare system.

According to the allegations, some elected officials might have even profited from this murderous situation.

Subsequently, it stands to reason to question what has motivated the US to act in such a drastic manner against the virus after knowingly tolerating the deaths being caused by the virus for a few months.

Some points to keep in mind are:

A social crisis exacerbates structural violence against already oppressed population leading to augmentation of ruling class interests. A crisis allows bailout measures for those who are already being served by the system generously. A crisis allows codification of draconian policies to further restrict already oppressed population. A crisis justifies the existence of the authoritarian system. All of the above are various aspects of capitalist hierarchy to serve itself by harming its own people.

Please also refer to articles by Cory Morningstar on the topic.

When a crisis situation is identified in mobilizing the population, one common technique to contain dissenting voices is a use of false equivalency. For example, in discussing the US imperial war against Syria, one might have said that Russia was bombing just like the US.

However, needless to say, Russia was invited by Syrian government to fight West backed al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist groups in Syria. The liberation efforts by the Syrian Arab Army and its allies brought back Syrian people to their own communities which were devastated by the US proxy war against Syria.

Instances of falsely equating actions by the Chinese government and that of the US government must be pointed out in discussing the virus situation. Chinese government detecting a disease epidemic so that it can allocate sufficient medical care to its people is very different from the US totally ignoring medical threats regularly and suddenly decides to "care" in aimlessly draconian ways.

This Facebook post by Phil Greaves concisely lays out the differences. The post refers to Britain but it also applies to the US.

China: Lockdowns in only the most affected areas. Quarantine and hospital treatment for ALL suspected cases. Masks provided for everyone, no "two-meter" bullshit. 200 million CPC members & volunteers mobilised to serve the elderly & vulnerable with food and medicine. ALL wages paid in full for anyone off work due to the virus, for the entire duration.

95% production regained after 4 weeks.

Britain:

Nationwide house-arrest. Shuts down nearly the entire economy, sacks millions of workers, does not guarantee pay for even half of them. Gives the banks hundreds of billions. Massively reduces healthcare capacity. Allows supermarket chains to exploit panic buyers.

Economic depression inevitable.

It is also very different for the Chinese government to regulate circulation of false information in order to implement its policies effectively from the US censoring legitimate questions about its ineffective policies and its active policies to harm its own people and "others".

[Apr 08, 2020] Trump Adviser Peter Navarro Warned of Coronavirus Pandemic in January by Maggie Haberman

Apr 06, 2020 | www.nytimes.com

A memo from Peter Navarro is the most direct warning known to have circulated at a key moment among top administration officials.

A top White House adviser starkly warned Trump administration officials in late January that the coronavirus crisis could cost the United States trillions of dollars and put millions of Americans at risk of illness or death.

The warning, written in a memo by Peter Navarro, President Trump's trade adviser, is the highest-level alert known to have circulated inside the West Wing as the administration was taking its first substantive steps to confront a crisis that had already consumed China's leaders and would go on to upend life in Europe and the United States.

"The lack of immune protection or an existing cure or vaccine would leave Americans defenseless in the case of a full-blown coronavirus outbreak on U.S. soil," Mr. Navarro's memo said. "This lack of protection elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans."

Dated Jan. 29, it came during a period when Mr. Trump was playing down the risks to the United States, and he would later go on to say that no one could have predicted such a devastating outcome.

Mr. Navarro said in the memo that the administration faced a choice about how aggressive to be in containing an outbreak, saying the human and economic costs would be relatively low if it turned out to be a problem along the lines of a seasonal flu.

But he went on to emphasize that the "risk of a worst-case pandemic scenario should not be overlooked" given the information coming from China.

In one worst-case scenario cited in the memo, more than a half-million Americans could die.

A second memo that Mr. Navarro wrote, dated Feb. 23, warned of an "increasing probability of a full-blown COVID-19 pandemic that could infect as many as 100 million Americans, with a loss of life of as many as 1.2 million souls."

At that time, Mr. Trump was still downplaying the threat of the virus. The administration was considering asking Congress for more money to address the situation, and the second memo, which circulated around the West Wing and was obtained by The Times, urged an immediate supplemental spending appropriation from Congress of at least $3 billion.

"This is NOT a time for penny-pinching or horse trading on the Hill," Mr. Navarro wrote in the second memo, which was unsigned but which officials attributed to him. It was unclear whether Mr. Trump saw the second memo, whose contents were first reported by Axios.

The second memo seemed aimed at members of the White House Task Force established by Mr. Trump to manage the crisis, and reflected deep divisions within the administration about how to proceed and persistent feuding between Mr. Navarro and many other top officials about his role and his views.

"Any member of the Task Force who wants to be cautious about appropriating funds for a crisis that could inflict trillions of dollars in economic damage and take millions of lives has come to the wrong administration," the memo said.

Among other things, the memo called for an increase funding for the government to purchase personal protective equipment for health care workers, estimating they would need "at least a billion face masks" over a four-to-six-month period.

The administration ended up asking for $2.5 billion. Congress then approved $8 billion.

Mr. Navarro is now the administration's point person for supply chain issues for medical and other equipment needed to deal with the virus.

The January memo written by Mr. Navarro was dated the same day that Mr. Trump named the task force to deal with the threat, and as the administration was weighing whether to bar some travelers from China, an option being pushed by Mr. Navarro.

Mr. Trump would approve the limits on travel from China the next day, though it would be weeks before he began taking more aggressive steps to head off spread of the virus.

Questions about Mr. Trump's handling of the crisis, especially in its early days when he suggested it was being used by Democrats to undercut his re-election prospects, are likely to define his presidency. Mr. Navarro's memo is evidence that some in the upper ranks of the administration had at least considered the possibility of the outbreak turning into something far more serious than Mr. Trump was acknowledging publicly at the time.

Neither Mr. Navarro nor spokespeople for the White House responded to requests for comment.

The memo, which was reviewed by The New York Times, was sent from Mr. Navarro to the National Security Council and then distributed to several officials across the administration, people familiar with the events said. It reached a number of top officials as well as aides to Mick Mulvaney, then the acting chief of staff, they said, but it was unclear whether Mr. Trump saw it.

Mr. Navarro is a well-established China hawk who has long been mistrustful of the country's government and trade practices. Both Mr. Navarro and Matthew Pottinger, the chief deputy at the National Security Council, were among the few officials urging colleagues in January to take a harder line in relation to the growing threat of the coronavirus.

But their warnings were seen by other officials as primarily reflecting their concerns about China's behavior -- and their concerns look more prescient in hindsight than they actually were, other officials argue.

With the subject line "Impose Travel Ban on China?" Mr. Navarro opened the memo by writing, "If the probability of a pandemic is greater than roughly 1%, a game-theoretic analysis of the coronavirus indicates the clear dominant strategy is an immediate travel ban on China."

Mr. Navarro concluded at one point: "Regardless of whether the coronavirus proves to be a pandemic-level outbreak, there are certain costs associated with engaging in policies to contain and mitigate the spread of the disease. The most readily available option to contain the spread of the outbreak is to issue a travel ban to and from the source of the outbreak, namely, mainland China."

He suggested that under an "aggressive" containment scenario, a travel ban may need to last as long as 12 months for proper containment, a duration of time that at that point some White House aides saw as unsustainable.

The travel limits subsequently imposed by Mr. Trump did not entirely ban travel from China, and many travelers from the country continued to stream into the United States.

Mr. Navarro was at odds with medical experts like Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, who had argued that such travel bans only delay the eventual spread.

Mr. Navarro alluded to that debate on Saturday during a separate argument with Dr. Fauci in the Situation Room about whether the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine was effective in treating or preventing the virus, according to two people familiar with the events.

In the memo, Mr. Navarro cautioned that it was "unlikely the introduction of the coronavirus into the U.S. population in significant numbers will mimic a 'seasonal flu' event with relatively low contagion and mortality rates."

He noted the history of pandemic flus and suggested the chances were elevated for one after the new pathogen had developed in China.

"This historical precedent alone should be sufficient to prove the need to take aggressive action to contain the outbreak," he wrote, going on to say the early estimates of how easily the virus was spreading supported the possibility that the risks were even greater than the history of flu pandemics suggested.

Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting. The Coronavirus Outbreak

Frequently Asked Questions and Advice

Updated April 4, 2020

[Apr 08, 2020] Washington, Oregon Send Ventilators to States Hit Hardest by Coronavirus Best States US News

Apr 08, 2020 | www.usnews.com

Cuomo announced Monday that nearly 600 people in New York died from the virus since Sunday morning, raising the state's total coronavirus fatalities to 4,758. The state had 130,689 confirmed cases, he said.

[Apr 08, 2020] Emerging hotspots

Apr 08, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that rural Americans "tend to have higher rates of cigarette smoking, high blood pressure, and obesity. They also have higher rates of poverty, less access to healthcare, and are less likely to have health insurance."

"These are vulnerable populations with poor access to insurance who may have to travel far to get to a hospital," Kolak said. "It's a bit of a perfect storm with worse access to health care, less health insurance overall, and slow policies to take COVID-19 seriously."

[Apr 08, 2020] In Gulf's Oil Rigs, Crews Fight Virus to Keep Crude Flowing

Notable quotes:
"... Cramped quarters on drilling rigs leave no room for distancing ..."
"... That's led to worries about the safety of the sites, the biggest of which resemble mini-cities with as many as 200 workers, and the nation's dependence on their output. Oil wells in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico supply about 2 million barrels of crude a day, or 15% of U.S. production. ..."
Apr 08, 2020 | www.bloomberg.com
Cramped quarters on drilling rigs leave no room for distancing
Inside more than a thousand offshore drilling rigs and oil production platforms that dot the Gulf of Mexico, workers navigate narrow corridors, sleep in shared rooms and dine in crowded mess halls.

It's an environment designed for efficiency -- not for keeping a lethal coronavirus at bay.

"There's no way to do social distancing on a rig," said Tim Tarpley, vice president of the Petroleum Equipment and Services Association .

That's led to worries about the safety of the sites, the biggest of which resemble mini-cities with as many as 200 workers, and the nation's dependence on their output. Oil wells in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico supply about 2 million barrels of crude a day, or 15% of U.S. production.

[Apr 07, 2020] Flu Season That's Sickened 26 Million May Be at Its Peak

Apr 07, 2020 | www.usnews.com

At least 14,000 people have died and 250,000 have already been hospitalized during the 2019-2020 flu season, according to estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 26 million Americans have fallen ill with flu-like symptoms.

"There is a deadly respiratory virus that is circulating throughout the United States, and it is at its peak. It is not novel coronavirus," said Dr. Pritish Tosh, an infectious disease specialist with the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minn.

This flu season has come in two waves and has been particularly hard on children, the experts said.

The season started early, in October, with an unusual wave of influenza B virus.

Influenza B is less likely than other strains to mutate and become more virulent. That means it poses a greater threat to young people than to older folks, who may have gained immunity because they encountered the strain before.

The percentage of deaths attributed to flu and pneumonia currently is 6.8%, which is below the epidemic threshold of 7.3% , according to the CDC.

[Apr 07, 2020] Black Americans have higher rate in infectios then other groups

They are less likely to be insured, more likely to already have health conditions such as diabetes and obesity
Apr 07, 2020 | www.nytimes.com

African-Americans are suffering virus infections at disturbing rates in some of the largest cities and states in the United States, emerging statistics show.

In Louisiana, about 70 percent of the people who have died are African-American, though only a third of the state's population is black. In the county around Milwaukee, where 27 percent of residents are black, nearly twice as many African-American residents tested positive for the virus as white people. And in Chicago, where African-American residents make up a little less than a third of the population, more than half of those found to have the virus are black, and African-Americans make up 72 percent of those who have died of the virus.

Data on the race of those sickened by the virus has only been made public in a handful of places and is too limited to make sweeping conclusions. But racial disparities in cases and outcomes, researchers said, reflect what happens when a viral pandemic is layered on top of entrenched inequalities.

[Apr 06, 2020] While the sheep fight over toilet paper and hand sanitizer, banksers grab billions -- the tax payers hand over 1.5 trillion to Wall Street

Highly recommended!
Mar 15, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Uncle $cam , Mar 15 2020 0:13 utc | 51

It's gonna be okay... We are saved!

While the sheep fight over toilet paper and hand sanitizer, the tax payers hand over 1.5 trillion to wall street.

Fed to Inject $1.5 Trillion in Bid to Prevent ‘Unusual Disruptions’ in Markets

[Apr 06, 2020] Coronavirus A Theory of Incompetence

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The US for decades has as a matter of policy tried to reduce the number of hospital beds, which among other things has led to the shuttering of hospitals, particularly in rural areas. Hero of the day, New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo pursued this agenda with vigor, as did his predecessor George Pataki. ..."
"... In a functional system, much of the preparation and messaging would have been undertaken by the CDC. In this case, it chose not to simply adopt the World Health Organization's COVID-19 test kits -- stockpiling them in the millions in the months we had between the first arrival of the coronavirus in China and its widespread appearance here -- but to try to develop its own test. Why? It isn't clear. But they bungled that project, too, failing to produce a reliable test and delaying the start of any comprehensive testing program by a few critical weeks. ..."
"... Thomas Hobbes argued that life apart from society would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." Outside poor countries and communities, advances in science and industrialization have largely proven him right. ..."
"... Come quietly to The Gap ..."
"... "notions about parenting changed very drastically in the 80's" ..."
"... "the too-common belief that it is possible to run an operation, any operation, by numbers, appears to be a root cause." ..."
"... A sound banker, alas! is not one who foresees danger and avoids it, but one who, when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional and orthodox way along with his fellows, so that no one can really blame him. ..."
"... it didn't matter ..."
"... our identities as academics are unavoidably embedded in a form of neoliberal hyperglobalisation. We rely on unrestricted flows of (wealthy) bodies across borders. ..."
"... Variable coronavirus outcomes by nation could suggest a combination of elite incompetence, poor individual judgment, a lack of appreciation of risk in all its Rumsfeldian forms, corruption, a desire by oligarchs for autocratic control and being insulated and divorced from actual operations; or underlying cultural and economic factors. ..."
"... My own view is that we can trace the root cause of policy failure back to the dominant values of leadership and the values of the society/culture which spawned them regarding the relative importance of money in determining policy choices regarding public health and safety. ..."
Apr 06, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Leaders in the public and private sector in advanced economies, typically highly credentialed, have with very few exceptions shown abject incompetence in dealing with coronavirus as a pathogen and as a wrecker of economies. The US and UK have made particularly sorry showings, but they are not alone.

It's become fashionable to blame the failure to have enough medical stockpiles and hospital beds and engage in aggressive enough testing and containment measures on capitalism. But as I will describe shortly, even though I am no fan of Anglosphere capitalism, I believe this focus misses the deeper roots of these failures.

After all the country lauded for its response, South Korea, is capitalist. Similarly, reader vlade points out that the Czech Republic has had only 2 coronavirus deaths per million versus 263 for Italy . Among other things, the Czech Republic closed its borders in mid-March and made masks mandatory . Newscasters and public officials wear them to underscore that no one is exempt.

Even though there are plenty of examples of capitalism gone toxic, such as hospitals and Big Pharma sticking doggedly to their price gouging ways or rampant production disruptions due to overly tightly-tuned supply chains, that isn't an adequate explanation. Government dereliction of duty also abound. In 2006, California's Governor Arnold Schwarznegger reacted to the avian flu by creating MASH on steroids. From the LA Times :

They were ready to roll whenever disaster struck California: three 200-bed mobile hospitals that could be deployed to the scene of a crisis on flatbed trucks and provide advanced medical care to the injured and sick within 72 hours.

Each hospital would be the size of a football field, with a surgery ward, intensive care unit and X-ray equipment. Medical response teams would also have access to a massive stockpile of emergency supplies: 50 million N95 respirators, 2,400 portable ventilators and kits to set up 21,000 additional patient beds wherever they were needed

"In light of the pandemic flu risk, it is absolutely a critical investment," he [Governor Schwarznegger] told a news conference. "I'm not willing to gamble with the people's safety."

They were dismantled in 2011 by Governor Jerry Brown as part of post-crisis belt tightening.

The US for decades has as a matter of policy tried to reduce the number of hospital beds, which among other things has led to the shuttering of hospitals, particularly in rural areas. Hero of the day, New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo pursued this agenda with vigor, as did his predecessor George Pataki.

And even though Trump has made bad decision after bad decision, from eliminating the CDC's pandemic unit to denying the severity of the crisis and refusing to use government powers to turbo-charge state and local medical responses, people better qualified than he is have also performed disastrously. America's failure to test early and enough can be laid squarely at the feet of the CDC. As New York Magazine pointed out on March 12:

In a functional system, much of the preparation and messaging would have been undertaken by the CDC. In this case, it chose not to simply adopt the World Health Organization's COVID-19 test kits -- stockpiling them in the millions in the months we had between the first arrival of the coronavirus in China and its widespread appearance here -- but to try to develop its own test. Why? It isn't clear. But they bungled that project, too, failing to produce a reliable test and delaying the start of any comprehensive testing program by a few critical weeks.

The testing shortage is catastrophic: It means that no one knows how bad the outbreak already is, and that we couldn't take effectively aggressive measures even we wanted to. There are so few tests available, or so little capacity to run them, that they are being rationed for only the most obvious candidates, which practically defeats the purpose. It is not those who are very sick or who have traveled to existing hot spots abroad who are most critical to identify, but those less obvious, gray-area cases -- people who may be carrying the disease around without much reason to expect they're infecting others Even those who are getting tested have to wait at least several days for results; in Senegal, where the per capita income is less than $3,000, they are getting results in four hours. Yesterday, apparently, the CDC conducted zero tests

[O]ur distressingly inept response, kept bringing to mind an essay by Umair Haque, first published in 2018 and prompted primarily by the opioid crisis, about the U.S. as the world's first rich failed state

And the Trump Administration has such difficulty shooting straight that it can't even manage its priority of preserving the balance sheets of the well off. Its small business bailouts, which are as much about saving those enterprises as preserving their employment, are off to a shaky start . How many small and medium sized ventures can and will maintain payrolls out of available cash when they aren't sure when and if Federal rescue money will hit their bank accounts?

How did the US, and quite a few other advanced economies, get into such a sorry state that we are lack the operational capacity to engage in effective emergency responses? Look at what the US was able to do in the stone ages of the Great Depression. As Marshall Auerback wrote of the New Deal programs :

The government hired about 60 per cent of the unemployed in public works and conservation projects that planted a billion trees, saved the whooping crane, modernized rural America, and built such diverse projects as the Cathedral of Learning in Pittsburgh, the Montana state capitol, much of the Chicago lakefront, New York's Lincoln Tunnel and Triborough Bridge complex, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the aircraft carriers Enterprise and Yorktown. It also built or renovated 2,500 hospitals, 45,000 schools, 13,000 parks and playgrounds, 7,800 bridges, 700,000 miles of roads, and a thousand airfields. And it employed 50,000 teachers, rebuilt the country's entire rural school system, and hired 3,000 writers, musicians, sculptors and painters, including Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock.

What are the deeper causes of our contemporary generalized inability to respond to large-scale threats? My top picks are a lack of respect for risk and the rise of symbol manipulation as the dominant means of managing in the private sector and government.

Risk? What Risk?

Thomas Hobbes argued that life apart from society would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." Outside poor countries and communities, advances in science and industrialization have largely proven him right.

It was not long ago, in historical terms, that even aristocrats would lose children to accidents and disease. Only four of Winston Churchill's six offspring lived to be adults. Comparatively few women now die in childbirth.

But it isn't just that better hygiene, antibiotics, and vaccines have helped reduce the scourges of youth. They have also reduced the consequences of bad fortune. Fewer soldiers are killed in wars. More are patched up, so fewer come back in coffins and more with prosthetics or PTSD. And those prosthetics, which enable the injured to regain some of their former function, also perversely shield ordinary citizens from the spectacle of lost limbs. 1

Similarly, when someone is hit by a car or has a heart attack, as traumatic as the spectacle might be to onlookers, typically an ambulance arrives quickly and the victim is whisked away. Onlookers can tell themselves he's in good hands and hope for the best.

With the decline in manufacturing, fewer people see or hear of industrial accidents, like the time a salesman in a paper mill in which my father worked stuck his hand in a digester and had his arm ripped off. And many of the victims of hazardous work environments suffer from ongoing exposures, such as to toxic chemicals or repetitive stress injuries, so the danger isn't evident until it is too late.

Most also are oddly disconnected from the risks they routinely take, like riding in a car (I for one am pretty tense and vigilant when I drive on freeways, despite like to speed as much as most Americans). Perhaps it is due in part to the illusion of being in control while driving.

Similarly, until the coronavirus crisis, even with America's frayed social safety nets, most people, particularly the comfortably middle class and affluent, took comfort in appearances of normalcy and abundance. Stores are stocked with food. Unlike the oil crisis of the 1970, there's no worry about getting petrol at the pump. Malls may be emptying out and urban retail vacancies might be increasing, but that's supposedly due to the march of Amazon, and not anything amiss with the economy. After all, unemployment is at record lows, right?

Those who do go to college in America get a plush experience. No thin mattresses or only adequately kept-up dorms, as in my day. The notion that kids, even of a certain class, have to rough it a bit, earn their way up and become established in their careers and financially, seems to have eroded. Quite a few go from pampered internships to fast-track jobs. In the remote era of my youth, even in the prestigious firms, new hires were subjected to at least a couple of years of grunt work.

So the class of people with steady jobs (which these days are well-placed members of the professional managerial class, certain trades and those who chose low-risk employment with strong civil service protections) have also become somewhat to very removed from the risks endured when most people were subsistence farmers or small town merchants who served them.

Consider this disconnect, based on an Axios-Ipsos survey :

The coronavirus is spreading a dangerous strain of inequality. Better-off Americans are still getting paid and are free to work from home, while the poor are either forced to risk going out to work or lose their jobs.

Generally speaking, the people who are positioned to be least affected by coronavirus are the most rattled. That is due to the gap between expectations and the new reality. Poor people have Bad Shit Happen on a regular basis. Wealthy people expect to be able to insulate themselves from most of it and then have it appear in predictable forms, like cheating spouses and costly divorces, bad investments (still supposedly manageable if you are diversified!), renegade children, and common ailments, like heart attacks and cancer, where the rich better the odds by advantaged access to care.

The super rich are now bunkered, belatedly realizing they can't set up ICUs at home, and hiring guards to protect themselves from marauding hordes, yet uncertain that their mercenaries won't turn on them.

The bigger point is that we've had a Minksy-like process operating on a society-wide basis: as daily risks have declined, most people have blinded themselves to what risk amounts to and where it might surface in particularly nasty forms. And the more affluent and educated classes, who disproportionately constitute our decision-makers, have generally been the most removed.

The proximity to risk goes a long way to explaining who has responded better. As many have pointed out, the countries that had meaningful experience with SARS 2 had a much better idea of what they were up against with the coronavirus and took aggressive measures faster.

But how do you explain South Korea, which had only three cases of SARS and no deaths? It doesn't appear to have had enough experience with SARS to have learned from it.

A related factor may be that developing economies have fresh memories of what life was like before they became affluent. I can't speak for South Korea, but when I worked with the Japanese, people still remembered the "starving times" right after World War II. Japan was still a poor country in the 1960s. 3 South Korea rose as an economic power after Japan. The Asian Tigers were also knocked back on their heels with the 1997 emerging markets crisis. And of course Seoul is in easy nuke range of North Korea. It's the only country I ever visited, including Israel, where I went through a metal detector to enter and saw lots of soldiers carrying machine guns in the airport. So they likely have a keen appreciation of how bad bad can be.

The Rise and Rise of the Symbol Economy

Let me start with an observation by Peter Drucker that I read back in the 1980s, but will then redefine his take on "symbol economy," because I believe the phenomenon has become much more pervasive than he envisioned.

A good recap comes in Fragile Finance: Debt, Speculation and Crisis in the Age of Global Credit by A. Nesvetailova:

The most significant transformation for Drucker was the changed relationship between the symbolic economy of capital movements, exchange rates, and credit flows, and the real economy of the flow of goods and services:

in the world economy of today, the 'real economy' of goods and services and the 'symbol economy' of money, credit, and capital are no longer bound tightly to each other; they are indeed, moving further and further apart (1986: 783)

The rise of the financial sphere as the flywheel of the world economy, Drucker noted, is both the most visible and the least understood change of modern capitalism.

What Drucker may not have sufficiently appreciated was money and capital flows are speculative and became more so over time. In their study of 800 years of financial crises, Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff found that high levels of international capital flows were strongly correlated with more frequent and more severe financial crises. Claudio Borio and Petit Disyatat of the Banks of International Settlements found that on the eve of the 2008 crisis, international capital flows were 61 times as large as trade flows, meaning they were only trivially settling real economy transactions.

Now those factoids alone may seem to offer significant support to Drucker's thesis. But I believe he conceived of it too narrowly. I believe that modeling techniques, above all, spreadsheet-based models, have removed decision-makers from the reality of their decisions. If they can make it work on paper, they believe it will work that way.

When I went to business school and started on Wall Street, financiers and business analysts did their analysis by hand, copying information from documents and performing computations with calculators. It was painful to generate financial forecasts, since one error meant that everything to the right was incorrect and had to be redone.

The effect was that when managers investigated major capital investments and acquisitions, they thought hard about the scenarios they wanted to consider since they could look at only a few. And if a model turned out an unfavorable-looking result, that would be hard to rationalize away, since a lot of energy had been devoted to setting it up.

By contrast, when PCs and Visicalc hit the scene, it suddenly became easy to run lots of forecasts. No one had any big investment in any outcome. And spending so much time playing with financial models would lead most participants to a decision to see the model as real, when it was a menu, not a meal.

When reader speak with well-deserved contempt of MBA managers, the too-common belief that it is possible to run an operation, any operation, by numbers, appears to be a root cause. For over five years, we've been running articles from the Health Renewal Blog decrying the rise of "generic managers" in hospital systems (who are typically also spectacularly overpaid) who proceed to grossly mismanage their operations yet still rake in the big bucks.

The UK version of this pathology is more extreme, because it marries managerial overconfidence with a predisposition among British elites to look at people who work hard as "must not be sharp." But the broad outlines apply here. From Clive, on a Brexit post, when Brexit was the poster child of UK elite incompetence :

What's struck me most about the UK government's approach to the practical day-to-day aspects of Brexit is that it is exemplifying a typically British form of managerialism which bedevilles both public sector and private sector organisations. It manifests itself in all manner of guises but the main characteristic is that some "leader" issues impractical, unworkable, unachievable or contradictory instructions (or a "strategy") to the lower ranks. These lower ranks have been encouraged to adopt the demeanour of yes-men (or yes-women). So you're not allowed to question the merits of the ask. Everyone keeps quiet and takes the paycheck while waiting for the roof to fall in on them. It's not like you're on the breadline, so getting another year or so in isn't a bad survival attitude. If you make a fuss now, you'll likely be replaced by someone who, in the leadership's eyes is a lot more can-do (but is in fact just either more naive or a better huckster).

Best illustrated perhaps by an example -- I was asked a day or two ago to resolve an issue I'd reported using "imaginative" solutions. Now, I've got a a vivid imagination, but even that would not be able to comply with two mutually contradictory aims at the same time ("don't incur any costs for doing some work" and "do the work" -- where because we've outsourced the supply of the services in question, we now get real, unhideable invoices which must be paid).

To the big cheeses, the problem is with the underlings not being sufficiently clever or inventive. The real problem is the dynamic they've created and their inability to perceive the changes (in the same way as swinging a wrecking ball is a "change") they've wrought on an organisation.

May, Davies, Fox, the whole lousy lot of 'em are like the pilot in the Airplane movie -- they're pulling on the levers of power only to find they're not actually connected to anything. Wait until they pull a little harder and the whole bloody thing comes off in their hands.

Americans typically do this sort of thing with a better look: the expectations are usually less obviously implausible, particularly if they might be presented to the wider world. One of the cancers of our society is the belief that any problem can be solved with better PR, another manifestation of symbol economy thinking.

I could elaborate further on how these attitudes have become common, such as the ability of companies to hide bad operating results and them come clean every so often as if it were an extraordinary event, short job tenures promoting "IBG/YBG" opportunism, and the use of lawyers as liability shields (for the execs, not the company, natch).

But it's not hard to see how it was easy to rationalize away the risks of decisions like globalization. Why say no to what amounted to a transfer from direct factory labor to managers and execs? Offshoring and outsourcing were was sophisticated companies did. Wall Street liked them. Them gave senior employees an excuse to fly abroad on the company dime. So what if the economic case was marginal? So what if the downside could be really bad? What Keynes said about banker herd mentality applies:

A sound banker, alas! is not one who foresees danger and avoids it, but one who, when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional and orthodox way along with his fellows, so that no one can really blame him.

It's not hard to see how a widespread societal disconnect of decision-makers from risk, particularly health-related risks, compounded with management by numbers as opposed to kicking the tires, would combine to produce lax attitude toward operations in general.

I believe a third likely factor is poor governance practices, and those have gotten generally worse as organizations have grown in scale and scope. But there is more country-specific nuance here, and I can discuss only a few well, so adding this to my theory will have to hold for another day. But it isn't hard to think of some in America. For instance, 40 years ago, there were more midsized companies, with headquarters in secondary cities like Dayton, Ohio. Executives living in and caring about their reputation in their communities served as a check on behavior.

Before you depict me as exaggerating about the change in posture toward risks, I recall reading policy articles in the 1960s where officials wrung their hands about US dependence on strategic materials found only in unstable parts of Africa. That US would never have had China make its soldiers' uniforms, boots, and serve as the source for 80+ of the active ingredients in its drugs. And America was most decidedly capitalist in the 1960s. So we need to look at how things have changed to explain changes in postures towards risk and notions of what competence amounts to.

_____
1 One of my early memories was seeing a one-legged man using a crutch, with the trouser of his missing leg pinned up. I pointed to him and said something to my parents and was firmly told never to do anything like that again.

2 The US did not learn much from its 33 cases . But the lack of fatalities may have contributed.

3 Japan has had a pretty lame coronavirus response, but that is the result of Japan's strong and idiosyncratic culture. While Japanese are capable of taking action individually when they are isolated, in group settings, no one wants to act or even worse take responsibility unless their is an accepted or established protocol.


PlutoniumKun , April 6, 2020 at 7:15 am

Ian Walsh has a good take on it – he ascribes it to a new aristocracy, which has all the vices of the old aristocracy.

Let's chalk this up to aristocratic elites. Aristocrats, unlike nobles, are decadent, but don't stop with that word; understand what it means.

Elites who are not aligned with the actual productive activities of society and are engaged primarily in activities which are contrary to production, are decadent. This was true in Ancien Regime France (and deliberately fostered by Louis XIV as a way of emasculating the nobility). It is true today of most Western elites; they concentrate on financial numbers, and not on actual production. Even those who are somewhat competent tend not to be truly productive: see the Waltons, who made their money as distributers–merchants.

The techies have mostly outsourced production; they don't make things, they design them. That didn't work out for England in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and it hasn't worked well for the US, though thanks to Covid-19 and US fears surrounding China, the US may re-shore their production capacity before it is too late.

I think there is also a lot to be said for historical (and current) memories of crisis. Both South Korea and Taiwan are countries on a near permanent war footage – both have genuine reasons to fear an external attack (this is particularly visible in South Korea – bomb shelters and warnings everywhere). They are simply at a higher level of alert than most countries and take civil defence very seriously. Much the same applies to Vietnam.

I've noticed here that so far as I can see, the response in Ireland has been significantly better than the UK, despite the NHS being a far better system than the rickety, unequal, and notoriously bureaucratic Irish system. I've noticed that a lot of the official response has revived old protocols for TB and Polio – both diseases that ravaged Ireland into living memory – most old doctors of my acquaintance here will tell you horror stories and I grew up knowing people crippled from polio. While in the UK its fair to say I think that such horrors have slipped out of bureaucratic memory. People talk about the War, but in reality they have no real memory of the horrors of seeing neighbours die. So I think there is a lot to be said for simple institutional memory and practice allowing some countries to respond that big quicker. And with this virus even just 2-3 weeks extra preparation could have made all the difference to a country or region.

NotTimothyGeithner , April 6, 2020 at 9:58 am

And they don't have to live where they are from anymore. When Tony Blair wants positive attention, he jets off to the US or Israel. Claire McCaskill lost a statewide race when the same electorate passed a minimum wage increase and legalized at least medical Marijuana. She now opines on Comcast PR about elections.

PlutoniumKun , April 6, 2020 at 10:26 am

That does make a difference. After the Celtic Tiger crash in Ireland, the PM (Bertie Ahern) who was largely responsible ended up banned from his regular pub where he was well known to have a pint every evening after his day job. The owner explained that if he didn't bar him, he'd lose the rest of his customers.

Mind you, like all the others he still makes a living on the public speaking circuit and his chiklit writer daughter got a mysteriously large book deal from a Murdoch owned publisher..

Cat Burglar , April 6, 2020 at 11:10 am

The Irish case is interesting, because the performance of the state in recent times has been anything but competent. The bank bailout and the cervical cancer cases allowed by the botched testing program are examples. I remember a Morgan Kelly lecture where he said, "We don't do competence in Ireland. You start holding people responsible and you might get some of the 'wrong' people."

The Irish leadership stratum so far looks as if it has done a better job than even the US. Your point about the living memory TB and Polio -- in the 50s, my aunt and uncle, visiting from the US, were advised by the priest not to go to mass because of the danger of picking up TB -- rings true. I wonder if the recent fails by the state, that seem to have left the public abidingly angry (the bailout) and aghast (authorities letting women die of cervical cancer ) have shown elites that they have no political room to fail this time, and that they must show tangible success.

DJG , April 6, 2020 at 11:20 am

Plutonium Kun: Thanks for re-posting the Ian Welsh essay, which was posted at Naked Capitalism a couple days ago–and which has been on my mind since I read it then. I recall that when I was living on the North Shore, the belt of rich suburbs north of Chicago, on a whimsy for a few years, the prevailing stance in dealing with others was a kind of genial incompetence. Shortly after, I returned to Chicago for some grit and consequences.

I woke up this morning thinking of this example of the decadence (a term Welsh describes): The serious person Hillary Clinton opining on something or other. Where is serious person, and vision of competence, Hillary Clinton these days? Why isn't she advocating for the little people? Or at least for her slobbering fan club? Or hoping for another soft-ball interview that doesn't ask what it was like to be Bill's bag-man all those years as they raked in the moolah?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-single-payer-health-care-will-never-ever-happen/

Unfortunately, in Italy, the Hillary Clinton of Italian politics, Matteo Renzi, hasn't taken heavy hints to go away.

Synoia , April 6, 2020 at 12:43 pm

It is hard to distinguish between incompetence and fraud.

I personally believe much that looks incompetent conceals fraud.

HotFlash , April 6, 2020 at 2:09 pm

It's not that hard. Follow the money.

divadab , April 6, 2020 at 7:18 am

The incompetence is a symptom of a morally-degenerate managerial class Infected with bad ideas and having no sense of responsibility to anyone other than themselves. They plan out quarter by quarter, loot their companies instead of investing in them, and lie habitually. This is CORRUPTION. Consider that the ex-CEO of GE, with all his hundreds of millions garnered by cheating GE employees and offshoring their jobs, looting company funds to enrich himself and his co-conspirators, was also a tax cheat, buying art for his NY city palace but claiming it was for his abode in NH and evading NY sales tax. Committing fraud to evade his fair share. A better model for what ails US America cannot be found than this scum.

And note that Boeing moved its headquarters to Chicago "to be more like GE". Well they've destroyed the company to be more like the looters and liars and cheats. Nice work if you can get it.

Yves Smith Post author , April 6, 2020 at 7:40 am

This post is not just about the private sector. State and local governments are primarily responsible for public health.

Your theory does not explain Jerry Brown killing the Schwarznegger emergency response apparatus.

Nor is it adequate to respond to the general idea that "never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence". Even though it is obvious that America has a lot of corruption, you omit the notion that a lot of stupid will also explain much of what we are seeing now.

eyebear , April 6, 2020 at 8:09 am

Thank for your article – due to that we humans tend to compare us to each other, we are prone to error. Why shouldn't we do, what the others do?
And that's were the incompetence gets it's grip on. Here in Germany we just avoided the closure of smaller hospitals, because they are not efficient enough – now we are the lucky ones with the higher number of beds and ICU's and ecma and so on.

That's not only luck, but the preachers of the neoliberal agenda have a hardship nowadays – and 'we, the people' have a minimum of two years to redesign our societies.

c_heale , April 6, 2020 at 8:23 am

Maybe the Dead Kennedys had it right about Jerry Brown in California Über Alles

Cat Burglar , April 6, 2020 at 10:22 am

They did have it right!

But remember, too, that Brown showed in his first term, in the 70s, that he was a textbook case of being one of Stoller's progressive post-Watergate Democrats that set aside New Deal programs and regulation. I remember his deregulation of intrastate trucking from that time, which the highly unionized truckers opposed. Come quietly to The Gap

rd , April 6, 2020 at 8:54 am

I think one of the problems is that financialization and securitization of everything has effectively separated the managerial class in both private and public sector from knowledge and experience of actual logistics and execution.Transferring securities with the push of a button is not the same as getting an industrial plant or phone center built, trained, and running efficiently. Companies and organizations with a history of doing this well can completely undo that capability in only a couple of years (e.g. CDC, FEMA, numerous companies taken over by PE). While my examples below are US-based, I think a lot of the same thought processes have been going on in much of the OECD (e.g. Brexit debacle).

Once everything is measured in dollars with a maximum of a 1 to 5 years window, then it becomes really easy to just focus on the little ball needed to become really "efficient" without thinking about the bigger societal picture. I think the generations that grew up in WW I, 19189-19 Flu, Prohibition, Great Depression, WW II had a much bigger picture of life and society. In some respects, things like Vietnam, were an over-reaction (like immune system going haywire) but on the whole, there was a big focus for 50 years on the potential for really big, bad things to happen. Once the Berlin Wall fell, much of that dissipated and so the shocks that come are generally responded to with a combination of bewilderment, lack of general interest unless it personally impacts you, or the immune system going wild (Iraq invasion, torture).

As a result, you get bulls*#t like this from people like Fed Governor Bullard: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/feds-bullard-says-there-is-good-news-for-those-worried-about-the-economys-future-that-universal-covid-19-testing-will-help-restore-economic-health-2020-04-05?mod=home-page

He wants universal daily testing of all Americans to prove daily they can be out and about. This is in a country that can't figure out how to have half the country vote without standing in lines for hours or hasn't been able to figure out how to even get sick people tested and waiting a week or more more for the test results to come back. Granted, the 15 minute tests mean that it might be possible to set up a lemonade stand at the entrance to every subdivision or subway station for people to get their daily test. The logistical undertaking to do this would be mammoth, although there are at least lots of unemployed people who could get several months of training to learn how to do such a test.

Once everything is measured in dollars with a maximum of a 1 to 5 years window, then it becomes really easy to just focus on the little ball needed to become really "efficient" without thinking about the bigger societal picture. I think the generations that grew up in WW I, 19189-19 Flu, Prohibition, Great Depression, WW II had a much bigger picture of life and society. In some respects, things like Vietnam, were an over-reaction (like immune system going haywire) but on the whole, there was a big focus for 50 years on the potential for really big, bad things to happen. Once the Berlin Wall fell, much of that dissipated and so the shocks that come are generally responded to with a combination of bewilderment, lack of general interest unless it personally impacts you, or the immune system going wild (Iraq invasion, torture).

I am a design engineer and I have found it is really difficult to get people to engage in real discussions of potential risks and solutions. Generally the only thing that anybody wants to know is "What will it cost to be prepared?" Almost nobody wants to talk about low probability, high impact events because that generally would not show up in the 1-5 years time limit people care about.

Susan the other , April 6, 2020 at 11:43 am

low probability – high impact events and human nature. We just went thru a surprising 5.6 earthquake – I'm pretty sure we were ground zero because it not only shook the house like a hurricane for 4 seconds, there was also the sound of a very loud explosion. Sometimes earthquakes make booms like that. If it had lasted another 2 or 3 seconds the roof would have come down; the gas lines would have pulled apart; the plumbing would have been disabled and etc. But we just went, Well that was interesting. Lucky there was no damage. Probably not worth taking out earthquake insurance – it's so expensive.

Anon , April 6, 2020 at 1:27 pm

State and local government ARE responsible for public health. The local people running those agencies do not control their budgets. With insufficient funds their experience and qualifications are wasted by scrambling for stop-gap methods. The political leaders (Governors, mostly.) are most to blame. So the next time folks are choosing at the ballot box remember that public health needs vigoroous funding.

As for the incompetence of "managers" and the credentialed, it occurs everywhere in organizations in America, and beyond. A paycheck is essential while "speaking up" is dangerous. See: Captain Crozier. Most folks are neither secure enough financially or academically to voice a contrasting observation.

Yves, this was an excellent post. Decidedly pointed. There are few who dare to take this challenge. That is why NC is so important. Stay safe!

Felix_47 , April 6, 2020 at 11:00 am

Are you sure you don't mean Dennis Koslowsky (spelled something like that) who was a CPA from New Jersey and ran Tyco? At least he did some jail time. The smart ones figure out how to cheat legally by hiring the well connected white shoe Ivy League lawyers. That is not to say that GE was not mismanaged but it really was done in by the finance crisis because Jack Welch bet the company on it which worked really well for a long time until it did not which covered up the fact that manufacturing in the US is essentially impossible secondary to the legal system and the health care system, or lack thereof.

Clive , April 6, 2020 at 11:02 am

If only it was as simple as saying that services operated by the state were fine, it's private capital where the problem lies.

It's not. This is a societal and cultural problem.

There are employer "pushes" towards the deskilling and degrading of levels of operational competence. One is employers ( both public sector and private sector) do not want to pay for training and to retain a body of experienced employees because both of these cost money up-front with a payoff (in the form of competent, knowledgeable staff) that comes only slowly, later. And a churn of staff is seen as the sign, wrongly, but this is what the MBAs sell as snake oil, of a dynamic, healthy organisation which is bringing in (through a process which never seems to be adequately explained) new talent. Plus, of course, most obviously, younger and newer employees are cheaper so your average headcount cost is lower which is usually a management metric -- often one which is incentive-ised through reward.

There are also employee "pulls" -- and again, these are not just observed in the private sector. You see them in medicine, academia and even, most bizarrely, the arts. An example of these employee-instigated causes of a reduction in capability is that it becomes in-cultural-ated that if you spend too long in the same place, you're only doing so out of necessity because you're so useless, no-one else will employ you. So even if don't really want to move onto a different organisation or a different field of work outside your skillset, you feel you have to, in order to avoid looking "stale", "resistant to change", "stuck in your comfort zone" or any other of the myriad of thought-crimes which you don't want, in today's job market, to be seen to having evidence of committing. And also, as collective union bargaining has gone the way of the dinosaur, more often than not, if you want a raise you have to threaten to quit to get one. But again, more often than not, your current employer will call your bluff and let you leave. So you have to have another job lined up to to go to, if you're not to fall into a trap of flouncing off in a huff but having no other work to walk straight into. While your current employer might not, if they were honest, want to lose you, the dynamics of the workplace being what they are, neither side can then climb down from the ultimatums they've just served.

Yes, there are some notable poster-children of how private enterprise has committed suicide through the wanton bloodletting of its skilled employees (Boeing being a recent case-in-point). But even if you cast your gaze in the direction of public employers, this same phenomena can be found in universities, colleges and K-12 schools (where faculties are no longer bolstered by a strong bench of tenured staff, contract and non-tenured hire-and-fire disposable staff are now the norm, I won't even go there on the effect of charter schools) healthcare (even in the UK's entirely public sector NHS, there is huge reliance on contract and agency staff which the COVID-19 crisis has highlighted and the government is trying, belatedly and without any clear indication it can do so in the short term to redress this and avoid being price-gouged). Or federal and state regulators which now simply do not understand the businesses they are supposed to be regulating and have to buy-in external "expertise" (and merely exacerbate the revolving door problem).

In summary, I wish it were so simple to merely say "private sector bad, government good". But the rot has set in from top to bottom across all aspects of how we manage our shared organisational maturity (or, should I say, now, fix our shared organisational immaturity) and whether or not it started in the private sector, it has well and truly spread to infect the public sector, too. This was the unmistakable point of the post, so it bears re-reading it again with a particular emphasis on understanding why this is the case.

Susan the other , April 6, 2020 at 12:00 pm

devolution by automation. the dystopia we didn't see coming. can't help believing that automation itself – even though it has often been, or seemed to be, beneficial – hasn't undermined and/or destroyed what should be a collective human intelligence and contagious creativity that is the real thing that makes us thrive. But it takes a long steady progression and we're all too impatient.

David in Santa Cruz , April 6, 2020 at 12:35 pm

Terrific comment, Clive.

In my experience working as a lawyer in government service for 34 years, I saw this obsession with "new blood" and "innovation" flooding the system with lawyers -- and judges -- who were breezily ignorant of the law, yet supremely confident in their own cleverness.

University faculties dominated by TA's and adjuncts; charter schools taught by 6-week-wonder TFA's; warships piloted by teenagers; Presidents with no experience in government The list goes on and on.

I blame the instant and consequence-free ego gratification of television-watching for this phenomenon.

Laura in SoCal , April 6, 2020 at 1:20 pm

100% on the employer pushes. I've seen this plenty in my 25 years of working in engineering and manufacturing businesses. And no matter how many "systems" and "quality functions" they put in place, experience matters. In has happened several times that even with great and detailed documentation, when a particular machinist retires, a product line starts having quality issues. Several times we've had layoffs for some reason or another and they have to bring particular individuals back because there was some function they did that no one else is qualified or able to do. Also, because we run lean, cross training is difficult no one has the extra time.

Rob Urie , April 6, 2020 at 7:38 am

Prior to the advent of neoliberalism and through it child mortality rates have been much higher in the U.S. than other OECD countries.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/08/health/child-mortality-rates-by-country-study-intl/index.html

It is very heavily concentrated among the poor.

The refusal to provide public goods is capitalist class relations 101.

Yves Smith Post author , April 6, 2020 at 7:48 am

It is disappointing to see these early comments ignore the framing of the post and go for simplistic takes.

I said at the top that this post was about advanced economies that had poor coronavirus responses, not just the US. That includes Belgium, France, and the Netherlands, all of which have much higher fatalities per capita than the US. None of those countries have high rates of infant mortality.

Try again.

False Solace , April 6, 2020 at 1:49 pm

That's a bit optimistic.You could argue Belgium and the Netherlands have already plateaued in terms of new cases and deaths. For France the numbers are not as clear thanks to a one-day spike in reported nursing home cases. But the US has shown clear exponential growth in both new cases and deaths thru today. I don't think the data is in.

For the last week the US has reported 20-30k new cases a day which means the deaths won't hit for another 1-2 weeks. The number of tests is comparable to the other countries you listed, so it isn't a matter of overdiagnosis. The East Coast is the only region in the US doing meaningful testing.

It's not farfetched to think the US will experience a uniquely bad result in terms of health care and economic outcomes because of its uniquely bad health care system and elite indifference. Never attribute to malice or indifference that which can be adequately explained by indifference. Malice is too difficult to prove, and when it comes to enriching themselves, elites are demonstrably competent. What they are, is indifferent. They simply don't care about long term outcomes or their population. For them, everything is consequence free. Coronavirus is just another example in the litany.

bmeisen , April 6, 2020 at 11:36 am

2 models dominate the informed universal health care coverage debate: 1) a purely public (state) model, as in the UK and Italy, in which financing for health care costs is located in the federal budget where it is allocated from a stream of tax revenues and financing sources; and 2) a highly regulated non-profit (non-state) model, as in most of Scandinavia and central Europe, in which financing is located in a pool of premiums and when needed, e.g. for the very young, poor, elderly who cannot afford to pay premiums, state subsidies.

A variation on 2) is a hybrid of non-profits and private, profit-oriented insurers, as in Germany and the Netherlands, in which the mix is critical and is subject to regulation. Something like 90% non-profit, 10% private is IMHO OK though in Germany it might be more like 70/30.

The EU has been blamed for the devastation caused by Covid-19 in Italy. The argument goes something like, the austerity imposed by the Germans forced Italy to reduce health care capacities. The Frankfurter Allgemeine argues today that ECB imposed austerity is not to blame. Rather the purely state model of financing for health care coverage is at fault. The fact is that in the Italian model many stakeholders want a share of the stream of tax revenues and financing sources from which funds for the provision of health care are also drawn. The FAZ notes that Italian state retirement benefits have risen substantially in recent years while funding for health care has been level.

Christopher Herbert , April 6, 2020 at 7:48 am

The rise of the FIRE sectors as a percentage of GDP has been obvious. We are over-financialized. All this has done is over lay a very expensive layer of debt and interest payments on the real economy. This is the bubble the pandemic pricked.

Yves Smith Post author , April 6, 2020 at 7:59 am

Again, this post is not about the US. It is about trying to develop theories as to why some countries responded reasonably well to the coronavirus crisis and others not.

Italy's banking sector, even with its dud loans not written down, is 1.5 trillion euros v. a GDP of about 1.9 trillion euros, or 79% of GDP. Unlike the US, Italy does not have a ginormous securities market nor a big asset management business, so its banking industry is pretty much the only game in town except for government bond issuance. By contrast, in the US, banks are a way smaller proportion of financial activity (they represent <15% of non-farm private loans) but even banking assets alone are a higher % of GDP, 94%.

Your explanation does not fit key facts. Italy, one of the very worst hit countries, is not heavily financialized. It is also dominated by medium and small businesses

NotTimothyGeithner , April 6, 2020 at 9:45 am

Besides the new aristocracy aspects and a general lack of accountability, I do wonder about rates of foreign elites being "educated" in the US. When my parents go to Boston, all they do is complain about how nice it is, but they remember when the nice areas were where regular people lived. Like US tourists think all Europeans take high speed trains to work, how much of Euro attitudes by seeing the rise of enclaves in the US?

I'll use UVA and Charlottesville Virginia, but if you never go beyond Preston Ave (gentrification may have shifted it) away from Grounds, why would a student see poor people or any lower class employees beyond UVA employees who aren't making a living wage? Charlottesville has the highest rate of wealth inequality in the state.

John , April 6, 2020 at 7:51 am

Thank you. You analyze it. For years I have called it "playing video games". Years ago I knew a guy who said it did not matter of what but he had to be a manager.It was some sort of prestige thing for him. Took him out of the common herd in his way of looking at things.
Yesterday, I read Paul Johnson's short biography of Winston Churchill. Churchill did not like desk work according to Johnson and every new task he undertook, he went out and learned the ins and outs of it. He was a relentless inspector and questioner. He taught himself how to lay bricks. He learned by doing and led from knowledge. He made mistakes. He took responsibility. Certainly he was not a typical person, but neither did he sit in an office assuming he knew it all because the model said he did.

vlade , April 6, 2020 at 7:58 am

That is why Boris Johnson is no Churchill. Churchill was in a lots of was a dilletante, but he was an informed dilletante. He had hunger to learn, maybe too much of it to be good at anything.

Johnson's hunger is just to be in the news, to make a history. I do wonder whether he still believes it worth it now, or in a short future as he's being sedated for intubation (which would not surprise me).

vlade , April 6, 2020 at 7:56 am

I do not really have much to add to what you write Yves. The "we lost sense of danger" is something I have thought of for a long time. IMO, every system that loses feedback will crash, sooner or later. We have worked really hard to remove not just the feedback, but any traces of the feedback.

Everyone who asks for *real* feedback is looked at as a weirdo. We need to know shit happens, we need to have bad shit happen to us now and then (speaking as one who had some really bad shit happen).

One place you can learn about society is how it treats its kids. Most of the kids today are way more cosied that even I ever was, and it's getting worse. We want to remove any and all dangers, and we go to anyone who promises us that, even if we really know it's not possible.

But we have to be very careful there. I believe that claims "we need suffering" are bulshit, because most of the time they want to say that suffering is good for us. It's not. It _may_ be necessary to remind us that bad stuff can happen, the same way as pain does. But it doesn't mean we'd use it to excuse suffering.

Steve H. , April 6, 2020 at 8:10 am

: Grand strategy, according to Boyd, is a quest to isolate your enemy's (a nation-state or a global terrorist network) thinking processes from connections to the external/reference environment. This process of isolation is essentially the imposition of insanity on a group. To wit: any organism that operates without reference to external stimuli (the real world), falls into a destructive cycle of false internal dialogues. These corrupt internal dialogues eventually cause dissolution and defeat.

[John Robb, globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/05/journal_boyd_on.html]

Steve H. , April 6, 2020 at 8:22 am

Taleb Nassim on Skin in the Game:

For the central attribute is symmetry: the balancing of incentives and disincentives, people should also penalized if something for which they are responsible goes wrong and hurts others: he or she who wants a share of the benefits needs to also share some of the risks.

. . .

And in the absence of the filtering of skin in the game, the mechanisms of evolution fail: if someone else dies in your stead, the built up of asymmetric risks and misfitness will cause the system to eventually blow-up.

[medium.com/incerto/what-do-i-mean-by-skin-in-the-game-my-own-version-cc858dc73260]

vlade , April 6, 2020 at 8:38 am

Taleb's skin in the game ignores the disincentives the skin-in-the-game creates, which are often fat-tailed.

Feedback is not the same as skin-in-the-game.

Steve H. , April 6, 2020 at 9:30 am

I read your use of feedback as >reference to external stimuli (the real world).

With Taleb, I'm reading disincentives as penalties, and that lack of penalty/punishment warps the selection process of evolution. With respect to the post, that has created a lack of respect for risk by those who make decisions.

It can be taken a step farther, that the selection process has created perverse incentives. For example, the bailouts from 2008 made the FIRE sector qliphotically antifragile. In that scenario, risk becomes rewarding.

I want to be careful here about using the word feedback, its ambiguities could be confusing. Given that, I'm interested in knowing what you mean about ignoring the disincentives skin-in-the-game creates. Could you please expand on that?

vlade , April 6, 2020 at 10:07 am

Feedback as reference to external stimuli is ok.

My problem with Taleb's skin in the game is that, as he well knows, it's hard to distinguish luck (good or bad) and skill. How can we punish for luck though?

Think of a judge, who gets, through his skill, 99 out of 100 cases right. But the 100th – which, by pure luck, could be really large case – he gets wrong.

Or, even simpler. Technically, if you do one decision a day, and have 99% success rate, every three months you get somethign wrong (1-0.99^60 = 0.54) more likely than not. Should you be punished for this? If we yes, then people will start takin decisions where alternate history is hard to prove, i.e. you create a selection bias towards "do nothing". You can then be punished for "doing nothing" but most of the time "do nothing" is a safe choice. (it's a specific case of "go with the crowd")

Also, in decision making, context is extremely important (which is why courts go to super lenghts to establish it in judical cases). Taleb should know it, and he should also know that unless context is taken into account _in_full_ then the skin-in-the-game will not be seen as fair. But the problem is, the context can never be fully established, and rarely w/o the participation of the major decision maker. Who will have no incentive to participate. Which will hamper learning from it.

Skin in the game makes sense when you can clearly separate luck and skill, and clearly establish context. Even one of those is rare occasion, both is extremely so.

That said, you can often establish post fact when someone blew up (this is what the various enuiries do). And then you'd treat accordingly. But that's not skin-in-the-game, because again, the enquiry can establish that you acted in good faith, as most people would act at the time – and so assign no blame. So you may "fail honourably".

Skin in the game does not let you fail honourably – because it's not skin in the game anymore (because it can let you game the system again, via doing just enough to pass any future enquiry as "more could have been done, but there's no clear knowing dereliction of duty).

TLDR; skin-in-the-game is an attempt at simplictic solution to a complex problem. Taleb should know better.

Steve H. , April 6, 2020 at 10:58 am

Thanks, vlade. I shall ponder this.

funemployed , April 6, 2020 at 9:13 am

"Most of the kids today are way more cosied"

I'd like to expand on this a bit, as I think it's deeply related Yves' point on risk and perceptions of risk. Far as I can tell, notions about parenting changed very drastically in the 80's when

1) mainstream media companies discovered that endlessly replaying (and sometimes plain inventing) lurid tales of horrible things happening to children was good for ratings and required no real journalistic effort or talent.

And 2) I'm not exactly sure how to describe what I'm trying to say, but somehow both responsibility for rare and terrible tragedies along with childrens' and young adults' agency got transferred to their parents. As if everything that happened to a child or that a child did resulted directly from the adequacy of parenting received.

So rather than cozied (which I think of has having all one's needs met and being protected from awfulness – a good thing), I think many children are micromanaged, isolated from authentic social interactions, and perhaps worst of all, taught that profound questions of morality and existence are best ignored (lest they cause distress). This, along with cultivating an intense desire for approval from authority, seems to have become the default mode of preparing children for membership in the privileged classes.

Somehow though, at the same time, we were also taught that our life situation is also wholly the result of our qualities as people. Wondering about a person's station in life? We were taught not to ask "what happened" but "what kind of person are they?" Are they smart or dumb, cultured or trashy, attractive or loathsome? Unnattractive and trashy but rich, they must be really really smart.

I think this combination of dramatically limiting children's opportunities for growth in competence, confidence, friendships, independence, morality, worldview, and all the other things that go into discovering who you are and where you fit in the world, combined with relentless meritocratic mythologizing have raised a couple generations now that are both terrified of risks yet somehow often heedless of the consequences of their decisions. We're terrified to speak up in a meeting, but if the result of that meeting harms a lot of people, well, not our fault, just how the world is.

All that said, there aren't many power brokers I can think of under the age of 65, so maybe all this generational analysis is beside the point. Have the powers that be always been so old?

vlade , April 6, 2020 at 9:25 am

The powerbrokers are (often) elected by the people. Who may be looking for a father figure, rather than anything else. Someone who would take the responsbilities for them, because they are too hard to bear (you'd argue that some poor don't vote because they don't feel the need to offload their responsibilities on others, but it could be a bit overconvoluted – I think most humans want to dump responsiblity elsewhere).

How to truly accept responsibility for ourselves is IMO one of the most important things we'd teach out kids, and that we're failing to do so (myself included). It's hard, and paradoxicaly, our society made it harder.

funemployed , April 6, 2020 at 9:43 am

I think all I described has been hard on parents too. IMO, parents are only the primary teachers of children in the early years before peers and society take over. To the extent neoliberalism has a pedagogical philosophy, it's that we can't control things we do have power over, and can control things we don't have power over. Love and accept your kids, treat them with respect, listen, help them when you can, and make sure to laugh together from time to time, and you'll be a parent I'd envy the children of.

mpalomar , April 6, 2020 at 11:09 am

"notions about parenting changed very drastically in the 80's"
– Brings to mind a long ago article regarding children raised in hunter-gatherer units, was it Papua New Guinea? who were from toddler stage spared much of the parental policing now considered appropriate. Allowed to play with the machete and roam free around the open camp fire they emerged with far less anxiety and perhaps a more practical and functional risk assessment process than modern kids.
Playgrounds today are foam buffered and accident proofed as much as possible, football and hockey helmets and padding are designed to absorb the shock of contact. Automobiles are seat belted, air bagged, AI driver assisted with back up cameras. Airlines and aircraft manufacturers rely on ever advancing auto pilot systems, a trade off that dispenses with higher salaried experienced pilots for lower paid, less flight tested, dial tenders.
"the too-common belief that it is possible to run an operation, any operation, by numbers, appears to be a root cause." -YS
I believe quantum physics has largely, by numbers alone, drifted off into string theory and multiple universes, all fascinating but of a highly extenuated and dubious relation to anything real.
We have lost touch with consequences through the intermediary remediation of technology and virtual modeling, great tools but they have unintended consequences on human behavior.

Hayek's Heelbiter , April 6, 2020 at 7:57 am

What's struck me most about the UK government's approach to the practical day-to-day aspects of Brexit is that it is exemplifying a typically British form of managerialism which bedevilles both public sector and private sector organisations.

The genetic map of England (outside the major cities) is essentially unchanged since the Anglo-Saxon invasion.

https://www.theverge.com/2015/3/18/8252797/uk-genetic-map-reveals-invasions-regional-identity

As a decades-long American ex-pat living in London, it's taken me a long-time to realize, that despite its modern trappings, England remains a feudal society. The way ordinary individuals feel a lack of agency and still look up to the aristocracy and Oxbridge graduates for guidance rather than trusting their own skeptical instincts and standing up for those such beliefs is astonishing.

The fact that "forelock tugging" (an act of deference to a passing lord) remains a phrase in common usage says it all.

Ps. "bedevils"

Larry , April 6, 2020 at 8:02 am

I've felt that the only thing that enforced competence was the elites credible fear of communism after world War II. They had to do some things for the public lest their wealth be seized by the public. And propaganda was used right up to the fall of the USSR. I was fairly shocked that we then looked to China for all our outsourcing needs. The myth was that capitalism would make China an open democracy. Whoops! We enabled them to become a great power without any credible plan to make them any kind of ally beyond some mutual threat of dual self destruction if a trade war erupts. China is credibly working to become independent of the US with heavy state planning while we bail out and reward failed financiers and abandon all public planning to rent extractors. What I wonder is if people will start to look to another way that will credibly threaten the standard elite disaster capitalism approach that has been the norm for decades now.

notabanktoadie , April 6, 2020 at 8:04 am

A sound banker, alas! is not one who foresees danger and avoids it, but one who, when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional and orthodox way along with his fellows, so that no one can really blame him. Keynes via Yves

The problem is that the payment system, besides grubby coins and paper Central Bank notes (e.g. Federal Reserve Notes), must work through private depository institutions or not at all.

How then can we have a sound economy when it is held hostage by "sound" bankers?

And are not the banks a form of rentier – who rent the Nation its money supply?

Then where are the proposals of the MMT School to euthanize those rentiers?

oaf , April 6, 2020 at 9:55 am

Please reconsider! Euthanasia is supposed to be kind!; not appropriate in such a case!

Bugs Bunny , April 6, 2020 at 8:23 am

Right out of college, I got a job at a commodities trading firm on a recommendation from my "Political Economics" prof. This was just when the PC started getting incorporated into technical analysis. I learned one of the programs pretty quickly and made a few fortuitous currency trades for some weird clients. One of my thoughts was, "what if you could just make this program run and trade automatically?" I think a lot of people had the same thought. Where has this laziness taken us? (I left after 6 months go to law school but that's another story).

I see this thought trap how to be more lazy as sort of an alienation that happens when you don't have to think about what you're doing anymore but how to get around it, and that gets passed on to others who see that you don't really have to "work" but that it's more about being clever enough to come up with a solution that pushes the whole process of being responsible, reflective and hard working on to something – or more likely someone – else.

I sometimes think we live in a world like Jerry Lewis in the Disorderly Orderly where he's the only sane one in the asylum, constantly tripped up by insanity from doing the job of an orderly.

eyebear , April 6, 2020 at 8:36 am

As of incompetence the Brits bought some corona-tests which were just crap. Seven-And-A-Half million tests just for the bin.

That's were the incompetence has it's home nowadays: 10 Downing St. If everything goes according to plan, the Brits will be redeemed from the incompetence reigning there in these days.

orlbucfan , April 6, 2020 at 8:53 am

Which is worse, out-of-control greed or rampant stupidity? What's wrecked America is a combination of the two. Thanks for the read.

Stephen The Tech Critic , April 6, 2020 at 8:56 am

On "The Rise and Rise of the Symbol Economy":

I think you hit some critical points about "spreadsheet models" and their disconnection with reality. Unfortunately, it's not just the business and finance world that's struggling here. I've seen serious failures along these lines in science and engineering as well. Unfortunately even experts in those fields (who should know better), routinely interpret model results very uncritically.

Like with business and finance, I believe the availability of computers for calculation and plotting has made scientists and engineers a lot more prone to misinterpreting their results or the results of others. I believe visualization of data via plotting software may actually facilitate uncritical interpretation of that data. ("Seeing is believing". ) Before computers, technicians had to construct plots by hand, which often involved close study of the raw data to determine the best design for conveying that data.

Then there's also the problem of romantization of computation. Particularly recently, a great many people (technical or otherwise) erroneously assume that a more complicated model or a model that relies on a broader range of data input will produce more accurate results. In reality, models involve *abstraction* of real things into data, which often requires making assumptions and/or discarding information. Proper interpretation of the model results requires taking the process of abstraction into account, but this is rarely done properly and is often impractical when complicated models or heterogeneous data sets are involved.

Yet another problem is that scientist and engineer livelihoods often depend more on abstract deliverables like "peer reviewed" papers (academia), reports, presentations, demonstrations, etc. The target audience is typically either a non-specialist manager or a specialist who doesn't have enough time to give proper critical attention to the work anyway. Hence, there is great incentive to produce "results" for their own sake and typically fewer negative consequences to the person (in terms of career / money) for "getting it wrong" than for "failing to deliver".

For me these things are fundamental to the reason that I'm not in a satisfying technical career. I could have made a whole career out of doing sciency bullshit. I had a very successful and well-connected Ph.D. advisor and could have been one of a lucky few to score a "tenure-track" position without doing post-doc work. Unfortunately every time I raised concerns about the integrity of the methods, he would blow me off with "we can talk philosophy another time". All he wanted to talk about was how to present the "results" for maximum "impact". Success in that and many other "scientific" fields depends on marketing over integrity, and someone such as myself who values integrity will struggle to match productive output (in terms of prestige and career development) with those who just want to "win".

I should clarify that I don't believe all scientific fields (or sub-fields, really) are incompetent as I describe above. I know many aren't. And it's a bit of a mystery to me why some are very tight and others are full of nonsense. I don't have a good answer.

PlutoniumKun , April 6, 2020 at 10:22 am

When the dust settles I do think the scientific establishment will have a lot of hard questions to answer. The response from official science bodies and advisors has often been terrible (not just with the face mask debacle). Among other issues, I think a fake form of 'scientism' has taken hold whereby models based on dubious assumptions are treated as a form of reality.

Nicholas Nassim Taleb has a paper out on the topic of models. His maths is way beyond my poor skills, but the general point he is making is that there are fundamental problems with models that extrapolate from past events poorly – in particular the often inbuilt assumption that the worst case scenario is the worst previous event. There is an entertaining explainer from a maths teacher in this article .

Ignacio , April 6, 2020 at 1:11 pm

This is not an easy issue. If one is to review the scientific literature, there was no lack of risk warnings from specialized scientific sources on the possibilities of new SARS-like outbreaks. I also believe there were scientists that from the very beginning worried about this. Once we saw how the outburst in Hubei evolved and watched coming data, surely many could go and check that we were confronting a new guy with a very different epidemiological and clinical behaviour compared with SARS. I am not at the forefront in science but i recall commenting this a couple of months ago here, so I can guess some many others did exactly the same. I don't think we were short on scientists able to do a good job on risk assessment. Particularly scientists working in public institutions. What's the problem then? I believe part of it is that we collectively turn a deaf ear to them. I noticed from the very beginning a focus on the clinical aspects of the disease but almost full blindness regarding the analysis of the epidemics. I think it possible that authorities in Western countries took HC experts for advice to their tables but these experts had no idea on epidemiology so they could barely give counseling on the dynamics of the outbreak and couldn't predict the speed of the spread. If someone tried to notice this would have been received with disbelief as all here were in negationist mood. Still many are. Also, I believe tha many thought this was a Chinese thing and felt comfort on the fact that Chinese authorities seemed to control it. Control, hah!

makesi , April 6, 2020 at 10:46 am

There is a parallel in union organizing. Old school organizers do their workplace charts, listing every employee, their relationships to one another, and tracking their support for the union, by hand. Doing so helps makes the organizer retain this "map" in their head. Younger organizers (myself included) tend to substitute databases and spreadsheets for the old hand-drawn version. Not saying these are entirely ineffective–I can speak from experience that they are not. Rather that the pervasiveness of the technological change is across many boundaries. Woe to the revolutionaries who use a google sheet!

David , April 6, 2020 at 9:10 am

A lot of useful things have already been said, not least by Yves, and I won't repeat them. But if you think about it there are a whole series of different issues here, and it's important not to mix them up. For example: how the virus got started, why it spread so quickly, whether it should have been anticipated, whether it was prepared for, what was assumed about it, what was done, how quickly it was done, whether the consequences (especially economic) were foreseen etc. etc. If you're going to argue incompetence (which I think there has been) you also have to have some idea of what would have constituted a competent reaction. Simply comparing countries doesn't really help, because there are too many variables, especially political and administrative ones: the US and China would not and could not have reacted in the same way, for example. So Italy, for example, has always had a weak state (to the point where many Italians have seen the EU as their salvation) and this is probably a more important factor than many more technical ones.
If there's a common thread that links all of these elements, it's dissociation from reality, which is also the cause of the incompetence on display. Globalization, for example, responsible for the speed of the spread and much of the economic dislocation, could only have been forced on the world by people who did not know about, or were indifferent to, the likely consequences. Some of this dissociation comes just from wealth and power of course (how to travel the world and see nothing) but some of it comes from ideology. For globalists, and neoliberals generally, the idea that the market will adjust to meet any short-term requirements (like masks) is not a simplification in a textbook but a statement of belief. So, even if globalists were aware that masks, testing kits and ventilators were no longer made domestically, they would have replied that it didn't matter because the market would provide.
A corollary of the above is that, if the market will always provide, then there's no real reason to plan or provision anything, provided you can buy it fast enough when you have to. Thus, all organizations should concentrate on being as small and "flexible" as possible, doing only those things that are essential, and thus in turn the stifling obsession with process and organizational change to the exclusion of actually, you know, doing things, which is the characteristic of our MBA-ised culture.
And finally, popular and political culture is no longer about anything. Children's books and TV are purged of anything that might seem threatening, and even adults demand a life free from even the possibility that something might happen that upsets them. We no longer have the vocabulary and cultural references to handle collective grief and trauma. Our elites, for the first time in history, have no personal experience of genuine crisis or deprivation, and, since the 90s politics and PR have become effectively indistinguishable. Politics has degenerated into a classically Liberal struggle for power between groups, and political society is divided into smaller and smaller warring tribes, defined by skin color or genital arrangement, competing for the spoils.
There's a lot more that could be said but I won't presume any more on the patience of others. Essentially, though we have been living in Dreamland, and, for all that our elites may think they've been cleverly manipulating us, they have been faster asleep than anyone. Our elite and popular cultures, in other words, have long been full of shit. And that mess you see is what happens when it hits the fan.

PlutoniumKun , April 6, 2020 at 10:12 am

Thats a hell of a meaty post, lots to chew on there and I'd agree with all of it. This virus really has identified the weak spot of so many institutional systems. Its a genuine game changer in so many ways. It will be fascinating (and not a little terrifying) to be able to observe this in real time.

Mike Gualario , April 6, 2020 at 10:49 am

Great post!

DJG , April 6, 2020 at 11:29 am

David:

Thanks for this:

And finally, popular and political culture is no longer about anything. Children's books and TV are purged of anything that might seem threatening, and even adults demand a life free from even the possibility that something might happen that upsets them. We no longer have the vocabulary and cultural references to handle collective grief and trauma. Our elites, for the first time in history, have no personal experience of genuine crisis or deprivation, and, since the 90s politics and PR have become effectively indistinguishable.

I belong to some playwrights groups (one is a kind of old-fashioned list-serv). Many of the writers are waiting for this to blow over, so that they can go back to submitting the same old, same old. Then they may get a production in which the playwright's background is made much of. The work of art matters much less than the world of P.R. that now surrounds the typical rising U.S. writer, playwright, or painter.

What so many of these people don't get is that the New Rococo is over. As you say, "Our elite and popular cultures, have long been full of shit." It has been fifty or more years of Rococo paintings of doilies and flourishes and word-salad on stage.

Ignacio , April 6, 2020 at 12:50 pm

I have these days been writing on a theory that is flying around like an evasive butterfly on the conditions that may have been at the root of this and other recent outbreaks. I am replying to your comment because this is the first question in your well organized set of questions. I think this post touches many points that merit an in depth view and I like yours as well as many other comments here that add more insights. It seems to me very few are dedicating a single neurone to these arguments or at least I can only find them at NC.

As for the origin of Covid-19 I have read a solid narrative that says the origin could be the vulnerabilities of industrial farming practices in China. The world's largest producer of pork meat suffered in 2019 a devastating African swine fever outbreak that decimated hogs and very much reduced the most important source for meat production in China. Whether this resulted in a significant increase in wild animal farming and traffic is not clear because China doesn't provide data on this. Anyway it could be the case that such hidden practices, that I think were encouraged by Chinese leadership, could have increased by a lot during 2019 becoming an important business by itself and a relevant source for food in Chinese markets. This could have increased by much the possibility of a zoonotic outbreak like this.

Susan the other , April 6, 2020 at 1:03 pm

thanks david ("our elite and popular cultures have long been full of shit"). I'm thinking we are far too aggressive as a species to stop to examine our equally aggressive fantasies. What we do best when we are not daydreaming is fight, usually without thinking it through. (So what happened to that instinct when it comes to fighting a virus? We couldn't switch back from the daydream in time?) We are either in some bloody confrontation or we are indulging ourselves in escape. We are totally bipolar. Economically as well. I recommend mandatory therapy, starting with members of Congress. And it wouldn't hurt to use our instincts as capitalists right now to do a government sponsored program to produce testing equipment that is reliable and can be distributed to every household. (Why is Capitalism so AWOL? It doesn't look like the fault of capitalism, it looks more like the absence of capitalism.) Likewise for first treatment – if it's hydroxychloroquine every household should have a current supply. We really shouldn't rely on our schmoozer-in-chief to jet off to India at the very last moment and cut a deal for drugs – which promptly get confiscated by the Indian Government. I mean duh.

rd , April 6, 2020 at 9:13 am

FYI – re your comment on PCs and Visicalc

I deal with a lot of computer modeling, but am also old enough to know how it used to be done with design charts etc. before computeres were available. The design charts were developed using human computers like shown in "Hidden Figures". So I spend time with the junior engineers and scientists teaching them about how the entire infrastructure that they use daily was designed before computers were even available.

The first thing I look at when somebody gives me calculations is how many significant digits they are reporting the answer to. If there are more than 1 or 2 after the decimal place, I go through the entire thing with a fine tooth comb, because that means they don't understand significant digits and the inherent limitations of modeling and are just regurgitating whatever the computer spits out at them. There are often significant errors.

If somebody gives me something to look at that has a detailed computer analysis reported to one or two decimal places and checked with a simple design chart to ensure order of magnitude correctness, it is much easier to check and is invariably more than likely to be usable.

lou strong , April 6, 2020 at 9:18 am

Italy has an historical weakness with the national state structures, and if we look at national stereotypes we are supposed to be naturally messy and disordered.This is reflected in our own expression "fare le cose all'italiana" ( to do things the italian way ) , which is used when somebody acts in a range of ways going from messy , to corrupt ,to shallow ,to disorganised, to tricky.
As for our political and practical management of the Covid crisis, I see now rolling on the usual controversies among the factions of decision-makers, such as the ping-pong of blame between the Lombardy governor and the central government. The issue below ,in my view, is that NHS was regionalized , hence making it difficult a real joint effort and a joint national policy, and any decision on the ground was the result of a political wrestling between them .If there is some link with the article issue is that I tend to think that all the fundamental policies that have been implemented and publicized in the last decades in Italy were based on the idea and ideology of the external constraint . If you go on saying that whatever you are actually doing as a ruling class is because of some external constraint, you are saying that in the end you are not really responsible of you do in front of your citizens.This has little to do with the economical structure, or if it has something to do I don't see it at first sight.
I stopped a long time ago to try to understand whether or not the death count criteria were worldwide standardised, so I apologize if I'm saying nonsense with the following : when in my country death toll was approx ten times less than now, I remember that Italian HPA came out with the official digits that , with 1266 deaths of people with Covid, 2 deaths were with Covid alone.

Alex morfesis , April 6, 2020 at 9:22 am

A simple and probably useless idea is the effect the jet airplane and it's compression of time has had an effect on top dog thinking, creating an illusion of being able to simply avoid risk by running from it. We might also have hit a fulcrum point with financioneers running out of countries to easily exploit and razzle dazzle although traditional legacy media may have hit a ditch in the road the googoylemonstyr is simply still just a glorified electronic yellow pages and bookfaze is the excuse used to explain bad and failed systemization in media operations There are many outlets for information gathering and most people outside the oecd have been imf-ed in recent enough history to not be so easily mesmerized by promises of some mythical sparkle pony happy ending

Finally perhaps also the eloquent ignorance of your correct observation of the notion one can simply PR problems past the newshole and blurb past the facts. There are more lobbyists and PR flax then have ever existed in most parts of the world.

Lastly, and perhaps it is just new to moi, but it would appear, despite the facts most countries outside the big three have multi party parliamentary systems, most have adjusted to a simple two party system with the hand offs then followed with a loud and proud but "loyal approved" opposition

Same old stale bread

My two cents in this 3 penny opera

funemployed , April 6, 2020 at 9:34 am

"In the remote era of my youth, even in the prestigious firms, new hires were subjected to at least a couple of years of grunt work."

I think this is hugely important. I'm a big fan of Lave and Wenger's theory of legitimate peripheral participation: basically that becoming an expert at something requires apprenticing to a community of practice possessing large amounts expertise, and doing increasingly consequential tasks until one gains expertise.

I think one major – perhaps the major – casualty of the symbolic economy was that there isn't any simple way to quantify the years (and in some cases decades) of apprenticeship it takes to become highly competent at a highly complex, highly consequential set of responsibilities. Expertise is obviously highly valuable, but let some other suckers or universities do the training, or substitute a credential, amiright ;)

I'm curious to hear from those of a certain age who are experts at something or other. My guess is that you can all name a handful of people without whom you never would have attained your current level of expertise, and that you cannot name a comparable number of young people that you have similar opportunities to mentor.

Tom Stone , April 6, 2020 at 9:46 am

To get ahead as part of the PMC you need two attributes, ethical flexibility and a taste for eating shit.
Being a psychopath is also helpful.

PlutoniumKun , April 6, 2020 at 9:47 am

In many ways I think this virus has been adept at exposing the weaknesses in nearly every countries system. In China, the policy of governing by way of top down directives, interpreted in varying ways by local governments ensured that the initial response was to suppress news of the outbreak rather than deal with it aggressively. In South Korea the problem was stubborn religious extremists. In japan, a sclerotic and over-rigid bureaucracy. In the US, all three.

DJG , April 6, 2020 at 11:34 am

Plutonium Kun: Agreed.

Siggy , April 6, 2020 at 9:52 am

There are six fundamental questions to which there are two fundamental answers; or there are 479,001,600 permutations that might describe a given circumstance. Taken one at a time, each permutation is partially correct, 1/479,001,600. Your thoughts here avoid the error of examining the errors made in dealing with the pandemic by examining one error at a time and focus on the factor set that drove the errors. There is no simple single factor to be altered. There is a factor set that consists of several risks ignored. There is no benefit, at this moment, in fault finding. Here and now, we need massive testing, we need at least one reliable treatment regime, and most importantly we need a vaccine. Once we have those things we can then examine who decided what and hopefully we can examine what we need to do to preserve protect and defend the grand American experiment in political economy. Our Constitution calls for a Federal Republic that employs democratic means to achieve a representative government of, by and for, the people. As my high school civic teacher taught, you have to read all the words and a multifaceted thing cannot be described by citing only one of the facets. Consider the recent event, Hillary won the vote and lost the election. Your thoughts here address much of what we should be contemplating as individuals and as a society. One might differ with you with respect to one or more of the components; but, taken all together, you point to a cancer that needs to be eradicated. Thank you.

Senator-Elect , April 6, 2020 at 10:08 am

Ultimately, it's a case of power corrupts. Thinking through all of the above, it was all enabled by people in power thinking they could get away with something, trying it and then knowing they can do whatever they want. The power they held let them put greed first, and the lack of real potential deprivation or threats led them to make money (as opposed to self-sufficiency or equality or sustainability) the new god. After all, since when has money not delivered? This is the first time in a long time that money can't buy safety. As Stoller has said on Twitter, the Fed can't print a vaccine.
The corrective is accountability, or as vlade said, feedback. Elites can't just sit in their offices, mansions and private jets all day and fail upward, or sideways at worst. We had a little crisis not 12 years ago, but there was no accountability. So here we are.

Zamfir , April 6, 2020 at 10:11 am

A remark about SARS and South Korea:

Their preparedness did not come from SARS, but from MERS in 2015. That one ended up killing 30 people, not much these days but enough for a large scare. It included hundreds of school closures and the like – it looked much larger at the time. There was also a huge scandal, when it turned out that medical institutions had been hiding infections, and this added to the scare.

The current Korean epidemic response system was set up after that – it's just a few years old. It is not deeply rooted in their history or culture or something

PlutoniumKun , April 6, 2020 at 10:16 am

Yes, I'd agree with this – in fact, this is precisely what the Koreans authorities themselves are saying. There is a lot of nonsense being talked about 'confucian values' and so on – the reality is that South Korea was on much higher alert because of its recent history (similarly with Taiwan, Singapore and Vietnam). This isn't to dismiss the excellent quality of the response which reflects very well on their government institutions and people, but a lot of outsiders are reading far too much into it.

HighDesert , April 6, 2020 at 10:27 am

Perhaps another Minksy-like pro-cyclical flaw in our current system is underestimating the marginal cost of incompetence. We can socialize the cost of the occasional minor disaster made worse by incompetence. Ditto for socializing the occasional cost of a parasitical rentier class. As with all short term thinking, it works until it doesn't.

As you point out, things like offshoring further undermine our ability to assess costs (ex. to the local workers, environment). Out of sight, out of mind.

I want to say that a portion of the electorate bear some responsibility here. In addition to the moneyed influencers, enough of the electorate agreed to put these officials in office. In the calculus of what the voters thought they stood to lose or gain, they believed they came out ahead.

Carolinian , April 6, 2020 at 10:46 am

Great post. My dad used to say "nothing beats experience" and when I was a younger know it all–lover of books and libraries–I scoffed. But now I know he was absolutely right. "No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy." The people making the decisions are divorced from the results and the real world that most citizens live in–from experience. And so we've gone from a country with a genius for the practical–"heroic materialism" Kenneth Clark called it–to one where the elites are going through the motions until it all falls in. It may be falling now.

Susan the other , April 6, 2020 at 1:18 pm

I think this comment is absolutely spot on.

Steve H. , April 6, 2020 at 10:55 am

I'd like to throw a perspective that could be seen as CT onto the barbie, grill away.

This is a use of Howard Becker's Machine Trick: Design the machine that will produce that result your analysis indicates occurs routinely in the situation you have studied.

This assumes that results are (at least in part) due to the machines functioning exactly as intended. National differences of responses are a result of different de-facto policies.

I. The Big Picture.
Rule #2: Go die!
There is a actuarial perspective that letting people die has a net benefit.

Image: facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10222313535613412&set=a.1528083088162&type=3&theater

The Greeks and Malthus were aware of overpopulation problems. 1972's Limits to Growth showed that famine was not the trigger for population crash, pollution was. They modelled a crash date of 2055. The climate crisis is quickening.

The elite case for lowering life expectancy has been established:

: Tobacco Giant's Analysis Says Premature Deaths Cut Costs in Pensions and Health Care : Critics Assail Philip Morris Report on Smoking
[nytimes.com/2001/07/18/news/tobacco-giants-analysis-says-premature-deaths-cut-costs-in-pensions-and.html]

Note that COVID-19 targets the same demographic that the Philip Morris report does. Targeting high-energy_usage high-capital_liability individuals give good ROI both in climate and financial terms. This brings in

II. The Middle Shark

Actions speak louder than words. Those with access to elite information behaved differently within the US. Feb 28 the President used the word Hoax, four days later the Fed put the crisis on the same level as 9/11 and the Lehmann fall.

Rule #1: Because markets.

Suppressing the response, both in public perception and in ER's, gave time for the decisionmakers behind the politicians to array their responses. The selfless perspective is this is a geostrategic eruption that must be tended. The venal symptom is elites had time to dump their stocks.

III. The Immediate Threat

A nanoscopic enemy, less than half the size an N95 shield targets. Asymptomatic invisibility, the false negative/positive problems of tests (if you can get them), the horrors of the ventilated. A real threat.

I had previously said that, with the obfuscation and miscategorization systematically skewing downward the perceived incidence of an already blurred enemy, we would have to look at all-cause deaths to really understand the proximate and ultimate mortality. I did not see falling death rates coming. In a complex world there are paradoxical effects. So any evil geniuses are gonna get really frustrated when their plans go awry.

We can already see the opportunistic authoritarians hard at work. I'll close with a couple paragraphs of Boyd, but first a reminder. This comment is a perspective on why some countries had a less-lethal response to this virus than others. In a complex world, simple explanations are incomplete. Boyd:

Remember what I said, without a crisis, they don't have an operation. They've got to have that crisis. Remember what I said last night? Without anomalies, no mismatch. No mismatch, no
crisis. Without a crisis, no change.

Remember I said that crisis is important to them because then they can insert, work the propaganda, tear apart, generate these many non-cooperative centers of gravity.

flora , April 6, 2020 at 11:14 am

What was it Buttegig was saying on the campaign trail? "Chaos is a ladder"? Whose ladder, to what goal?

NoPlaceToHide , April 6, 2020 at 11:04 am

Yves, you say leaders are showing their incompetence managing two jobs, their medical response to Coronavirus and their management of countries' economies. I suggest that perspective can be gained by stepping back further and looking at a bigger job than those two tasks. How well are humans managing the planet's response to the threat of potential human extinction caused by extreme planetary warming (too quickly returning to PET-M).

Where I'm headed: collectivism vs. individualism.
It appears to me that an adequate planetary response (If it isn't already too late. That's a separate discussion.) to the threat of potential human extinction would require a giant collectivist response. Almost all countries would need to be collectively acting together. E.g., efforts would fail if a major economy like China or the U.S. continued its polluting ways.

However, it appears most of our leaders are not collectivists. They appear, instead, to be individualists who have fought their way to the top by competing against other highly competitive individualists. Is it in the nature of individualist leaders to seek and join collectivist activities? Are our leaders actively seeking to join an adequate (rather than symbolic) collectivist planetary effort to reverse climate change?

Instead, it appears our leaders aim to be among the "winners" who will win by being among the survivors in their bunkers in the Hamptons or New Zealand.

I'm wondering about how much the culture of collectivist action, collectivist values, in various countries' medical systems has played in managing their response to Coronavirus. How much has (predatory) individualism contributed to the incompetent management of economies?

We humans have it in our nature to seek narratives, stories, that "explain" what we are witnessing. Stories simplify explanations. Stories give comfort to our minds. We crave that comfort. The two heroes in your two stories are 1.) losing sight of risk and 2.) using symbols to separate leaders/actors from reality. IMHO those are excellent heroes.

Is it reasonable to expect successive generations of individualist humans/leaders to maintain a focus on risk after previous generations appear to have insulated them from previously known risks? I suggest that a collectivist culture would be much more vigilant about identifying risk and preparing for it. For example, the collectivist U.S. military has done considerable work recognizing and preparing for the risks of climate change.

Is it reasonable to expect individualist (predatory) leaders to competently manage the economy of a country when they're so busy preying on their respective parts of the economy? Individualists have found a giant tool, symbols substituted for reality, to exploit/prey on the economies they live in. Is it reasonable to expect those individualists to give up their competitive predatory tools to embrace collectivist ways to manage economies for the benefit of all people in their respective economies?

flora , April 6, 2020 at 11:12 am

Thanks for this great post, Yves. Managers, CEOS, and politicians losing any sense of risk or real dangers sounds right. Promoting people incompetent or unfit for task isn't a problem if there is no risk or danger. They've become the managerial/political equivalent of the anti-vaxers: they believe no danger can touch them because no danger ever has (so far).

BoulderMike , April 6, 2020 at 11:27 am

As a young person starting out in the work world, I was as said above, given the opportunity to do "grunt" work. Put another way, like the old world apprentice system, I was given the opportunity to understand the mechanics of work before moving on to such things as planning and strategizing.
Early in my education I had troubles with math. Someone told me to think of numbers as things, or put another way, every number stood for something in the "real world". Once I understood this, every math problem could be visualized as a real world thing/concept. After learning this I learned to love math, and to apply it well. Word problems referred to real things. Logic and problem solving, thru math, was real. Moving forward to the work world, and with the move from mainframe computers (which I worked with), to PC's, I became proficient in very complex spreadsheets, creating them, maintining them, and undertaking complex analysis with them. But, and someone above hit on this well, unlike today where the numbers are the thing, or end product, I always envisoned them and understood them, each and every one of them, as just being a representation of a real thing in the real world. This I think sets my work generation apart from how things are done today. The loss of connection between numbers and real things is I think what Yves is referring to as how people have become distanced from risk and by default, it almost becomes "not risk".
Lastly, when I was younger I always had a need to understand the real world aspects of anything I did. I had a job in analytics/logistics at an Oil & Gas company, one aspect was gasoline blending. It wasn't good enough to get reports from the field for me, I had to go out to the field and see, touch and discuss the actual work. I loved going to manufacturing plants (refineries), and to the oil rigs. I had to understand everything because how else can you do the "administrative/planning" side of things if you don't have an intimate relationship with the actual thing?
Anyway, great post. It isn't the USA, it isn't capitalism, it is a deeper change in society that knows no boundary or ideology.

Susan the other , April 6, 2020 at 1:27 pm

kinda like there should only be one number, lets call it 3, and the size of it tells us everything about the world we live in – so a big 3 is extremely important and requires mobilization in some way, whereas a little 3 can be dealt with on a smaller scale ;-)

HotFlash , April 6, 2020 at 2:00 pm

An old (both ways) friend took up CNC work at a local maker space a while back. After a year or so he is good enough at it to be able to take orders for custom parts, but is now getting to the 'real world' of numbers. He is, to his indignation, awe, and utter delight, grappling with calculating the rate of taper he needs for some part, "Cotan, sine, tan -- it's trigonometry !"

Dang Me , April 6, 2020 at 12:04 pm

There is simply no risk in the game for elites. Trump was slow to act because his risk was that the stock market would be hurt by his action. He was free to wait because the stock market would get a bailout in the end. The lives of the public were less important and still are. The opinion polls of the voting class are all that matter.

The elites have very successfully bought off the voting class by making them small and insignificant players in the game via the 401(k). They readily take the risk off of elites because they are taking it off of themselves. They identify with elites and see them as their protectors.

Ignacio , April 6, 2020 at 12:24 pm

I think that the dereliction of duty by state actors is a something to be examined in depth. Unfortunately, I am not today in the mood for doing the thinking effort this post merits. I would have wanted to think on one of the symptoms of failure (widespread denialism) and contrast it with the many good observations made in the post. The quarantine and some personal stress has lately been a shock for me. Unfortunately some of my worst worries have come true. I was writing something that could be interesting on the conditions that favoured this outbreak but now I am not sure I can finish it.

Please take care. I am pretty sure I will still need this site to check for some common sense, good, sensible and critical thinking plus relief from the too abundant disingenuous widespread disinformation. So I insist, you gals and guys take a lot of care for yourselves.

Susan the other , April 6, 2020 at 1:32 pm

you too Ignacio; I agree with your "dereliction of duty" – what else could we possibly call it?

Steve H. , April 6, 2020 at 1:38 pm

Thank you, Ignacio. Know that your writing has been a great help to my understanding.

Anarcissie , April 6, 2020 at 1:39 pm

Widespread denialism is not hard to figure. Contemporary ruling classes and attached elites have no regard for honesty and truth, so they lie to the people as default practice. The people for whom they have so much contempt are smart enough to figure out that they are being lied to. Given that the authorities cannot be trusted, one might as well believe anything one wants.

Rtah100 , April 6, 2020 at 1:40 pm

Take care yourself, Ignacio. Check back in with us tomorrow, please. ¡Vaya con dios!

nn , April 6, 2020 at 12:38 pm

Why the Czech Republic isn't bottom of the barrel, I certainly wouldn't hold us up as exemplary case either. There are problems with protective equipment as everywhere else, the testing regime is grossly lagging, contract tracing is nonexistent and just today the leading epidemiologist and sort of top state science guy for this whole thing floated the idea we should let 70 % population who are low-risk contract the virus without explaining how he thinks this could be done without everyone else catching it too.

LAS , April 6, 2020 at 12:52 pm

I would not depict you as exaggerating about the change in posture toward risks. This was a very good essay. The change in posture about risks was enabled because typically big political donars (smallish minority) get bailed out of their troubles while those with lessor political influence (the working poor and middle class) get crushed.

BTW, seduction is the one thing Pres. Trump is really good at. Every news conference of his I happen to catch (not my objective), it is marvelous, fascinating to watch how he operates to seduce. It is what he does, even more fundamental than lying.

The lack of investment in public health has been so long standing that it is not the least surprising to me that the USA has done poorly in pandemic preparation. I knew we had deeply compromised capacity to respond. I am rather surprised by all the valient fighting for lives now going on by many health care workers and a few politicians. To me, I feel there is a mustard seed of humanism and hope in this world because we've purposely crashed our economies to try and slow transmission, save lives and health care from imploding totally. It is not a uniform sentiment, but it exists. It surprises me and am glad for it. Still, the disadvantaged are going to fare worse, suffer worse on account of the risks that others neglected.

Musicismath , April 6, 2020 at 1:04 pm

we've had a Minsky-like process operating on a society-wide basis: as daily risks have declined, most people have blinded themselves to what risk amounts to and where it might surface in particularly nasty forms. And the more affluent and educated classes, who disproportionately constitute our decision-makers, have generally been the most removed.

I see something very similar happening in academia. We align our identities with our institutions and think in very a short-term, metric-based fashion, seeing "success" (for instance) in terms of student recruitment (tuition fees paid in). Moreover, we're encouraged above all to be global in outlook: we look forward to our perennially "busy" international conference seasons and we emphasise the global and the transnational over the merely local or national (denigrated as narrow, provincial, and ideologically suspect). We like to see ourselves as mobile subjects, bodies in constant motion, our minds Romantically untethered from the confines of any one nation state.

So our identities as academics are unavoidably embedded in a form of neoliberal hyperglobalisation. We rely on unrestricted flows of (wealthy) bodies across borders. Our institutions (or many of them) have become dependent on international students and their superior fee-paying ability compared with merely "domestic students." We might agree in principle with ideas of a GND, say, or take an ecocritical approach to a novel or a play, but we're certainly not going to cut back on the number of international conferences we attend. Indeed, many of us go further. We see this form of globalisation, and the benefits that accrue to us and our institutions from it, as a form of moral necessity : something it isn't possible even to argue against in good faith. Hence our loud assent to principles like open borders and always-on mass migration. We have to keep those lucrative international students flooding in, after all. (Not that we'd ever put it in terms as crassly material as that; after all, we don't work in university administration .)

Our commitment to the global as a form of moral mission has left us completely unprepared for what's currently unfolding. We are utterly unused to considering the material constraints of the economy our livelihoods depend on; that globalisation might come back to bite us; that the very aircraft that carry us across the world to conference destinations and field work sites would one day turn off the spigot of endlessly mobile bodies our careers and identities depend on. Hence the reason why a lot of my colleagues are so lost right now. They're so used to living on a purely symbolic (or moral-symbolic) level that the materiality of this virus and its consequences seems like a crude insult. Many stubbornly hold on to their old commitments, unwilling to admit that the world might have changed. In this respect, I think of this post over at Crooked Timber, where John Quiggin (an economist I have a great deal of respect for) simply cannot bring himself to confront the possibility that the open borders dream might be dead.

Where we go from here, I have no idea. But the fact that international and Erasmus students might be gone for the foreseeable future, and the major implications this will have for the financial viability or our universities, seems to be slowly sinking in. But the fact that the "export education" model was a disastrous wrong turn will take much longer to be accepted, I think, because of the widespread commitment I've been talking about here to the principle of the global as a form of moral necessity.

Chauncey Gardiner , April 6, 2020 at 1:30 pm

Intriguing question and hypothesis regarding the reasons behind the variability in coronavirus infection and mortality rates among nations.

Variable coronavirus outcomes by nation could suggest a combination of elite incompetence, poor individual judgment, a lack of appreciation of risk in all its Rumsfeldian forms, corruption, a desire by oligarchs for autocratic control and being insulated and divorced from actual operations; or underlying cultural and economic factors.

It could also suggest that other factors either singularly or in combination played a role, including intentionality based on misjudgment of the agnostic nature of the virus regardless of demographics, economics and social class; or simply denial of an emerging public health threat by political leadership that reflected their own psychological characteristics and cognitive biases that led to a two month delay in implementing containment and control policy measures.

While they played a role, don't know that blaming the variability among nations entirely on a narrow set of insular public and private sector leaders who relied on computer spreadsheets to assess ROI, NPV of alternatives, payback periods, cost vs. benefit analysis, JIT inventory management of PPE; and the guidance of financial markets is an all-encompassing answer. Why exactly did they rely on those spreadsheets?

My own view is that we can trace the root cause of policy failure back to the dominant values of leadership and the values of the society/culture which spawned them regarding the relative importance of money in determining policy choices regarding public health and safety.

Unfortunately I expect the social and economic effects of this pandemic and the policy choices that increased its severity are going to be with us for some time.

[Apr 06, 2020] U.S. was not adequately prepared for pandemic, says J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon

Apr 06, 2020 | www.marketwatch.com

The U.S. was not adequately prepared for the current coronavirus pandemic and needs to address the lack of planning to better prepare for future crises, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said Monday.

In his annual letter to shareholders, Dimon said he hoped America will "roll up its sleeves" and start to attack its problems, including a costly health-care system, unequal access to education, a litigation and regulatory system that burdens small business, failed immigration policies, and ineffective infrastructure, among shortcomings. The share of wages for the bottom 30% of Americans has been falling, he said, a problem that needs to be acknowledged if it is to be fixed

"There should have been a pandemic playbook," he wrote. Likewise, he added, every problem he noted "should have detailed and nonpartisan solutions."

" 'While conditions may sometimes be unusual and difficult, we are functioning smoothly. In fact, over the last month in certain parts of our company, we've had the highest volume and transaction totals we have ever seen.'

[Apr 06, 2020] Reports about failures of the US government in handing the coronavirus epidemics are now a genre

Notable quotes:
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... I've seen this posted everywhere; article after article in the mainstream media telling us to stop worrying about the coronavirus. ..."
"... Washington's reputation for expertise has been one of the greatest sources of its power. The coronavirus pandemic may end it for good. ..."
"... Orinoco Tribune ..."
"... Yale News ..."
"... How to set up an ICU - LBR ..."
Apr 06, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Prof K , Apr 5 2020 21:06 utc | 60

Failure of government reports are now a genre:

The long delay in the U.S. reaction has led to a urgent need for personal protection equipment. The result is a new 'wild west' where stealing and cheating to get PPE is the new norm:

The neoliberal transformation of the state is also on display with regards to the distribution of medical supplies. The USG is distributing much needed supplies to private commercial entities, which then play off various states, municipalities and hospitals against each other in bidding wars. This is what "public-private partnerships" and "new public management" have led to: a thorough abdication of institutional responsibility and capacity-building by the state, which itself has been devoured internally by market principles.

Without an analysis of capitalism as the central issue in the American crisis we can't understand how things are playing out.

Stephen Walt gets many things right but he has no sense of the political economy of the American crisis.

Why? Because his realist theory is bereft of any sociology and political economy.

Prof K , Apr 5 2020 21:58 utc | 68

@james

The thing with the billionaires is that they have demanded and benefitted from the hollowing out of the state in the neoliberal period, and then they exploit moments of state crisis to reassert their "importance" (and our dependence on them).

It's a vicious circle, and it's quasi feudal.

[Apr 06, 2020] Captain Crozier Was Right, And His Sailors Knew It

Apr 06, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

So he sounded the alarm, sending a letter to 19 senior military officials. The gist of that letter was a recommendation to disembark and isolate the Roosevelt's crew, treating those infected and subjecting the entire ship to a thorough cleaning to eliminate the virus. "We are not at war," Crozier wrote. "Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset -- our Sailors." While the ship's operational readiness would momentarily suffer, Crozier was intent on ensuring that none of the men and women under his command would "perish as a result of this pandemic unnecessarily."

Today, of course, many Americans are dying unnecessarily through the negligence of leaders at all levels. In the weeks to come, negligence will claim the lives of many more. Crozier stands out as one leader who was quick to assess the danger at hand and to recommend prompt and decisive action.

For this he was fired. Needless to say, his letter leaked. Navy officials were thereby embarrassed. While eventually taking the actions not unlike those that Crozier had recommended, they gave him the axe. According to acting Navy secretary Thomas B. Modly, himself a Naval Academy graduate, Crozier lost his job because the Coronavirus outbreak "overwhelmed his ability to act professionally."

That's one opinion. Mine differs. Faced with a perplexing leadership challenge, Crozier made a very tough call: This was one instance, he concluded, where Men should come before Mission, while he unhesitatingly placed his own career interests last. His superiors, up to and including Acting Secretary Modly, ought to have applauded his actions. That they did not calls into question their own good judgment.

... ... ...

Of course, my own opinion matters not at all. On the other hand, my guess is that for Crozier the opinion of his sailors matters quite a lot. As he left his ship for the last time, in a moving display of support for their former skipper, they gathered spontaneously to give him a rousing sendoff. Crozier left with their cheers ringing in their ears. The men and women assigned to the USS Theodore Roosevelt know professionalism when they see it.


kouroi 15 hours ago

Another point of discussion here is The Mission. Me thinks the mission of TR was to show force, intimidate and cower the Chinese. A very worthwhile job in the time of pandemic. While the good captain said that the US is not at war, maybe the higher ups know better and the US is indeed at war with a handful of countries in that area... and in that case The Mission must take precedence, eh?!
KevinS 14 hours ago
BUT if he had killed civilians, taken pictures with their dead bodies, had every member of his unit testify against him and been found guilty of war crimes, Trump would have his back!
daveclay 14 hours ago
He didn't even inform his immediate superior, who lived feet away. He communicated outside his chain-of-command classified information (yes, mission-readiness is classified.) He absolutely should have been fired, and also brought up on charges. I expect this guy got his foot in the door to command via his fealty to Obama, instead of his actual suitability for command.
FL Transplant an hour ago
Crozier graduated from the Naval Academy in 1992. In his 28 years of military service he's been a rotary wing pilot (SH-60s), a fixed wing pilot (F-18s), been the exec (second in command) of a Nimitz-class carrier USS Ronald Reagan), and the the captain of a major ship (USS Blue Ridge) (Command of a CVN requires both aviation and ship command; his career path is typical of those groomed for command of a CVN). He's a graduate of the Naval War College.

I'll go out on a limb here, but considering his background I'm comfortable thinking that CAPT Crozier understands the chain of command, OPSEC, formal vs informal means of communication, who to address a message or email to, what items should be and shouldn't be in an unclassified email, realized the Carrier Battle Group's commander was embarked along with him and he could walk down the hall to discuss concerns with him, and all the other items people are raising.

The question should be why did someone with his background and experience consider it necessary in a peacetime deployment to act as he did to protect his crew, taking actions he had to have known would result in his being relieved of command and sacrificing his career. If those above him considered the sickness and death of a number of his crew, along with reducing the ship and its embarked air wing to an ineffective token, to be an unavoidable but necessary price to pay for the boat to continue on its deployment without alteration they need to come forward and say so. I have yet to read any rationale from the navy's civilian leadership (or military, for that matter; the CNO's office has been silent) where they have done anything other than note how bad he made them look.

John S. 40 minutes ago
I believe that Colonel Bacevich is right on point with one small error. That is that Captain Crozier's action wasn't necessarily placing mission behind the men. The Navy will keep it secret, of course, but a carrier underway with a large fraction of its crew sick, to some degree, is just as non-mission capable as one sitting in port.

[Apr 06, 2020] Notwithstanding the current occupant of the White House, Crozier was correct

Captain Crozier was in an untenable catch-22 situation. Would the USS Roosevelt have suffered a similar casualty if it's skipper stayed within his chain of command in attempting to address the burgeoning virus aboard that very well may have impacted it's crews ability to operate safely? Capt Crozier's naval career was damned if he did and damned if he didn't (ie catch-22). Capt Crozier made the right decision in putting the health/lives of sailors aboard the Roosevelt ahead of 7th Fleets need to check boxes.
Notable quotes:
"... I am circling around to the view that Crozier's actions were correct, honorable, and laudable, and that they also created a situation that made it impossible for the Navy, notwithstanding the current occupant of the White House, to keep him in his position. ..."
"... The difference between a competent administration and the one we have is that Crozier would not have felt compelled to go outside the chain of command, the SecNav would not be "acting," and the Acting SecNav would not have been so terrified of his own President that he would have acted precipitously against the captain. ..."
"... There is a disheartening present trend on who is promoted (and what comprises their value set) within organizations in America at present. ..."
Apr 06, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Portland Sooner4 hours ago

Robert Farley at LGM has an interesting post on Crozier,
I am circling around to the view that Crozier's actions were correct, honorable, and laudable, and that they also created a situation that made it impossible for the Navy, notwithstanding the current occupant of the White House, to keep him in his position.

The difference between a competent administration and the one we have is that Crozier would not have felt compelled to go outside the chain of command, the SecNav would not be "acting," and the Acting SecNav would not have been so terrified of his own President that he would have acted precipitously against the captain.

But decisions with strategic consequences should lie firmly with the very senior leadership of the armed forces, and the civilians that the leadership serves.

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/04/crozier-considerations

Tom Sadlowski Portland Sooneran hour ago
Thank you for that link. I agree with that assessment, and I would extend that circumstance to other departments within our government, and into other sectors like business, education, and non-profits. There is a disheartening present trend on who is promoted (and what comprises their value set) within organizations in America at present.

[Apr 06, 2020] Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP) almost everyone engaged in addressing the pandemic has liability protection

Apr 06, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Laura H. Chapman , April 6, 2020 at 9:26 am

In the United States: Under the "Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP) almost everyone engaged in addressing the pandemic has liability protection. "Specifically, liability immunity is afforded (1) To manufacturers and distributors without regard to whether the countermeasure is used by or administered to this population, and (2) to program planners and qualified persons when the countermeasure is either used by or administered to this population or the program planner or qualified person reasonably could have believed the recipient was in this population."

There is a lot more detail in PREP, but it helps to explain Trump's cavalier performances delivering misinformation to the public, his lavish praise for corporate solutions to the pandemic and their willingness to be coopted.

PREP is easier to read than many federal regulations. See who has legal cover and for what at
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/03/17/2020-05484/declaration-under-the-public-readiness-and-emergency-preparedness-act-for-medical-countermeasures

[Apr 06, 2020] Understand This! - Ponzi Schemes Don't Bounce-Back by James Howard Kunstler

I doubt that the USA public has the ability to oppose the rule of banksters.
Notable quotes:
"... A gloss on that one is the idea that NIAID director Anthony Fauci and other medical experts are wicked conspirators bent on destroying American morale by overstating the threat of Covid-19. ..."
"... First of all, that one smacks of the hoary conspiracy theory that Bilderberger bankers are scheming to take over the world – yet these supposedly hyper-clever "puppet-masters" are proving that they can't even run the banks and their own financial ops, which are now crashing down around their ears along with everybody else's. Thirdly, if there is trend anywhere in this collapse scenario, it is for the devolution of power downward, away from floundering centralized power structures and institutions. As they flounder, the faith of their subject peoples ebbs away and the trust horizon shrinks so that the people are no longer willing to depend on distant authorities for anything. ..."
"... Mr. Trump surely has enough problems attempting to manage this crisis, not the least of which is his own unfortunate habit of jumbled impromptu speech that often sounds like sheer blather. Some observers like to call it "plain speech," but in my experience even the common folk of America, the plumbers, truck drivers, and waitresses, express themselves more coherently. It's just not very reassuring. Believe me, I don't want to see the president fail, but I would advise him to stick to the teleprompter. ..."
"... We don't know whether anyone, or any faction, will be able to run the nation's affairs in the months upcoming. The least credible cohort these days are the folks presiding over the financial side of things. There is plenty of debate as to whether the mega bailouts and backstops will bring on inflation or deflation, both ruinous at the grand scale. ..."
"... There's abundant evidence that this flood of money-from-thin-air will do nothing to arrest the unwind of a system so rotten that it casts an odor across the boundaries of history. ..."
"... Wall Street has screwed America's pooch so completely that the poor pooch can't even squeal for mercy anymore. The Federal Reserve crew and their allied banksters have barely a few weeks before an immiserated public comes after them with the modern equivalent of pitchforks. Wait for the breaking news on the cable networks: The Hamptons are burning! ..."
Apr 06, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

You understand, there will be no meaningful resuscitation of the dear, departed, so-called greatest boom in history . Ponzi schemes don 't "bounce back," they collapse for the simple reason that the pieces holding them up were not really there.

Such are the unanticipated consequences of a media over-saturated culture that we were so easily deceived by appearances.

The emotions entrained by this implacable disaster have barely expressed themselves in the social arena. The public is still too shell-shocked by the prospect of losing everything ­– jobs, incomes, status, chattels, a future – to commence what the shrinks call "acting out." Anyway, half the country is still acting out over the election of Mr. Trump three years ago.

But, for the moment, an interesting debate rages internationally as to whether the Covid-19 virus was some kind of engineered event designed to bring about various political outcomes...

One thread declares that the Democratic Party, its media handmaidens, and a helpful Chinese leadership used the virus to blow up the US economy and finally, after several botched attempts, get rid of the vexing Mr. Trump .

It's a tidy story, but I don't buy it, for the simple reason that the entire global economy has blown up, including China's, so you can file that meme in the Wile E. Coyote folder.

A gloss on that one is the idea that NIAID director Anthony Fauci and other medical experts are wicked conspirators bent on destroying American morale by overstating the threat of Covid-19.

This includes the phrase that the novel corona virus is "just another seasonal flu," and so ordering people to stay away from work and business was unnecessary. Again, you'd have to ask yourself why medical experts and other plausibly intelligent people in so many other countries would do exactly the same thing. They can't all be orcs.

Then there's the one that has Bill Gates so worked up about climate change that he's using his foundation's deep resources to reduce the world's population by sowing maximum disorder onto the scene with Covid-19 hysteria.

This one casts Mr. Gates as something like a villain from a James Bond movie, deep in his Seattle mega-fortress petting a Persian cat as millions perish. Sounds like another case of Americans confusing movies with real life.

Another story has a shadowy gang of "globalists" using the disorder spawned by the virus to impose a centralized global uber-government run by international financiers.

First of all, that one smacks of the hoary conspiracy theory that Bilderberger bankers are scheming to take over the world – yet these supposedly hyper-clever "puppet-masters" are proving that they can't even run the banks and their own financial ops, which are now crashing down around their ears along with everybody else's. Thirdly, if there is trend anywhere in this collapse scenario, it is for the devolution of power downward, away from floundering centralized power structures and institutions. As they flounder, the faith of their subject peoples ebbs away and the trust horizon shrinks so that the people are no longer willing to depend on distant authorities for anything.

That floundering of centralized authorities is exactly what's in process here in the USA.

Mr. Trump surely has enough problems attempting to manage this crisis, not the least of which is his own unfortunate habit of jumbled impromptu speech that often sounds like sheer blather. Some observers like to call it "plain speech," but in my experience even the common folk of America, the plumbers, truck drivers, and waitresses, express themselves more coherently. It's just not very reassuring. Believe me, I don't want to see the president fail, but I would advise him to stick to the teleprompter.

Of course, then, there is Joe Biden, the implausible nominee-presumptive of the opposition. Who are they kidding with this emperor's new clothes scam? It's obvious now to anyone over twelve in this land that Joe Biden is missing a few transistors on the old motherboard – not to mention the slime-trail of grift and money-laundering that he laid down in his adventures abroad as vice-president . His manner of speech, while different than Mrs. Trump's, is even more pathetically incoherent. The Democrats' pretense that he is a viable candidate is the ultimate falsehood in a long train of barefaced falsehoods they've so earnestly retailed since 2016, making them utterly untrustworthy to run the nation's affairs.

We don't know whether anyone, or any faction, will be able to run the nation's affairs in the months upcoming. The least credible cohort these days are the folks presiding over the financial side of things. There is plenty of debate as to whether the mega bailouts and backstops will bring on inflation or deflation, both ruinous at the grand scale.

There's abundant evidence that this flood of money-from-thin-air will do nothing to arrest the unwind of a system so rotten that it casts an odor across the boundaries of history.

Wall Street has screwed America's pooch so completely that the poor pooch can't even squeal for mercy anymore. The Federal Reserve crew and their allied banksters have barely a few weeks before an immiserated public comes after them with the modern equivalent of pitchforks. Wait for the breaking news on the cable networks: The Hamptons are burning!

[Apr 06, 2020] Trump Weighs Legal Action Against China Over PPE Hoarding As International 'Mask Wars' Heat Up

Apr 06, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Trump Weighs Legal Action Against China Over PPE Hoarding As International 'Mask Wars' Heat Up by Tyler Durden Mon, 04/06/2020 - 12:55 The Trump administration is considering legal action against China after leading US manufacturers of medical safety gear say Beijing has prohibited them from exporting goods in what the New York Post says was a bid to "corner the world market" in personal protective equipment (PPE).

"In criminal law, compare this to the levels that we have for murder," said Trump re-election campaign senior legal adviser, Jenna Ellis, who says that legal options include filing a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights or working 'through the United Nations."

"People are dying. When you have intentional, cold-blooded, premeditated action like you have with China, this would be considered first-degree murder, " she added.

Executives from 3M and Honeywell told US officials that the Chinese government in January began blocking exports of N95 respirators, booties, gloves and other supplies produced by their factories in China , according to a senior White House official.

China paid the manufacturers their standard wholesale rates, but prohibited the vital items from being sold to anyone else , the official said.

Around the same time that China cracked down on PPE exports , official data posted online shows that it imported 2.46 billion pieces of "epidemic prevention and control materials" between Jan. 24 and Feb. 29, the White House official said. - New York Post

In total, nearly $1.2 billion in gear - which included over 2 billion masks and 25 million "protective clothing" items which came from EU countries, along with Australia, Brazil and Cambodia according to the White House official.

"Data from China's own customs agency points to an attempt to corner the world market in PPE like gloves, goggles, and masks through massive increased purchases -- even as China, the world's largest PPE manufacturer, was restricting exports," they added.

'Mask wars'

The shortage of vital protective equipment has pitted neighboring countries - and even US states - against each other, resulting in accusations of theft and modern piracy, according to the CBC . The United States, in particular, has been accused of stymying efforts by allies to procure said equipment - by allegedly attempting to scuttle European deals for purchases from China, as well as attempting to halt exports of US-made N95 masks to Canada and Latin America last week.

That said, a Berlin senator who accused the US of "piracy" by diverting a shipment of protective masks slated for delivery in the German capital has reversed his position - saying that no US firms were involved in the case of the still-missing masks.

Now the WashPost has corrected the story. cc: @jeffmason1 https://t.co/5dnkAMJnie

-- Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) April 4, 2020

The CBC suggests that 'the apparent desperation of some of the wealthiest countries on earth' comes as a surprise which has 'justifiably raised eyebrows in less fortunate parts of the world' which are now preparing for coronavirus to hit, yet with a fraction of the resources.

Striking selfishness

"It's normal for countries to take care of their own citizens first," said University of Ottawa professor of international affairs and former Trudeau adviser, Roland Paris - who added that the selfishness and lack of coordination among leading countries "is striking."

"We're unfortunately seeing a mad scramble to grab whatever's available, to hell with the other guy," added Paris, who's apparently unfamiliar with game theory.

Even more stark, the mask wars have seen American and other buyers scuttling European and Brazilian deals, some even snatching shipments already promised to other jurisdictions by outbidding them -- even "on the tarmac" as planes prepared to take off. Some shipments reportedly just disappear. - CBC

Not just masks...

While global PPE supplies have run critically short, nearly half the supply of hydroxychloroquine - the Trump-touted treatment for COVID-19, comes from India - which has banned exports of all form of the 'game-changing' drug .

Consequently - while China is without a doubt the biggest antagonist to the US, India is beginning to grate on Trump's nerves despite his nominally cordial relationship with Modi. According to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence, 47% of the U.S. supply of the drug last year came from India makers. Only a handful of suppliers in the top 10 are non-Indian, such as Actavis, now a subsidiary of Israeli generics giant Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. Still, it's likely that some of their production facilities are nevertheless located in India.

India's export ban on the drug is aimed at ensuring it has enough supply for domestic use after the American president's endorsement sparked global stockpiling of the medication. Now, Trump's decision to tout the drug will cause major shortages in the US.

Imagine if the United States hadn't exported the manufacture of just about everything?

[Apr 06, 2020] Covid tears 'No masks nurse' story shows how pandemic is newfound opportunity for MSM to peddle emotionally-charged fake news

Notable quotes:
"... In a clip aired on Sunday but filmed a week earlier, nurse Imaris Vera bursts into tears and describes how she quit her job after "none of the nurses" ..."
"... "America is not prepared," she sobbed, "and nurses are not being protected." ..."
"... But dig a little deeper and the story begins to collapse. Vera admitted in a tweet on Saturday that she had actually been assigned an N95 respirator to wear, despite claiming in the video that "none of the nurses" ..."
"... Furthermore, the nurse didn't quit her job after a long and tireless struggle against the coronavirus. Her social media posts revealed that she quit on her first day on the job. According to her Facebook page, the woman had taken a year off, during which time she had built a career as a blogger and Instagram model. Since the virus hit US shores, she's used her Instagram page to promote boutique hand sanitizer and designer nurse's scrubs. ..."
"... "fake news media" ..."
Apr 06, 2020 | www.rt.com
Stories of human tragedy abound during the Covid-19 pandemic, but in its hunger for tearjerking moments, CBS has thrown the rulebook out the window and spread some viral "fake news." In a clip aired on Sunday but filmed a week earlier, nurse Imaris Vera bursts into tears and describes how she quit her job after "none of the nurses" in a dedicated coronavirus unit were wearing masks. Furthermore, she called out her Chicago hospital for banning nurses from using their own protective equipment in the facility.

"America is not prepared," she sobbed, "and nurses are not being protected."

In tears, a nurse says she quit her job after she was asked to work in a coronavirus ICU without a face mask: "America is not prepared, and nurses are not being protected" https://t.co/ywoSuLOPYP pic.twitter.com/S5BsnlO5nt

-- CBS News (@CBSNews) April 5, 2020

On its surface, the video is a damning indictment of the US government's response to the pandemic. Indeed, the media have frequently lambasted President Donald Trump for failing to act quick enough to contain the spread of the virus.

But dig a little deeper and the story begins to collapse. Vera admitted in a tweet on Saturday that she had actually been assigned an N95 respirator to wear, despite claiming in the video that "none of the nurses" in her ICU unit were wearing masks. Whether her hospital banned the wearing of masks in hallways and corridors to preserve supplies is still unclear.

Furthermore, the nurse didn't quit her job after a long and tireless struggle against the coronavirus. Her social media posts revealed that she quit on her first day on the job. According to her Facebook page, the woman had taken a year off, during which time she had built a career as a blogger and Instagram model. Since the virus hit US shores, she's used her Instagram page to promote boutique hand sanitizer and designer nurse's scrubs.

... ... ...

Whether its aim is to mislead viewers or to tug on heartstrings, the media hasn't missed an opportunity to rush dodgy footage in front of viewers. Such videos may generate clicks, but they also lend credence to President Trump's oft-repeated assertion that the "fake news media" doesn't care about the truth.

[Apr 06, 2020] Peter Navarro Explodes At Fauci In Heated Showdown Over Hydroxychloroquine

Notable quotes:
"... Washington Times ..."
"... Washington Times ..."
Apr 05, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
White House economic adviser got into a massive argument with the coronavirus task force's Anthony Fauci over the doctor's ongoing resistance to the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19, despite reports of the drug's widespread efficacy.

Via Axios :

According to the report, towards the end of the meeting Hahn began a discussion of the commonly used malaria drug hydroxychloroquine - which was recently rated the ' most effective therapy ' for coronavirus according to a global survey of more than 6,000 doctors .

After Hahn gave an update on various trials and real-world use of the drug, Navarro got up and dropped a stack of folders on the table to pass around .

According to Axios 's source, " the first words out of his [Navarro's] mouth are that the studies that he's seen, I believe they're mostly overseas, show 'clear therapeutic efficacy,' " adding "Those are the exact words out of his mouth.

Fauci - who's not got his own Twitter hashtag, #FireFauci - began pushing back against Navarro, repeating his oft-repeated contention that 'there's only anecdotal evidence' that the drug works against COVID-19.

Navarro exploded - after Fauci's mention of anecdotal evidence "just set Peter off." The economic adviser shot back "That's the science, not anecdote," while pointing to the stack of folders on the desk, which included the results of studies from around the world showing its efficacy.

Here's what unfolded next, via Axios :

Navarro started raising his voice, and at one point accused Fauci of objecting to Trump's travel restrictions, saying, "You were the one who early on objected to the travel restrictions with China," saying that travel restrictions don't work. (Navarro was one of the earliest to push the China travel ban.)

According to a source familiar with the coronavirus task force, "There has never been a confrontation in the task force meetings like the one yesterday," adding "People speak up and there's robust debate, but there's never been a confrontation. Yesterday was the first confrontation."

Meanwhile, 37% of 6,227 doctors across 30 countries felt the drug was the "most effective therapy" out of 15 options in treating coronavirus, according to a poll reported by the Washington Times .

The drug has been prescribed in 72% of cases in Spain, 49% in Italy, 41% in Brazil, 39% in Mexico, 28% in France, and 23% in the USA . Overall, 19% of physicians have prescribed the drug for high-risk patients, and 8% for low-risk patients.

More from the Sermo poll (via the Washington Times )

***

Sermo CEO Peter Kirk called the polling results a "treasure trove of global insights for policy makers."

"Physicians should have more of a voice in how we deal with this pandemic and be able to quickly share information with one another and the world," he said. "With censorship of the media and the medical community in some countries, along with biased and poorly designed studies, solutions to the pandemic are being delayed."

The survey also found that 63% of U.S. physicians believe restrictions should be lifted in six weeks or more, and that the epidemic's peak is at least 3-4 weeks away.

The survey also found that 83% of global physicians anticipate a second global outbreak, including 90% of U.S. doctors but only 50% of physicians in China.

On average, U.S. coronavirus testing takes 4-5 days, while 10% of cases take longer than seven days. In China, 73% of doctors reported getting rest results back in 24 hours.

In cases of ventilator shortages, all countries but China said the top criteria should be patients with the best chance of recovery (47%), followed by patients with the highest risk of death (21%), and then first responders (15%) .

[Apr 06, 2020] The Use of Facemasks and Respirators during an Influenza Pandemic: Scientific Evidence Base Review

It make sense to wear mask only for a limited time (no more then 2 hours for a single mask) and only in public places. Should always be combined with strict hand hygiene. Without hand hygiene wearing of masks can be counterproductive.
Notable quotes:
"... Given the potential loss of effectiveness with incorrect usage, general advice should be to only use masks/ respirators under very particular, specified circumstances, and in combination with other personal protective practices. ..."
Apr 06, 2020 | service.gov.uk

Executive summary

Conclusions: Despite a further review of all the available evidence up to 30 November 2012 there is still limited evidence to suggest that use of face masks and/or respirators in health care setting can provide significant protection against infection with influenza when in close contact with infected patients. Some evidence suggests that mask use is best undertaken as part of a package or 'bundle' of personal protection especially including hand hygiene, the new evidence provides some support to this argument particularly within the community or household setting. Early initiation and regular wearing of masks/respirators may improve their effectiveness in healthcare and household settings, again an argument marginally strengthened by the updated evidence.

The effectiveness of masks and respirators is likely to be linked to consistent, correct usage and compliance; this remains a major challenge – both in the context of a formal study and in everyday practice.

Given the potential loss of effectiveness with incorrect usage, general advice should be to only use masks/ respirators under very particular, specified circumstances, and in combination with other personal protective practices.

... ... ...

None of the trials found, in the main analyses, a significant difference between non-intervention and mask-only arms (surgical masks or N95/P2 respirators) in either clinically diagnosed (influenza-like-illness/ILI) or laboratory-confirmed influenza. However in four of the household trials, sub-analyses of the datasets revealed some evidence of protection.

One trial observed that household contacts who wore a P2 respirator 'all/most' of the time were less likely to develop an influenza-like illness compared to less frequent users.

A second trial found a significant reduction in laboratory-confirmed influenza among household contacts that began hand hygiene or hand hygiene plus a face mask within 36 hours of the index case's illness.

... ... ...

One of these studies found that there was a significantly lower frequency of H1N1 pdm09 infection in healthcare workers wearing a mask when compared to those not wearing a mask. Furthermore, a sub-analysis of nurses and nurse assistants in a seroprevalence study identified an increased risk of acquiring H1N1 pdm09 infection when not wearing a mask, however while the authors described this result as significant (p-value significant), the confidence interval was not significant

... ... ...

There is some weak evidence to suggest that facemasks may be protective when they are used early (after recognition of an index case in a household setting); if better compliance (using the masks for longer periods of time) is achieved, and when combined with hand-washing practicing.

Background

Minimising transmission of influenza requires a range of personal and public health measures taken by individuals and communities such as respiratory etiquette and hand hygiene and possibly proactive school closures (and other measures sometimes called social distancing). Use of personal protective equipment is generally advised according to the risk of exposure to the influenza virus and the degree of infectivity and human pathogenicity of the virus. A particularly vexing issue for policy makers has been the paucity of scientific evidence upon which to base guidance for use of masks and respirators in healthcare and community settings to prevent transmission of seasonal, pandemic and animal influenzas.

... ... ...

Participants were allocated to wear either a fit-tested N95 or a surgical face mask when providing care (including aerosol generating procedures) to patients with a febrile respiratory illness during the influenza season. No difference in influenza infection was detected in the two groups. The final hospital based study stratified 1441 health care workers across 15 Beijing hospitals to analyse the effectiveness of surgical masks compared to both fit-tested and non-fit tested N95 respirators (6). The wearers of N95 respirators had lower, but non-significant attack rates, compared to those wearing surgical masks. However the intention to treat analysis (when adjusting for clustering of hospitals) identified that non-fit-tested N95s had a statistically significant protective effect against clinical respiratory illness when compared to surgical masks in healthcare workers. Additionally a multivariate analysis ( post hoc ) found that wearing any N95 mask type protected against clinical respiratory illness

... ... ...

A cluster randomized controlled trial in Australia compared household contacts of paediatric index cases (0-15 years) with a febrile respiratory illness that were randomised to control, surgical mask or non-fit-tested P2 respirator intervention groups (9). No differences in rates of influenza-like infection or rates of respiratory virus isolation were observed in an intention-to-treat analysis. In a survival analysis that evaluated risk factors for influenza-like illness, use of P2 respirators or surgical masks grouped together was found to significantly reduce the risk for illness in those household contacts who reported wearing the device 'all' or 'most' of the time for the first five days; however, the study was underpowered to detect a difference in efficacy between P2 and surgical masks.

... ... ...

A study in Berlin, conducted across two influenza seasons (2009/10 and 2010/11), randomised households to three groups; control, face mask or face mask and hand-hygiene with the analyses stratified by influenza type (seasonal or pandemic cases), season, and early implementation of interventions (12). This was the only example of a trail that analyzed specific H1N1 pdm09 secondary household attack rates. In the intention-to-treat multivariable analysis, pooling of both intervention groups resulted in a significant reduction in lab-confirmed influenza when stratified for either early intervention or pandemic-only cases; however there was no statistically significant effect of intervention groups on secondary household attack rates. When a per-protocol analysis was applied the odds ratios in both the mask-only and mask/hand-hygiene 24 groups were between 0.2 and 0.3 suggesting a strong protective effect. Although a statistically significant reduction was found in the mask-only groups.

... ... ...

Larson and colleagues examined hand-sanitiser and hand-sanitiser/mask use (both with education) effectiveness amongst crowded households in upper Manhattan (15). In this study, both household caretakers and symptomatic individuals were asked to wear masks. The study found that mask wearing coupled with hand-sanitiser use significantly reduced secondary transmission of aggregated upper respiratory infection/ ILI and lab-confirmed influenza outcome compared with control households (education but no intervention) in the final logistic regression model. Unfortunately there was not a mask-only group, but the observation that hand sanitizer alone resulted in no reduction in the aggregated outcome suggests that mask use, in combination with hand-sanitiser had an impact on transmission. There was also limited power to detect differences amongst the three groups and there was also observed cross-contamination with use of hand-sanitizer in the control group

... ... ...

It was observed that there was a statistically significant difference in H1N1 pdm09 infection between individuals wearing masks at any point and those not wearing masks (0% seropositive individuals when using either surgical masks or N95 respirators in comparison to 14% individuals in the no mask/respirator group). The study however lacked power to detect significant differences between those wearing N95 respirators against those wearing surgical masks. In addition to this the study suffered for a large number of other limitations such as potential measurement and recall bias.

[Apr 05, 2020] In the land of 'distinguished epidemiologists' it is useful to distinguish who is already bought and who is not yet

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... will know exactly which professor, non-profit boss, esteemed expert, talks sense outta a brain that absorbs information & devises answers, and which ones are little more than industry shills who got lucky once early in their career, who are the notorious plagiarists, who are better at politicking than doctoring etc. ..."
Apr 05, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

A User , Apr 2 2020 23:51 utc | 143

Out in the land of 'distinguished epidemiologists' the types who are charged with doing the hands on work of developing counters to this virus, will know exactly which professor, non-profit boss, esteemed expert, talks sense outta a brain that absorbs information & devises answers, and which ones are little more than industry shills who got lucky once early in their career, who are the notorious plagiarists, who are better at politicking than doctoring etc.

[Apr 05, 2020] More like intel agency ass covering or gross incompetancy of Trump administration?

Apr 05, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

bevin , Apr 2 2020 16:32 utc | 8

Philip Giraldi knows who to blame:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/04/02/another-expensive-war-another-intelligence-failure/

"...the intelligence agencies were warning about information derived from medical sources in China that suggested viruses were developing that might become a pandemic, but the politicians, most particularly those in the White House, chose to take no action. He writes that " the Trump administration has cumulatively failed, both in taking seriously the specific, repeated intelligence community warnings about a coronavirus outbreak and in vigorously pursuing the nationwide response initiatives commensurate with the predicted threat. The federal government alone has the resources and authorities to lead the relevant public and private stakeholders to confront the foreseeable harms posed by the virus. Unfortunately, Trump officials made a series of judgments (minimizing the hazards of COVID-19) and decisions (refusing to act with the urgency required) that have needlessly made Americans far less safe."


"The article cites evidence that the intelligence community was collecting disturbing information on possibly developing pathogens in China and was, as early as January, preparing analytical reports that detailed just what was happening while also providing insights into how devastating the global proliferation of a highly contagious and potential lethal virus might be. One might say that the intel guys called it right, but were ignored by the White House, which, per Zenko, acted with "unprecedented indifference, even willful negligence...."

c1ue , Apr 2 2020 18:32 utc | 36

@bevin #8
In January? Really? Seems like the highly paid and budgeted intelligence agencies should be able to do a better job of predicting the nCOV threat before China instituted a shutdown on January 23 due to its view that nCOV was a problem.

Frankly, seems more like intel agency ass covering than anything else.

[Apr 05, 2020] The KN95 mask is a Chinese alternative to the scarce N95 mask, but the FDA refuses to allow it into the country

Apr 05, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

JC , Apr 2 2020 20:17 utc | 65

The KN95 mask is a Chinese alternative to the scarce N95 mask, but the FDA refuses to allow it into the country.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kenbensinger/coronavirus-kn95-masks-us-wont-import-china

Anyone know why KN95 banned?


A.L. , Apr 2 2020 20:49 utc | 78

Additional comments regarding Chinese KN95 and why it's banned in 'murica

Getting type approval means paying for certification so a lot of domestic chinese brands won't bother going for EN or NIOSH as those markets are stitched up by big names like 3M.

Some lesser brands or importers OEM them from China but will pay for certification for US NIOSH for example, they would have their branding on it and probably contractual limitation on market exclusivity, even though they're probably pumped off the same production line.

and because they're made by suppliers serving the domestic market in China, they're about 30% - 40% cheaper than N95

so it begs the question, in times like these why wouldn't you allow a temporary standards equivalency recognition?

The only motivation I can see beyond red tape is the KN95 masks generally will have Chinese printing on them (brand, model, certification etc) and how would the US narrative go when everyone is wearing Chinese masks on the streets?

A.L. , Apr 2 2020 20:30 utc | 73
@JC 65

becoz 'MURICA

mask standards comparison

they're pretty much the same.

William Gruff , Apr 2 2020 21:07 utc | 82
You can still order KN95 masks from AliExpress .

[Apr 05, 2020] Sending top shelf ventilators made by a Russian firm under U.S. sanctions? I wonder if this is some sort of ironic Russian humor

Apr 05, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

JerseyJeffersonian , 04 April 2020 at 12:19 PM

Here's another one for you from Clownworld, courtesy of Andrei at his Smoothiex12 blog:

http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2020/04/send-them-back.html?m=1

Sending top shelf ventilators made by a Russian firm under U.S. sanctions? I wonder if this is some sort of ironic Russian humor, besides being a bridge-building gesture, of course. If it's a troll, we richly deserve it, IMHO.

Remind me again why we are not working collegially with this talented nation of Russia.

Lyttennburgh , 04 April 2020 at 05:50 PM
2Ulenspiegel

I will give you 100% TrueUkrainian (the new plucky "democratic" friends of the Great West, remember?) answer - of course not!

As everybody knows (tm), Russian help is not just useless, but promotes this dreadful, aggressive "Russki Mir", that stands for everything wrong, compared to the bright* genderless globalist and eco-friendly progressive future.

Western countries and their populations, that have become the subject of the brutal and aggressive Russian humanitarian help (that's Italy and US of A) in order to maintain ideological integrity and robust correct-think, have to adopt a few simple measures, already tried and tested by the great patriots of the Ukraine:

1) Ask any Russian doctor and member of the medical personnel, that might try to treat you, about their attitude towards Putin, war in Syria and to whom really belongs the Crimea (optional for the Westerners – also ask about gays and representation quotas). If the answer is not 156% ideologically pure, refuse to be treated by such violent satrap of the Regime!

2) Stage a raid on a warehouse with the medical masks from Russia, and expropriate every single one of them! In order to prevent innocent bystanders from ever using such vile tools of Russian propaganda in their daily life, find a new and creative way to dispose of them. One such use is beloved by all truly patriotic members of the Ukrainian civil society (like C14 and "UPA-UNSO") – use them to make torches for your next rally!

3) Be proactive citizen – refuse to use Russian lung ventilators! Die a free person!

_______
*) But not too bright as not to offend epileptics.

[Apr 05, 2020] US sidestepped OWN SANCTIONS against Russia to save American lives from Covid-19... If only it cared as much about Iranian live

Notable quotes:
"... "It's like being on eBay" ..."
"... "They big-footed us" ..."
"... "We're going broke." ..."
"... "We're on our own." ..."
"... "viable" ..."
"... "money laundering" ..."
"... "propaganda ploy." ..."
Apr 03, 2020 | www.rt.com

US sidestepped OWN SANCTIONS against Russia to save American lives from Covid-19... If only it cared as much about Iranian lives

Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer. He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf's staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer. He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf's staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector.

Russian plane with medical aid unloaded at JFK airport, United States, New York City © Ruptly Follow RT on

When it comes to saving American lives, sanctions are not an obstacle to the provision of life-saving medical equipment. Ramping up sanctions on struggling Iran is okay however – which goes to show the US price tag on human life. It was a sight that warmed the heart of even the most cynical American opponent of Vladimir Putin's Russia -- a giant An-124 aircraft, loaded with boxes of desperately needed medical supplies, being offloaded at JFK Airport. When President Trump spoke on the phone with his Russian counterpart on March 31, he mentioned America's need for life-saving medical supplies, including ventilators and personal protective equipment. Two days later the AN-124 arrived in New York.

As the aircraft was being unloaded, however, it became clear that at least some of the equipment being offloaded had been delivered in violation of existing US sanctions. Boxes clearly marked as containing Aventa-M ventilators, produced by the Ural Instrument Engineering Plant (UPZ), could be seen. For weeks now President Trump has made an issue about the need for ventilators in the US to provide life-saving care for stricken Americans.

There was just one problem -- the manufacturer of the Aventa-M, UPZ, is a subsidiary of Concern Radio-Electronic Technologies (KRET) which, along with its parent holding company ROSTEC, has been under US sanctions since 2014. Complicating matters further is the fact that the shipment of medical supplies was paid in part by the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), a Russian sovereign wealth fund which, like ROSTEC, was placed on the US lending blacklist in 2014 following Russia's intervention in Crimea. Half of the Russian aid shipment was paid for by the US State Department, and the other half by RDIF.

Read more Russian declaration aimed at stopping sanctions amid coronavirus crisis REJECTED at UN General Assembly

According to a State Department spokesperson, the sanctions against RDIF do not apply to purchases of medical equipment. KRET, however, is in the strictest SDN (Specially Designated Persons) sanctions list , which means US citizens and permanent residents are prohibited from doing business with it. So while the letter of the sanctions may not have been violated, the spirit certainly has been.

One only need talk to the embattled Governor of New York State, Andrew Cuomo, to understand the difficulty in trying to purchase much-needed medical equipment during a global pandemic where everyone else is trying to do the same. New York has been competing with several other states to purchase much-needed ventilators from China. "It's like being on eBay" , Cuomo recently told the press, with 50 states bidding against one another, driving the price up. The issue became even more complicated when the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, entered the bidding war. "They big-footed us" , Cuomo said, driving the price per ventilator up to $25,000. "We're going broke."

Cuomo estimates that New York will need upwards of 40,000 ventilators to be able to handle the influx of stricken patients when the outbreak hits its peak. At the moment, New York has 17,000 ventilators available -- including 2,500 on order from China -- and Cuomo doesn't expect any more. "We're on our own." Plans are in place to begin imposing a triage system to prioritize ventilator availability if and when the current stockpile is exhausted. These plans include the issuance of an emergency waiver that permits health care providers to take a patient off a ventilator to make it available for another patient deemed to be more "viable" -- that is, who has a greater expectation of surviving the disease.

Cuomo's predicament is being played out around the world, in places like Italy, Spain -- and Iran, where the outbreak of coronavirus has hit particularly hard. The difference, however, is that while the US, Italy and Spain are able to scour the global market in search of life-saving medical supplies, Iran is not. US sanctions targeting the Iranian financial system, ostensibly imposed to prevent "money laundering" by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command, which has been heavily sanctioned by the US over the years, have made it virtually impossible for Iran to pay for humanitarian supplies needed to fight the coronavirus outbreak.

Also on rt.com 'This is NUTS!' Russiagaters see red over Putin's planeload of corona-aid for Trump, queue to look gift-horse in mouth

As bad as it is for Governor Cuomo, at least he can enter a bidding war for medical supplies. Iran can't even get its foot in the door, and it is costing lives. Making matters worse, at a time when the international community is pleading for the US to ease sanctions so Iran can better cope with an outbreak that is taking a life every ten minutes, the US instead doubled down, further tightening its death grip on the Iranian economy.

The global coronavirus pandemic will eventually end, and when it does there will be an accounting for how nations behaved. Nations like Russia and China have been repeatedly vilified in the US media for any number of reasons -- even the Russian aid shipment containing the sanctioned ventilators has been dismissed as a "propaganda ploy." What, then, do you call the US' blatant disregard for select human lives?

The callous indifference displayed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other officials to the suffering of the Iranian people by increasing sanctions at a time when the situation cries out for them to be lifted in order to save lives, when contrasted to the ease in which US sanctions on Russia are ignored when life-saving medical equipment is needed, drives home the point that, as far as the US is concerned, human life only matters when it is an American one. That might play well among American voters (it shouldn't), but for the rest of the world it is a clear sign that hypocrisy, not humanitarianism, is the word that will define the US going forward.

EDITOR'S NOTE: A previous version of this article erroneously stated that entering a financial relationship with RDIF is prosecutable under the US sanctions regime. In reality, RDIF is under sectoral sanctions that only apply to certain interactions, which, according to a State Department spokesperson, do not include purchases of medical equipment. The article has been changed accordingly.

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[Apr 05, 2020] Trump is a socalled "cheapcheat". One of the things he and his administration don't like is spending money on Joe Sixpack.

Apr 05, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Apr 2 2020 21:57 utc | 98

H.Schmatz @89--

"This administration is failing its people..."

And it has since day 1. As I wrote yesterday, the parent website for this article will have several each day documenting how TrumpCo's screwing/raping the public deliberately by various means, twisting Congressional intent by implementing rules Congress never envisioned in its legislation is one:

"Trump Labor Department Accused of Quietly 'Twisting the Law' to Slash Paid Sick Leave Amid Pandemic: The Trump administration is robbing workers of the paid sick days and paid leave Congress passed into law for them. That is unconscionable....

"'In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump administration is robbing workers of the paid sick days and paid leave Congress passed into law for them. That is unconscionable,' DeLauro said in a statement. 'People across the country are struggling to make ends meet, and essential workers who are still able to work need to know that if they or a loved one falls ill that they can take time off.'

"'Keeping workers from getting other workers sick is good for employees, employers, and our broader public health,' said DeLauro. 'Secretary Scalia needs to immediately rescind this guidance and put workers' needs first.'"

Before that it was the IRS trying to delay checks to seniors. And so on. So, on top is the Blame everything on China policy and attempted Narrative, while the underlying truth is the war being waged on the citizenry by TrumpCo, which is part of the ongoing Class War.

But to be fair, the Class war predates TrumpCo; ObamaInc, BushCo and ClintonLtd were just as immoral, deceitful and murderous. And the line goes back to Truman.

Willy2 , Apr 3 2020 8:00 utc | 221

- Trump is a socalled "cheapcheat". One of the things he and his administration don't like is spending money on Joe Sixpack.
- But now the Trump administration has to "eat crow". And that's why it blames Europe and China. Trump HATES - I repeat - HATES to admit that he was wrong.

[Apr 04, 2020] Should schools be closed?

Apr 04, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Petri Krohn , Apr 3 2020 20:24 utc | 36

There is a fear that schools are a vector in spreading COVID-19 from one family to another. But we know that children, especially young children under 10 are almost alway asymptotic. Wouldn't this mean that kindergartens and primary schools would be unable to sustain an epidemic? So is there any point in closing schools?

There is one danger. If an infection is transmitted form one adult to another then it would be untraceable. If a parent of one child is infected, then all parents of his or her classmates would need to be quarantined.

P.S. - It looks like social distancing measures in Finland have pushed R0 to 1 or slightly under.

[Apr 04, 2020] I believe we're approaching peak fear right now

Apr 04, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Realist , Apr 3 2020 20:11 utc | 34

I believe we're approaching peak fear right now

++++++


Only peak CV fear

After that peaks people will start to wake up a little from their quartine fear-induced stupor and some at least will start to notice what's being done economically, some thing which effects all plebs equally.

Then we can expect the imminent arrival of peak fiscal fear

[Apr 04, 2020] Flu will kill the same groups that are always susceptible

Apr 04, 2020 | www.unz.com

NPleeze , says: Show Comment April 3, 2020 at 3:32 pm GMT

@Sick of Orcs

#coronahoax aka ccp flu will kill the same groups that are always susceptible

Yes but it seems to kill them in far greater numbers. I thus agree about opening society, but not completely.

The vulnerable are about 5-10% of the population and generally unproductive (retired or too sick to work). They can self-quarantine (or, if you are an authoritarian statist, use law – a gun – to force them to quarantine) – importantly, including from their non-quarantined family members! , who will spread it to them – and everyone else go about their business.

In this case, the virus will roll over the population during the first season/year. It will kill some of the non-vulnerable as well – like all flus/diseases do – but roughly along annual lines. After that year, society will have achieved "herd immunity".

The problem with a partial quarantine is that the virus continues to circulate, and since the vulnerable and non-vulnerable people intermix (intimately, at home), the vulnerable will keep getting infected – this could go on for years. The result: vastly more dead, and a destroyed economy (which the Rulers will buy up for pennies on the dollar – diseases can be very profitable!).

[Apr 04, 2020] You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else

Apr 04, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Tobi , Apr 3 2020 22:08 utc | 76

Posted by: Christian J Chuba | @ 7

Like Winston Churchill said " You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."
We'll get there eventually but will wear out a lot of shovels digging deeper in the process.

[Apr 04, 2020] History Does Not Repeat Itself, But It Rhymes

Apr 04, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

How Generals Fueled 1918 Flu Pandemic to Win Their World War The American Conservative

The Army and Marine Corps have shifted from in-person to virtual recruitment meetings . But the Pentagon has reversed an initial Army decision to postpone further training and exercises for at least 30 days, and it has decided to continue sending new recruits from all the services to basic training camps, where they would no doubt be unable to sustain social distancing.

Esper's decisions reflect a deeply ingrained Pentagon habit of protecting its parochial military interests at the expense of the health of American troops. This pattern of behavior recalls the far worse case of the U.S. service chiefs once managing the war in Europe. They acted with even greater callousness toward the troops being called off to war in Europe during the devastating "Spanish flu" pandemic of 1918, which killed 50 million people worldwide.

Carlton Meyer 21 hours ago

"The lack of concern of Washington bureaucrats for the well-being of the troops, as they pursue their own war interests, appears to be a common pattern."

This was also true on the battlefield in France:

[Apr 04, 2020] US sales of alcoholic beverages rose 55 percent during the week that ended on March 21, and 75 percent versus the same period in 2019

Apr 04, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The public is clearly appreciative. According to Nielsen , U.S. sales of alcoholic beverages rose 55 percent during the week that ended on March 21, and 75 percent versus the same period in 2019. Wine and beer sales are up 66 percent and 42 percent respectively.

... According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism , there are 30 million U.S. adults (14 percent of the adult population) who are classified as heavy drinkers, and within that population, there is a subset of 14.4 million people who are alcoholics. Public health officials maintain that cutting off individuals who are chemically dependent upon alcohol will result in panic in the streets and a run on our hospitals due to the unique nature of alcohol addiction.

... According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence , "1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men will experience physical violence by their intimate partner at some point during their lifetimes which equates to intimate partner violence occurring to over 10 million people a year." History shows that these statistics skew even higher during times of crisis.

As Mother Jones reports , since the onset of the coronavirus, 13 cities and counties have reported an increase in call volume to 911 and domestic violence hotlines. That includes Seattle (22 percent), the site of the first U.S. coronavirus case; San Antonio, Texas (21 percent); Charlotte/Mecklenburg, North Carolina (16 percent); and New York City (7 percent).

While we do not have data on how many of these cases involved alcohol, research tells us this is no small problem. For example, the World Health Organization found that 55 percent of domestic violence victims surveyed in the U.S. maintained that their partners were drinking prior to a physical assault.

[Apr 04, 2020] Covid-19 3M Shipping Masks Overseas After Trump Failed to Act

Apr 04, 2020 | gizmodo.com

President Donald Trump lashed out Thursday night on Twitter against 3M, the Minnesota-based maker of vital N95 masks used in hospitals around the world during the coronavirus pandemic that has sickened over 1 million people and killed almost 54,000. Trump was apparently upset to learn that 3M has been exporting many of its masks to other countries instead of offering them to officials in U.S. states, something the president had complete control over if he had acted quicker.

"We hit 3M hard today after seeing what they were doing with their Masks," Trump tweeted late Thursday , without specifically noting what 3M was doing.

"P Act. all the way," Trump continued, apparently using P to refer to the Defense Production Act. "Big surprise to many in government as to what they were doing - will have a big price to pay!"

Previously, the president failed to invoke the Defense Production Act, which allows the federal government to mandate how U.S. companies produce and distribute essential goods.

[Apr 04, 2020] The 3M Mask Standoff Gets More Complicated

Apr 04, 2020 | www.barrons.com

Industrial conglomerate 3M got slammed by President Donald Trump over sending face masks abroad .

"We hit 3M hard today after seeing what they were doing with their Masks," the president tweeted . "Big surprise to many in government as to what they were doing -- will have a big price to pay!"

It sounds bad, and it forced a response from the company, which has consumer and health-care franchises. It makes masks and other personal protective equipment badly needed by front line health-care workers.

"Over the last several weeks and months, 3M and its employees have gone above and beyond to manufacture as many N95 respirators as possible for the U.S. market," reads a Friday news release. "Yesterday, the Administration formally invoked the Defense Production Act (DPA) to require 3M to prioritize orders from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for our N95 respirators."

[Apr 04, 2020] WATCH Trump's coronavirus task force gives update at White House

That was one of the worst decisions Trump administration made. Now they change their stance. Better later then never...
Notable quotes:
"... Part of the reason was to preserve medical-grade masks for health care workers who desperately need them at a time when they are in continuously short supply. ..."
Apr 04, 2020 | www.youtube.com

The C.D.C. has recommended that all Americans wear cloth masks if they go out in public. This is a shift in federal guidance reflecting new concerns that the coronavirus is being spread by infected people who have no symptoms .

Until now, the C.D.C., like the W.H.O., has advised that ordinary people don't need to wear masks unless they are sick and coughing.

Part of the reason was to preserve medical-grade masks for health care workers who desperately need them at a time when they are in continuously short supply.

Masks don't replace hand washing and social distancing.

[Apr 04, 2020] Unmasking the Truth on Masks to Protect Against Coronavirus Fire the Surgeon General

Apr 04, 2020 | wallstreetonparade.com

Unmasking the Truth on Masks to Protect Against Coronavirus: Fire the Surgeon General Boston Red Cross Volunteers Make Gauze Masks During Spanish Flu of 1918.

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: April 3, 2020 ~

On March 23 we wrote this: " For want of a mask the largest economy in the world has been gutted, with Goldman Sachs now projecting that U.S. GDP could contract by as much as 24 percent in the second quarter." Now, in the past two weeks, 10 million Americans have filed claims for unemployment. Let that sink in, 10 million of our fellow citizens have lost their jobs in just a two-week period.

In the same article linked above, we showed a photo dated March 4 from the Associated Press of people packed together on a subway in New York City with almost no one wearing a mask. And then we explained why:

"On February 29, the Surgeon General Tweeted that the public should stop buying masks – despite scientific agreement that the virus is spread by sneezing, coughing and talking. The Surgeon General's advice may have made sense for people living on a 10 acre farm in New Hampshire but it was dangerous advice for people who can't afford taxis and are forced to ride a packed subway to work each day in Manhattan."

Because there were simply not enough masks to go around, the Surgeon General effectively lied to the American people.

Now, New York City is the global epicenter of the coronavirus with more deaths than anywhere else in the country. As of this morning, the New York Times is reporting a total of 51,810 cases and 1,562 deaths in New York City – which is 25 percent of the deaths in the entire United States, despite New York City representing just 2.6 percent of the U.S. population.

This past Monday, March 30, MSNBC news host, Chris Hayes, told his viewers this:

"At the beginning of this crisis, the World Health Organization and the CDC came out and basically said that if you're healthy, you just don't need to wear a mask around public to protect yourself or others from Coronavirus.

"Now, over the weekend, there was a rumbling the CDC was about to change its guidance to suggest Americans should wear protective masks, and while the CDC is now denying that reporting, and saying it is not updating its guidance, it is very hard to ignore the fact that the countries where masks are most prevalent, particularly in East Asia, are the ones doing the best job of battling the virus . [Italics added.]

"A prominent Chinese doctor was recently asked by Science magazine what mistakes are other countries making, quote, 'the big mistake in the U.S. and Europe in my opinion is that people aren't wearing masks.' "

Yesterday, April 2, the Washington Post published an OpEd by Joseph G. Allen, director of the Healthy Buildings Program at Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The title of the OpEd was this: " You Need to Wear a Mask. Here's How ." Allen wrote this:

"The debate is over. You should be wearing a mask when you go out

"First, masks of any type help prevent the user from infecting others by acting as a physical barrier that will block large droplets from coughs and sneezes. These droplets can travel up to 20 feet with a powerful sneeze, so six feet of social distancing is not always enough. And wearing masks is not just a good thing for those who are actively sick: Any one of us might be harboring this virus asymptomatically and could transmit it to others, cascading into a thousand new infections."

Allen also correctly pointed out that "Wearing a mask does not replace other important public health control measures such as hand-washing, social distancing, covering your cough and cleaning surfaces."

Allen critically noted that while N95 masks must be reserved for front-line health care workers, people can and should be making their own masks. Unfortunately, Allen suggested using a 100 percent cotton t-shirt, which this tutorial on the proper way to make a mask recommends against . A T-shirt is knit, thus making it subject to stretching. The tutorial recommends using a double layer of high-thread-count 100 percent cotton from sheets or pillow cases made out of Percale or a list of other fabrics.

According to the CDC, the 1918 flu pandemic, known as the "Spanish Flu," resulted in the death of 50 million people globally and an estimated 675,000 people in the United States. The photograph above likely explains one of the numerous reasons that the Spanish Flu was not contained in the U.S. Red Cross volunteers were using highly porous gauze to make masks.

Yesterday, New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio said this: "We're advising New Yorkers to wear a face covering when you go outside and will be near other people. Let's be clear, this is a face covering. It could be a scarf, it could be a bandana, something you create yourself."

NBC News is reporting this morning that "The White House is expected to urge Americans who live in areas of high coronavirus transmission to wear cloth face coverings to prevent the spread of the virus, a senior administration official told NBC News on Thursday night." Clearly, the whole country should be wearing properly-made, home-made masks so that their town doesn't become the next heavily impacted area.

It didn't need to take this long and the loss of this many lives and the U.S. economy to figure out the obvious. The Surgeon General's negligent Tweet on February 29 should have told Americans to stop buying N95 masks needed desperately by health care professionals and advised them on how to properly make their own masks. The Surgeon General should be held accountable and lose his own job along with the other 10 million Americans who didn't give out dangerously bad advice.

Bookmark the permalink . ← Fed's Balance Sheet Blasts to $5.8 Trillion; Suggests Fed Is Back to Bailing Out Foreign Banks along with Wall Street

[Apr 04, 2020] The mask fiasco

Apr 04, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , Apr 3 2020 22:53 utc | 90

With the mask fiasco comes the relief fund fiasco:

Long-term customers shocked as Bank of America restricts coronavirus bailout loans to businesses who've borrowed before

The USA is struggling to alocate its resources.

[Apr 04, 2020] Wait, Me Army Surprises Thousands With COVID-19 Duty Call

Apr 04, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

ot many people were surprised when President Trump signed an executive order that authorized the Secretary of Defense to mobilize, or call up, the ready or active reserves to help the country deal with the Covid-19 crisis. After all, the women and men who volunteer to join these National Guard or Reserve units expect to be activated to deal with crisis at home or abroad. Moreover, they are not only trained for these missions but receive compensation, benefits, and retirement credit while they are training and when they are mobilized.

However, the President's order not only authorizes the Secretary to mobilize the guard and reserves, or ready reserves, but also individuals from the inactive component, or Individual Ready Reserves (IRR). This week the Army began contacting them to be called up, on a volunteer basis, for now.

For the most part, many of the approximately 200,000 IRR members do not even know they are in the reserves, or still have a military obligation. Essentially these women and men are people who have volunteered to serve in the active forces for a period of time, usually four years, but often, unbeknownst to them, have incurred a military service obligation of eight years.

The primary reason many of these brave young people are unaware that they have incurred this eight-year obligation is that military recruiters rarely emphasize this provision for fear of scaring off the potential recruit. After all, informing an 18-year old woman or man that by joining the armed forces, for two or four years, means that she or he will incur an obligation, of almost half their life, can be a deal-breaker for them or their parents.

If the Secretary has to use this authority to call up some of them, it will mean that an individual who has volunteered to put his or her life on the line, usually fighting the endless wars in the Middle East, when the vast number of their contemporaries sat out the global war on terror, now could be forced to disrupt their lives again in order to deal with another threat to our country.

While it may be too late to stop many of these women and men from being called up involuntarily at this time, we should use this opportunity to change this unfair policy once and for all.

From now on, anyone who volunteers to put their life on the line for a fixed number of years should be given a choice when they complete their agreed upon term of service. They can choose to join a reserve or guard unit or remain in the IRR. If they select neither of these options, they should be allowed to opt out of the military for good. If this policy undermines our security, perhaps we should consider other options like providing a bonus for those willing to join the IRR, or pay them some form of retainer pay while allowing them access to commissaries and exchanges.

Lawrence J. Korb is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and served as assistant secretary of defense (manpower, reserve affairs, installations, and logistics) from 1981 through 1985.

[Apr 03, 2020] Coronavirus: Things the US has got wrong - and got right

Notable quotes:
"... By mid-March, the administration was promising at least 5 million tests by the end of the month. An independent analysis of totals on 30 March, however, indicate only a million tests have been conducted. That's more than any other country but the US population is roughly 329 million people. ..."
"... "I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead," he said. ..."
"... In January and February, as the viral outbreak devastated Chinese manufacturing and began exacting a high toll in Italy, the president repeatedly downplayed the threat to the US. Following the first few American cases, Trump and other administration officials said the situation was under control and would dissipate in the summer "like a miracle". ..."
"... College students on spring break from classes packed Florida beaches. New York City residents filled subway cars. A church in Louisiana continues to welcome thousands despite pastor Tony Spell being criminally cited for violating an order limiting the size of gatherings. ..."
"... "If I get corona, I get corona," one Florida beachgoer told CBS News in mid-March. "At the end of the day, I'm not going to let it stop me from partying." ..."
"... Universities that sent students home to their families may have contributed to the spread of the virus by returning infected individuals to cities, neighborhoods and homes not yet in full lockdown. ..."
"... The lack of clarity in the president's order to halt entry into the US from Europe - which at first seemed to apply US citizens as well as foreign nationals - led to a crushing crowds at airports where unscreened infected passengers could easily transit the disease to others. ..."
"... Decisions like those may have had dire consequences, hampering efforts to contain the spread of the disease throughout the nation - the public health equivalent of throwing petrol on an already raging fire. ..."
Apr 03, 2020 | www.bbc.com

MISTAKES Medical supply shortages

Masks, gloves, gowns and ventilators. Doctors and hospitals across the country, but particularly in areas hardest hit by the pandemic, are scrambling for items essential to help those stricken by the virus and protect medical professionals.

The lack of adequate supplies has forced healthcare workers to reuse existing sanitary garb or create their own makeshift gear. A shortage of ventilators has state officials worried they will soon be forced into performing medical triage, deciding on the fly who receives the life-sustaining support - and who doesn't.

Coronavirus: Lack of medical supplies 'a national shame'

On Tuesday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo complained that states, along with the federal government, were competing for equipment, driving up prices for everyone.

"It's like being on eBay with 50 other states, bidding on a ventilator," he said.

It didn't have to be this way, says Jeffrey Levi, a professor of health policy and management at George Washington University. The US government failed to adequately maintain the stockpile of supplies necessary to deal with a pandemic like this - and then moved too slowly when the nature of the current crisis became apparent.

"We lost many weeks in terms of ramping up the production capacity around personal protection equipment and never fully utilizing government authority to make sure that production took place," he says.

Testing delays

According to Professor Levi, ramping up testing at an early date - as done in nations like South Korea and Singapore - is the key to controlling a viral outbreak like Covid-19. The inability of the US government to do so was the critical failure from which subsequent complications have cascaded.

"All of pandemic response is dependent on situational awareness - knowing what is going on and where it is happening," he says.

Without this information, public health officials are essentially flying blind, not knowing where the next viral hotspot will flare up. Comprehensive testing means infected patients can be identified and isolated, limiting the need for the kind of sweeping state-wide shelter-in-place orders that have frozen the US economy and led to millions of unemployed workers.

Levi says the responsibility for this failure lies squarely with the Trump administration, which disregarded pandemic response plans dating back more than a decade to the George W Bush presidency and failed to fully staff its public health bureaucracy.

"The political leadership in this administration really doesn't believe in government," Levi says. "That has really hampered their willingness to harness the resources the federal government had to respond at a time like this."

The numbers, particularly on testing, bear this out. The initial tests sent in February to just a handful of US laboratories by the administration were faulty.

By mid-March, the administration was promising at least 5 million tests by the end of the month. An independent analysis of totals on 30 March, however, indicate only a million tests have been conducted. That's more than any other country but the US population is roughly 329 million people.

What's more, because of crush of testing that has followed the initial shortages, the labs that analyse the results have been overwhelmed, leading to delays of a week or more before tested individuals can learn if they have the virus.

Messaging 'whiplash' and political squabbles

At his press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Donald Trump offered a grim outlook for the nation.

"I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead," he said.

His public health advisers followed that statement up with charts predicting at least 100,000 American deaths from the virus even under the current mitigating efforts.

The president's comments stood in stark contrast to remarks even just a week earlier, when he expressed hope that the US could begin to reopen businesses by the mid-April Easter holiday.

In January and February, as the viral outbreak devastated Chinese manufacturing and began exacting a high toll in Italy, the president repeatedly downplayed the threat to the US. Following the first few American cases, Trump and other administration officials said the situation was under control and would dissipate in the summer "like a miracle".

Inconsistent messages from the top are a real problem, Professor Levi says. "Pandemic preparedness is a constantly changing environment, and sometimes your message does change. In this case, however, you've also had whiplash around messages that are not necessarily reflecting a change in the science or what's happening on the ground, but instead reflecting political concerns."

The president has also feuded with Democratic state governors, criticising New York's Andrew Cuomo and belittling Michigan's Gretchen Whitmer on Twitter. He said state leaders needed to be "appreciative" of the federal government.

Social-distancing failures

College students on spring break from classes packed Florida beaches. New York City residents filled subway cars. A church in Louisiana continues to welcome thousands despite pastor Tony Spell being criminally cited for violating an order limiting the size of gatherings.

"The virus, we believe, is politically motivated," Spell told a local television station. "We hold our religious rights dear, and we are going to assemble no matter what someone says."

Across the country, there have been numerous examples of Americans failing to heed the calls by public health professionals to avoid close social contact, sometimes abetted by local and state government officials who have been reluctant to order businesses to shutter and citizens to shelter in place.

"If I get corona, I get corona," one Florida beachgoer told CBS News in mid-March. "At the end of the day, I'm not going to let it stop me from partying."

US students on spring break defy COVID-19 warnings

Even steps taken with the best of intentions might have had adverse consequences. Curtailing public-transportation services, such as New York's subway, may have led to trains and busses that were more crowded. Universities that sent students home to their families may have contributed to the spread of the virus by returning infected individuals to cities, neighborhoods and homes not yet in full lockdown.

The lack of clarity in the president's order to halt entry into the US from Europe - which at first seemed to apply US citizens as well as foreign nationals - led to a crushing crowds at airports where unscreened infected passengers could easily transit the disease to others.

Decisions like those may have had dire consequences, hampering efforts to contain the spread of the disease throughout the nation - the public health equivalent of throwing petrol on an already raging fire.

[Apr 02, 2020] More likely they will cover it up

The Navy announced it has relieved the captain who sounded the alarm about an outbreak of COVID-19 aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Capt. Brett Crozier, who commands the Roosevelt, an aircraft carrier with a crew of nearly 5,000, was relieved of his command Thursday, but he will keep his rank and remain in the Navy. Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly said Crozier was removed by his decision.
Apr 02, 2020 | thehill.com

dave an hour ago

More likely they will cover it up.

Aircraft carrier captain removed from duty after pleading for help with coronavirus outbreak.
https://thehill.com/policy/...

vcros dave an hour ago
Jesus. They guy knew he was sacrificing his command, but at least he's protecting his men.
flame of freedom dave an hour ago
As he should.
vcros flame of freedom 44 minutes ago
Why, for pleading for his men's lives and safety?
MoscowMitch 40 minutes ago
The US military STARTED the virus at Ft Detrick and then spread it to China via the 320 soldiers they sent to Wuhan in Oct,,,,faq the US military, they work for Israel!!
Helen4Yemen MoscowMitch 17 minutes ago
That makes no sense at all considering that now in Palestine,
the Orthodox Jews are the most infected group and also
considering how the colonizing Jews would love to completely
eradicate the Palestinians, they would have introduced the virus
in the Palestinian community to eliminate them
Oolon Hoek 44 minutes ago
Umm......"will be"?
Good to know they will be ready for today sometime tomorrow. FFS

Time to cut defense spending in 1/2 and use that money to ACTUALLY help America and Americans

It's about priorities.

Cost of 1 B2 bomber 1+ billion dollars
Cost of 80,000 ventilators 1 billion dollars
Cost of 1 hospital ship/train 100 million dollars
Cost of N95 respirator 1 dollar 80 cent

So far we have used the B2 to bomb Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya.

10 hospital ships/trains could be deployed and save countless American lives in hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, earthquakes, and yes....pandemics.

1 B2 bomber can bomb a village in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosov....etc, with a GDP less than 50k

It'd sure be nice if we could trade in a couple of B2 bombers for 2 dozen hospitals, 80,000 ventilators, or a couple billion N95 respirators right now

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." Dwight D. Eisenhowe

Zip an hour ago
Every republican president for the past century has led the US into a recession or depressiilon.
AMG Guy Zip an hour ago
Evangelicals chose every one.

I think its the benefits that come with becoming an Evangelical:
Adultery with Hookers
Racism
Hatred
Lying
Bribery
Extortion
Treason

Its one Hell of a religious grou

[Apr 02, 2020] Donald Trump extends coronavirus guidelines through April 30 - Washington Times

Apr 02, 2020 | www.washingtontimes.com

President Trump on Sunday said he wants Americans to stay at home until April 30, abandoning his hope of opening up businesses by Easter as modeling suggested the U.S. coronavirus death toll could reach tens of thousands and peak two weeks from now.

He said the White House will release a new strategy for states by Tuesday and hopes to have the economy on its way to recovery by June 1.

It's a sudden and somber shift for Mr. Trump, who on March 16 said he wanted Americans to work and learn at home, avoid nonessential travel and use takeout instead of entering restaurants through March 31.

[Apr 01, 2020] Stop Buying Masks.. Oh Wait! CDC Considers Asking Public To Wear Face Masks

Notable quotes:
"... Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com, ..."
"... This is irony at its finest. ..."
Apr 01, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

This is irony at its finest.

The United States Surgeon General used twitter to tell the public to NOT use face masks to protect against the coronavirus because they don't work, they only work for health care workers. Now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering a recommendation that people wear masks when in public.

[Apr 01, 2020] Sailors Don't Need To Die Captain Of Nuclear Carrier With Over 100 COVID-19 Cases Pleads For Help Zero Hedge

US navy meets unexpected enemy
Apr 01, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
by Tyler Durden Tue, 03/31/2020 - 20:25

In an astounding plea for help, the captain of the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt has urged top command of the US Navy to take drastic action after more than 100 sailors aboard the ship have been infected with the coronavirus .

More than a week ago it started with a handful of COVID-19 cases, which by the end of the week spiked to 36, causing the West Pacific-deployed carrier to dock at a naval station at Guam, ordering infected crew members out of the some 5,000 total into makeshift quarantine facilities, including a basketball gym hastily transformed for that purpose. The San Francisco Chronicle has obtained and published excerpts of an unprecedented plea for help written by the USS Roosevelt's Captain Brett Crozier to Pentagon leadership :

"This will require a political solution but it is the right thing to do," wrote Capt. Brett Crozier, a Santa Rosa native, from Guam where his 1,092-foot carrier Theodore Roosevelt docked following a COVID-19 outbreak. "We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset -- our Sailors."

In the letter Capt. Crozier warned that "Due to a warship's inherent limitations of space... the spread of the diseast is ongoing and accelerating." The SF Chronicle described that the letter was issued Monday as the captain fears there will be possible deaths among crew under his command if more resources aren't immediately allocated.

It is unclear as yet how many of the crew have been quarantined on land at Guam, and how many still remain aboard the docked carrier. But it appears the ongoing attempts at quarantine and containment are not going fast enough, with less than necessary resources employed. Previously General John Hyten, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said testing of the entire crew is expected to take a week minimum.

[Apr 01, 2020] Ford, GE Promise To Build 15,000 Ventilators Over Next 100 Days

Apr 01, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Update (1638ET): Ford is responding to pressure from the Trump administration (after Trump mostly went after rival GM and its CEO Mary Barra) to step up and build medically necessary equipment, by announcing that under a partnership with GE, it plans to build 15,000 ventilators over the next 100 days.

The ventilators will be built at a plant in Michigan in cooperation with GE's healthcare unit. The companies will then build 30,000 per month as needed to treat patients afflicted with the coronavirus, but hope to finish at least 15,000 over the next 100 days as they're just starting up, as Reuters reported.

Ford said the simplified ventilator design, which is licensed by GE Healthcare from Florida-based Airon Corp and has been cleared by the FDA, can meet the needs of most COVID-19 patients.

[Apr 01, 2020] CDC asks New York, New Jersey and Connecticut residents to 'refrain' from nonessential travel

NJ governer issued the same recommendation much earler
Apr 01, 2020 | www.usatoday.com

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a request Saturday night asking residents of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to curtail non-essential travel in order to help limit the spread of the coronavirus.

It delivered the details of what President Donald Trump called a "strong travel advisory" for the three states.

" to refrain from non-essential domestic travel for 14 days effective immediately," the Atlanta-based agency said on its website Saturday around 10 p.m. EDT.

It noted, "This Domestic Travel Advisory does not apply to employees of critical infrastructure industries, including but not limited to trucking, public health professionals, financial services, and food supply."

The CDC said the governors of the tri-state area "will have full discretion to implement this Domestic Travel Advisory."

file:///F:/Private_html/Office2/Teams2

[Mar 30, 2020] Apparently a low cost ventilator was constructed years ago by direction of the Federal government. The company was bought out by another company that produced higher costs ventilators and the project died.

Mar 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

dltravers , Mar 29 2020 20:02 utc | 45

The U.S. Tried to Build a New Fleet of Ventilators. The Mission Failed.

Apparently a low cost ventilator was constructed years ago by direction of the Federal government. The company was bought out by another company that produced higher costs ventilators and the project died.

[Mar 30, 2020] Dr. Francis Collins director of the US National Institute of Health is no longer AVOL

Mar 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Trailer Trash , Mar 29 2020 20:25 utc | 51

Looks to me like Dr Francis Collins, director of the US National Institute of Health

He is no longer AWOL? You have seen or read a recent interview? For at least a month or two, it has been Fauci, Fauci, Fauci, and not a hint of his boss Collins. Perhaps Collins has been too busy handing out guitar picks.


NIH Record
At the outset of his... presentation..., NIH director Dr. Francis Collins described new guitar pick-shaped lapel pins ... popping up around NIH and even on Capitol Hill that tout "Hope at NIH." These arose not only out of Collins' reputation as a musician, but also as "insignia that we believe in what we are doing," said Collins. "You want to pick NIH and you want to pick hope," he said, inviting the group to wear the symbols with pride.

Who needs research or effective planning when we've got "Hope at NIH"?

In 2017 he was been busy promoting Mind/Music/Magic pseudo-science. Maybe he got lost backstage.


"Music and the Mind," on the intersection of music and science. There will be performances, presentations, and discussions by Dr. Collins, Ms. Fleming, the National Symphony Orchestra, neuroscientists, music therapists, and others. Some events are free, open to the public, and will be streamed online

Too bad he is too busy to run his $35 billion agency. Good thing he has Fauci to do it for him.

[Mar 30, 2020] Dr. Fauci We're Going To Have Millions Of Cases And Between 100K 200K Deaths

So far in one month The USA has less then 200K cases. So in order to have millions cases exponential growth need to continue unabated. With the measures taken after March 11 it is unlearn what will be the trajectory of the virus epidemic.
Compare with https://twitter.com/InterviewerAk/status/1243823950720724993
Mar 30, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

"But it's such a moving target and you could so easily be wrong...what we do know is we have a serious problem in New York, we have a serious problem in New Orleans and we're going to be developing serious problems in other areas. Although people like to model it, let's just look at the data that we have, and not worry about these worst case and best case scenarios."

Dr. Fauci also cautioned the public about how to interpret models:

"There are things called models, and when someone creates a model, they put in various assumptions. And the model is only as good and as accurate as your assumptions."

"And whenever the modelers come in, they give a worst case scenario and a best case scenario. Generally, the reality is somewhere in the middle. I've never seen a model of the diseases that I've dealt with where the worst case scenario actually came out. They always overshoot."

Dr. Fauci stressed that Trump's hope to reopen the country by Easter will greatly depend on whether the public complies with the 'shelter in place' recommendations, though he said he greatly doubts that the US will be able to reopen by next week (Easter is April 12, still a couple of weeks away)

[Mar 28, 2020] Meet The 'Covidiot' A Dense Creature That Ignores Simple Instructions, Endangers Others

Mar 24, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
...On Saturday, a new term caught the internet by storm, that is, 'Covidiot' – and first defined on Urban Dictionary , with the top definition:

"Someone who ignores the warnings regarding public health or safety. A person who hoards goods, denying them from their neighbors."

[Mar 28, 2020] What I have found when yesterday I ventured into Wal-Mart to shop with the other deplorable people that the elite child molesters, sexual perverts, and sociopaths out in Hollyweird, NYC and Washington like to look down on

Notable quotes:
"... Speaking of "suited and booted", shouldn't these people be wearing one of those full body suits and booties over their shoes as well? ..."
Mar 25, 2020 | www.unz.com

Trinity , says: Show Comment March 25, 2020 at 3:13 pm GMT

Yesterday I ventured into Wal-Mart to shop with the other local deplorable people that the elite child molesters, sexual perverts, and sociopaths out in Hollyweird, NYC and Washington like to look down on.

Wasn't that crowded and I probably noticed about 10 customers "suited and booted" wearing various masks of different shapes and styles and latex gloves.

Speaking of "suited and booted", shouldn't these people be wearing one of those full body suits and booties over their shoes as well?

[Mar 28, 2020] Do not shoot at each other folk. Please leave hospital beds for coronavirus patients!

Highly recommended!
Mar 28, 2020 | www.rt.com

Baltimore's mayor has called on the city's inhabitants to refrain from killing one another for the time being, asking them not to "clog up" hospital beds as the coronavirus pandemic spreads far and wide across the country.

[Mar 28, 2020] Neoliberal priorities: plenty of USG resources for Pentagon and to run pandemic war games but no money to create the most basic stockpiles (thermometers, face masks, gloves)

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... DONALD TRUMP: Nobody knew there'd be a pandemic or an epidemic of this proportion. ..."
"... Trump is like the kid who played video games when he should have been doing his homework, then failed miserably on the test and tried to bullshit his way through the essay questions. ..."
"... As you are probably aware, a handful of elected leaders were selling their stock while assuaging the public about the dangers of the pandemic. We've gone from incompetence, to negligence, to outright profiteering. ..."
Mar 21, 2020 | caucus99percent.com

Last year, the Dept. of Health and Human Services ran a 7 month long exercise code named "Crimson Contagion," a dry run response to a global pandemic which started in China and expected more than 100 million Americans to become ill.

The simulation highlighted several failures in our preparedness for such a catastrophe .

DONALD TRUMP: Nobody knew there'd be a pandemic or an epidemic of this proportion.

The New York Times broke this story yesterday, but as it's behind a paywall I won't link to it. But there's a good interview with one of the authors conducted by NPR.

Trump is like the kid who played video games when he should have been doing his homework, then failed miserably on the test and tried to bullshit his way through the essay questions.

As you are probably aware, a handful of elected leaders were selling their stock while assuaging the public about the dangers of the pandemic. We've gone from incompetence, to negligence, to outright profiteering.


QMS on Sat, 03/21/2020 - 11:05am
good point Marie

@Marie

dropping bombs and sanctioning free commerce in other countries is the American way of protecting the proceeds of the sociopaths
not such a good way to stop pandemics. Not in my name congress

Marie on Sat, 03/21/2020 - 11:57am
We do have a weird definition of national security.

@QMS
Fifty-six years dumping an untold number of dollars into "keeping us safe" from a foreign invader and the one time it happened, not any of the resources were worth a damn.

The problem isn't so much that the real threats are unknown, at least not in broad outline form, but they're not "sexy." Not amenable to what the military and cloak and dagger spy guys are into. And the perpetual USG budgets for the sexy stuff is far more profitable. And is better suited to hiding all the graft and corruption (and employing the surplus and unskilled labor that elite universities crank out) that upset ordinary people fearful that some undeserving person would get something for free from the USG.

Cant Stop the M... on Sat, 03/21/2020 - 3:52pm
Apparently medical supplies don't count as military

@Marie

supplies, either. Well, given how the govt likely views our soldiers, I guess that's not surprising.

pandemic war games but no money to implement the most basic stockpiles (thermometers, face masks, gloves) that would be very helpful in containing a virus. The larger serious shortcomings in the US are mostly intractable due to the "best" health care system that money can buy.

[Mar 28, 2020] Critique of Dr. Fauci. How should America respond to the Coronavirus crisis? With therapeutic drugs? Or with a vaccine?

Mar 28, 2020 | www.unz.com

Agent76 , says: Show Comment March 27, 2020 at 8:31 pm GMT

Mar 27, 2020 Dr. Fauci and COVID-19 Priorities: Therapeutics Now or Vaccines Later?

There is a raging debate in our government. How should America respond to the Coronavirus crisis? With therapeutic drugs? Or with a vaccine?

https://www.youtube.com/embed/xCnOqwvPivE

[Mar 28, 2020] The shortage of chloroquin might also be a matter of the medical bureaucracy at play.

Mar 28, 2020 | www.unz.com

Turk 152 , says: Show Comment March 27, 2020 at 3:04 pm GMT

The shortage could also be a matter of the medical bureaucracy at play. A primary driver in physicians actions is whether or not they will be sued. If they prescribe malaria medication for covid-19, a use that has not gone through clinical trials and FDA approval, could they be sued if someone dies? They may expect it to work, which is why they are hoarding for themselves and their family. But, if someone dies while being treated by ventilator, they have no exposure because it is currently within medical guidelines.

In contrast, Chinese doctors can and are solving the problem through trial and error. One doctor tries a medication on a patient and if the patient recovers he can communicate to other doctors to try the medication. They dont have a system in which an attorney looking for cash shows up if an already dying patient dies anyway.

This is a big problem for the US that is going to lead to many unnecessary deaths.

[Mar 28, 2020] Gig workers, freelancers and independent contractors are temporary covered by unemployment benefits

Notable quotes:
"... Self-employed workers will also be eligible for the additional $600 weekly benefit provided by the federal government. ..."
"... It appears that it will take longer for the Treasury to cut us checks than it did to invade Afghanistan ..."
Mar 28, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Cuibono , March 28, 2020 at 2:05 pm

so long as we continue to embrace a lockdown strategy, generous relief is key to securing widespread support for its maintenance. It will become politically impossible to sustain a government-mandated lockdown where workers are forced to stay at home, absent some income support to facilitate compliance with that order."
or failing that

Carla , March 28, 2020 at 2:51 pm

Auerback says: "nor is there provision for the self-employed or the millions of independent contractor workers who have no employee benefits."

But he has just linked to a NY Times piece that says: "Are gig workers, freelancers and independent contractors covered?

Yes, self-employed people are newly eligible for unemployment benefits.

Benefit amounts will be calculated based on previous income, using a formula from the Disaster Unemployment Assistance program, according to a congressional aide.

Self-employed workers will also be eligible for the additional $600 weekly benefit provided by the federal government.

What if I'm a part-time worker who lost my job because of a coronavirus reason, but my state doesn't cover part-time workers? Am I still eligible?

Yes. Part-time workers are eligible for benefits, but the benefit amount and how long benefits will last depend on your state. They are also eligible for the additional $600 weekly benefit."

So, Mr. Auerback, which is it? This will be a matter of life or death for millions of people, including some in my own family, so please do clarify. Thank you!

Cat Burglar , March 28, 2020 at 3:53 pm

It appears that it will take longer for the Treasury to cut us checks than it did to invade Afghanistan. And the Taliban likely did not even have a TIN on file with the IRS.

You can see exactly what the system is optimized for.

[Mar 27, 2020] USG is squabbling with the private sector to purchase ventilators more cheaply

Mar 27, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , Mar 27 2020 14:24 utc | 199

USG is squabbling with the private sector to purchase ventilators more cheaply:

After Considering $1 Billion Price Tag for Ventilators, White House Has Second Thoughts

[Mar 27, 2020] Not Just China U.S. Reliance on Foreign Medical Supplies is Staggering by Alan Tonelson

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Put together, they reveal how big a share of the American markets for drugs, medical devices, and protective gear is controlled by goods made overseas. The big takeaway is that the nation could be in big enough trouble if supply disruptions were to occur in normal times (say, due to natural disasters in manufacturing centers abroad). During a high-mortality pandemic like the CCP Virus, these levels of foreign dependency are high enough to guarantee significant numbers of needless deaths. ..."
"... And in fact, the import penetration trends for these products exemplify the nation's health care security weaknesses. In 2002 -- a good baseline, since that's the first year China was a member of the World Trade Organization -- imports overall accounted for 16.7 percent of all surgical appliances and supplies used in the United States (measured by value, not numbers of masks or pairs of gloves). During the first full year of the Great Recession, 2008, this share totaled 28.08 percent. ..."
"... Keeping this qualification in mind, overall, 32.41 percent of surgical appliances and supplies were imported from other countries by 2011, according to these figures. In 2016, that number reached 41.81 percent of a $33.71 billion U.S. market. It may well be higher these days, as between then and last year, U.S. overseas purchases jumped by more than 29 percent. (Interestingly, in light of domestic shortages, U.S. exports in appliances and supplies actually rose by more than 13 percent during this period!) ..."
"... Ventilators, sadly, have been in the news, too; they and related products like oxygen tents and bronchoscopes and inhalators and suction equipment are found in a big goods category called surgical and medical instruments. In 2002, imports from all corners of the world represented 22.04 percent of American consumption. By 2016, this figure stood at 35.91 percent of a $37.5 billion national market, and over the next three years, imports grew nearly 31 percent. (Exports expanded at a relatively slow 11.84 percent.) ..."
"... exclusive U.S. reliance on China for the chemical ingredients of numerous medicines has now become a major federal government concern. ..."
"... The main foreign suppliers to the American pharmaceuticals market as of last year look encouragingly diversified and encouragingly friendly. For example, Ireland was number one, with 22.15 percent of such shipments, followed by Switzerland with 14.05 percent. But third and fourth, with 8.87 percent and 8.39 percent of imports, were Germany and India, respectively, both of which have limited or embargoed their medical exports this year. And number five, at 7.38 percent, was Italy -- whose current CCP Virus devastation could easily bring about export restrictions. ..."
"... Last year, America's leading foreign supplier of surgical and medical instruments (the ventilators category) was Mexico, which sold U.S. customers 28.58 percent of the $17.62 billion of total imports. But export-curber Germany was number three, at 9.43 percent, and China was sixth, at 6.93 percent. ..."
"... Purely domestic policy steps, like mandating more stockpiling or new recycling and re-use strategies, undoubtedly can add to national medical products supplies. But even these general import penetration figures, along with the shortage reports that keep pouring in, make clear that enduring national health care security can't be restored without a major ramping up of domestic output. And since export-heavy economies like China's and Germany's will undoubtedly work overtime to keep their American health care customers -- including with all manner of predatory economic practices -- it's similarly clear that big, lasting U.S. departures from standard free trade policies will be unavoidable. ..."
Mar 27, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Not Just China: U.S. Reliance on Foreign Medical Supplies is Staggering

The government's own numbers tell a frightening tale of how this happened, and when.

Virus pandemic having exposed scary domestic shortages of critical medical goods ranging from safety masks to ventilators, along with potential shortages of pharmaceuticals, political leaders across the spectrum are finally regretting having allowed so much output of these products to migrate offshore.

China's role in global supply chains has understandably sparked much of the alarm, since its government has all but threatened to withhold supplies of medicines whenever it wishes. But all told, at least 38 countries (including the 27-member European Union) have curbed exports of anti-pandemic products at some point since the CCP Virus began dominating headlines.

So potential foreign chokeholds in the nation's health care-related supply chains appear global in scope. The federal government's best data make clear just how widespread the problem has become, and how steadily it's been growing.

The figures come from the government's statistics on industry-by-industry manufacturing output and on exports and imports. (The output data can be accessed through databases created by the Census Bureau for its Annual Survey of Manufactures that are located at this link . The trade numbers can be retrieved at an interactive database maintained by the U.S. International Trade Commission that's located at this link .)

Put together, they reveal how big a share of the American markets for drugs, medical devices, and protective gear is controlled by goods made overseas. The big takeaway is that the nation could be in big enough trouble if supply disruptions were to occur in normal times (say, due to natural disasters in manufacturing centers abroad). During a high-mortality pandemic like the CCP Virus, these levels of foreign dependency are high enough to guarantee significant numbers of needless deaths.

These statistics aren't problem-free. Principally, because the manufacturing output figures are so granular, and therefore take so long to compile, import penetration rates for these (and other manufactures) can be calculated only through 2016. Yet the more timely import numbers can provide a reasonable indication of whether vulnerabilities are worsening or shrinking. At the same time, the government's main trade data aren't nearly as detailed as the production numbers. As a result, it's not possible to know the percentage of, say, safety masks used in the United States that are produced abroad. But it's easy to come up with this number for the category in which masks (and other protective gear) are grouped -- surgical appliances and supplies.

And in fact, the import penetration trends for these products exemplify the nation's health care security weaknesses. In 2002 -- a good baseline, since that's the first year China was a member of the World Trade Organization -- imports overall accounted for 16.7 percent of all surgical appliances and supplies used in the United States (measured by value, not numbers of masks or pairs of gloves). During the first full year of the Great Recession, 2008, this share totaled 28.08 percent.

Notably, these imports from China were a tiny 1.5 percent in 2002, and had actually dropped to 0.49 percent by 2008. By 2016, they accounted for a seemingly modest 6.54 percent of American consumption. But here's where another weakness in the data emerges: they say nothing about the origin of the materials, parts, and components of the final goods.

Keeping this qualification in mind, overall, 32.41 percent of surgical appliances and supplies were imported from other countries by 2011, according to these figures. In 2016, that number reached 41.81 percent of a $33.71 billion U.S. market. It may well be higher these days, as between then and last year, U.S. overseas purchases jumped by more than 29 percent. (Interestingly, in light of domestic shortages, U.S. exports in appliances and supplies actually rose by more than 13 percent during this period!)

Ventilators, sadly, have been in the news, too; they and related products like oxygen tents and bronchoscopes and inhalators and suction equipment are found in a big goods category called surgical and medical instruments. In 2002, imports from all corners of the world represented 22.04 percent of American consumption. By 2016, this figure stood at 35.91 percent of a $37.5 billion national market, and over the next three years, imports grew nearly 31 percent. (Exports expanded at a relatively slow 11.84 percent.)

Again, the China figures are small beans -- the import penetration rate for 2016 was a mere 2.35 percent. But these products often contain lots of electronics parts, and half the world's printed circuit boards, for example, are made in the People's Republic. In other words, lots of existing global surge capacity throughout the sector is ultimately controlled by Beijing.

Thanks to the work of researchers like the Hastings Center's Rosemary Gibson and independent journalist Katherine Eban, heavy and sometimes exclusive U.S. reliance on China for the chemical ingredients of numerous medicines has now become a major federal government concern. Indeed, the Food and Drug Administration is keeping an especially close eye on the availability of no fewer than 20 pharmaceutical products that use Chinese raw materials. (Unfortunately, the FDA won't say what they are, which calls for some Freedom of Information Act requests, pronto.)

But the import penetration figures make clear that supply disruptions could also originate elsewhere. Between 2002 and 2016, drugs produced overseas more than doubled their share of America's consumption (which stood at nearly $200 billion three years ago), from 17.23 percent to 38.51 percent. As of 2019, moreover, U.S. drugs imports were 20.34 percent higher than in 2016.

The main foreign suppliers to the American pharmaceuticals market as of last year look encouragingly diversified and encouragingly friendly. For example, Ireland was number one, with 22.15 percent of such shipments, followed by Switzerland with 14.05 percent. But third and fourth, with 8.87 percent and 8.39 percent of imports, were Germany and India, respectively, both of which have limited or embargoed their medical exports this year. And number five, at 7.38 percent, was Italy -- whose current CCP Virus devastation could easily bring about export restrictions.

Nor is this pattern restricted to pharmaceuticals. Last year, America's leading foreign supplier of surgical and medical instruments (the ventilators category) was Mexico, which sold U.S. customers 28.58 percent of the $17.62 billion of total imports. But export-curber Germany was number three, at 9.43 percent, and China was sixth, at 6.93 percent.

For surgical appliances and supplies (the masks and protective gear category), Ireland topped the 2019 foreign supplier list, selling the United States 24.09 percent of its $18.21 billion of total imports. But China was second, at 15.29 percent, and in third place, at 9.68 percent, stood Malaysia, which banned mask exports on March 20.

Purely domestic policy steps, like mandating more stockpiling or new recycling and re-use strategies, undoubtedly can add to national medical products supplies. But even these general import penetration figures, along with the shortage reports that keep pouring in, make clear that enduring national health care security can't be restored without a major ramping up of domestic output. And since export-heavy economies like China's and Germany's will undoubtedly work overtime to keep their American health care customers -- including with all manner of predatory economic practices -- it's similarly clear that big, lasting U.S. departures from standard free trade policies will be unavoidable.

Alan Tonelson is the founder of RealityChek, a public policy blog focusing on economics and national security, and the author of The Race to the Bottom .

[Mar 27, 2020] There is a guy at UCL, that is doing statistcs analysis of the epidemic

Mar 27, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Misa , Mar 26 2020 22:37 utc | 72

There is a guy at UCL, that is doing statistcs analysis. http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/covid19">His site is updated daily. I recomend.

In čaše that link isn't working, it's http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/covid19

[Mar 26, 2020] I await the day when the US govt invites the WHO to investigate and evaluate its virus response

Mar 26, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

occupatio , Mar 26 2020 6:14 utc | 66

Taiwan was screaming out to WHO in early Jan that China had a new emerging epidemic to no avail.
Posted by: KiwiKris | Mar 26 2020 3:46 utc | 63
_______________________________________________

You've been soaking up the US disinformation campaign against China. This is timetable for January:

China reported there was a novel virus to the WHO on Jan. 3 -- is that early enough in January for you?
China shared the full genome sequence to the WHO and the intl community on Jan 7th.
China invited the WHO to send an investigative team to Wuhan on the 10th. The WHO investigative team had free access to talk to anyone and go anywhere.

That's what transparency looks like.

I await the day when the US govt invites the WHO to investigate and evaluate its virus response. It's very transparent that would never happen, but do let me indulge this fantasy of mine.

Official WHO report on China (p. 31) :

International and interregional cooperation and information sharing:
From 3 January 2020, information on COVID-19 cases has been reported to WHO daily. Full genome sequences of the new virus were shared with WHO and the international community immediately after the pathogen was identified on 7 January. On 10 January, an expert group involving Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwanese technical experts and a World Health Organization team was invited to visit Wuhan. A set of nucleic acid primer sand probes for PCR detection for COVID-19 was released on 21 January.

[Mar 26, 2020] Feamongering about with young patient from the NYT

Looks like another NYT dirty trick.
Note the author: Fiona Lowenstein is a writer, producer, and yoga teacher and the founder of the queer feminist wellness collective, Body Politic.
Fiona did not tell us whether the patient has any illicit drug history or smoked marijuana, etc. Most "waping pneumonia" victims were young.
Mar 25, 2020 | www.unz.com

Anon [279] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment March 25, 2020 at 6:04 am GMT

@Trinity How about this one from the NYT:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/opinion/coronavirus-young-people.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

I'm 26. Coronavirus Sent Me to the Hospital.
I'm 26. I don't have any prior autoimmune or respiratory conditions. I work out six times a week, and abstain from cigarettes. I thought my role in the current health crisis would be as an ally to the elderly and compromised. Then, I was hospitalized for Covid-19.

That night I woke up in the middle of the night with chills, vomiting, and shortness of breath. By Monday, I could barely speak more than a few words without feeling like I was gasping for air. I couldn't walk to the bathroom without panting as if I'd run a mile. On Monday evening, I tried to eat, but found I couldn't get enough oxygen while doing so. Any task that was at all anxiety-producing -- even resetting my MyChart password to communicate with my doctor -- left me desperate for oxygen.

While I was shocked at the development of my symptoms and my ultimate hospitalization, the doctors and nurses were not at all surprised. After I was admitted, I was told that there was a 30-year-old in the next room who was also otherwise healthy, but who had also experienced serious trouble breathing. The hospital staff told me that more and more patients my age were showing up at the E.R. I am thankful to my partner for calling the hospital when my breathing worsened, and to the doctor who insisted we come in. As soon as I received an oxygen tube, I began to feel slight relief. I was lucky to get to the hospital early in the crisis, and receive very attentive care.

This one is even worse:
What I learned when my husband got sick with coronavirus
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/magazine/coronavirus-family.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

Agathoklis , says: Show Comment March 25, 2020 at 7:01 am GMT
@NPleeze The reason younger Americans are dying is because Americans are extremely unhealthy. I wager all the very sick younger Americans are obese, probably with diabetes, don't exercise, and eat unhealthy foods, leading to heart and other weaknesses.

Precisely. We have received several reports recently of young people being hospitalised and some even dying. However, the reports do not specify the condition of those young people. In places like the US, the youth are very unhealthy so it would not surprising to discover the youth requiring hospitalisation are obese or drug takers.

eterike , says: Show Comment March 25, 2020 at 12:44 pm GMT
@Anon

How about this one from the NYT:

Hmmm, let's look at the author.

Fiona Lowenstein is a writer, producer, and yoga teacher and the founder of the queer feminist wellness collective, Body Politic.

From her selfie, she also appears to be an Orthodox Jew, though apparently one of those classic New York breakaway (sorta) types.

Now, did anyone from the Times validate her story? Of course they didn't. They are desperate for stories like this. My guess is the entire thing is made up. She looks perfectly well in her few other hospital selfies on her Instagram. You think people like this wouldn't rig those photos?

PS -- Her Instagram has a number of bikini shots. Guess what that means.

Anonymous [249] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment Next New Comment March 26, 2020 at 12:48 am GMT

@Anon

I'm 26. I don't have any prior autoimmune or respiratory conditions. I work out six times a week, and abstain from cigarettes.

The highly specific listing of non-symptoms suggests that the patient did have other co-morbidities, such as obesity, diabetes etc. Did he/she smoke weed? Smoke cigarettes in the past ?

If he/she had been entirely healthy prior to the infection, he could simply have said so.

[Mar 26, 2020] Pompeo is on record having said that our government "lies, cheats, and steals" in order to accomplish its anti-Christian objectives.

Mar 26, 2020 | www.unz.com

Sokrates , says: Show Comment March 25, 2020 at 11:54 am GMT

@37 Yesterday I went to Home Depot to buy some water tubing for my ice-maker.

I noticed all doors were blocked with a tape, except one with at least 25 people waiting to get in and a female employee holding a sign "the line starts here".

I ask the lady what was all about and she said because of the virus etc.

I said to her "You must be kidding" and I start going back to my car.

Some old lady from the line waiting to get in she scream to me something about "we protect ourselves" and similar nonsense.

I turn around and I said to her: Quit watching TV you idiot. They rob your money on broad daylight and send your kids to die fighting israels enemies.

RichardTaylor , says: Show Comment March 25, 2020 at 12:01 pm GMT
The overreaction to the virus makes no sense. Is something being hidden from us? The freak out over this virus – to the tune of $trillions – is all out of proportion.

2.8 million Americans die every year. Why the obsession with this one virus which may kill in the thousands?

Something is off. But Trump should have known early if there was some other hidden danger. If there is some hidden suspicion by the people obsessing over this, please share it!

[Mar 26, 2020] NYC as the huge crusie ship with infected passengers

Mar 26, 2020 | www.unz.com

BigJimSportCamper , says: Show Comment Next New Comment March 25, 2020 at 6:52 pm GMT

I went to the NY Dept of Health for their latest figures and did a calculation.

Downstate Counties (Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Suffolk, Nassau, Dutchess) + NYC = 24837 cases.

Total New York State cases = 25665

97% of the states cases are downstate , 3% upstate

...

[Mar 25, 2020] According to the New York Times (as of Tuesday), approximately 12% of those who tested positive for Corona in the State of New York were hospitalized. That number is manageable at present. Only 23% (750) of those hospitalized in the State of New York were put into an ICU (or CCU).

Notable quotes:
"... In reality very sick people have compromised immune systems and are far more likely to contract all manner of awful diseases. Until a month or so ago, this was a well established medical fact. It seems forgotten now that it might lessen the panic. ..."
Mar 25, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Maybe it's time to return to Hill-Burton and eliminate medical- care for-profit institutions.

Eric Newhill, 24 March 2020 at 05:23 PM

According to the New York Times (as of Tuesday), 12% of those who tested positive for Corona in the State of New York were hospitalized. That number is manageable at present. 23% (750) of those hospitalized in the State of New York were put into an ICU (or CCU). We do not know how many of those are in NYC hospitals.

Eric Newhill , 24 March 2020 at 05:23 PM

Ked,
NY is typical of major cities across the US. ICU/vent room run at 80% "occupancy" in normal years.

IMO, Larry is correct in all he says. Most important being that Cuomo, like the insane media, WHO and CDC, is whooping up the public by equating testing positive with needing a vent. In fact, only a small proportion of those testing positive will even stay in a hospital let alone be on a vent.

Then you need to understand that many of those who will require a vent because of covid-19 would have required a vent anyhow - meaning absent covid-19 - because they are old and very sick with other conditions. So that lowers the number of extra vents needed as well. Caveat being that most covid ICU admissions may have ended up in the ICU on a vent anyhow, but it would have been spread out over a longer time frame; maybe a year. It's hard to say because of all the bad reporting coming out of places like Italy where if you had 8 serious comorbidities and you test positive for corona virus and you die, you are counted as a victim of the new plague (probably if you test positive and get hit by a bus and die, you're still counted as a covid-19 victim).

In reality very sick people have compromised immune systems and are far more likely to contract all manner of awful diseases. Until a month or so ago, this was a well established medical fact. It seems forgotten now that it might lessen the panic.

Does Cuomo have a crystal ball? Magic tea leaves? Perhaps he has developed remote viewing skills that he has had a terrible, yet certain, vision of ICU demand?

How many nurses, techs and physicians with the right training are in the states' National Guard units? Maybe they could be mobilized to NYC should Cuomo turn out to be the Oracle at Delphi and get his vents on top of that. How about the regular military?

div

upstater , 24 March 2020 at 06:30 PM

I do not like Andrew Cuomo. He is corrupt hack, that should have been set to jail based on the "Buffalo Billion" grifter scheme (along with his top aide Todd Howe, the SUNY-Tech president and Cuomo's benefactors).

Having said that, COVID-19 in NYC is doubling every 3 days. Of those who test positive, 15-20% will need hospitalization (half below age 50) and a smaller fraction on ventilators. There were 25,000+ infections this morning statewide, 15,000 in the city and much of the non-city state total is in NYC suburbs (my county, Onondaga, has 60 cases this evening). Of course the hospitals are not overwhelmed... yet.

But do the Math, Larry. If infections continue at the same rate, there are a million in 2 weeks. Even if social distancing and the partial economic shut down slows transmission, there will still be hundreds of thousands positives and hospital admissions. And it won't die out until there is "herd immunity".

It bothers me that you can post yesterday about individual deaths being tragedies. Surely they are -- I have an elderly mom and in-laws, all very vulnerable.

But it isn't it a Stalinist mentality the "One death is a tragedy but a million deaths are a statistic". Isn't it?

COVID isn't a political problem, it is a public health problem. Unfortunately there isn't a dime's bit of difference between the two parties in politicizing this very serious matter. The US will prove to the world that it is utterly incapable of managing this pandemic. We're #1! USA!USA!

noel s. cowling , 24 March 2020 at 10:12 PM
Maybe it's time to return to Hill-Burton and eliminate medical- care for-profit institutions.
jjc , 24 March 2020 at 10:23 PM
upstater is correct on the math. The CDC failed back in February and allowed infected persons to continue daily life in a dense metropolis. Cuomo has been briefed on very unsettling contingencies in the near future, as has Newsom in California.
Bill H , 25 March 2020 at 01:52 AM
Upstater, where are you getting that 15%-20% needing hospitalization? I have not seen that number or any other number anywhere. People without symptoms are not tested, and are therefor not included in counts of infected persons. Most epidemiologists admit we have no idea how many actual cases there are, and I have not seen one citation anywhere of percentages requiring hospitalization. I would very much like to know your source.

Ratios of infections to hospitalizations and need for ventilation are numbers I have been searching for since this thing began, and I have been shocked by the total lack of that information.

Eric Newhill , 25 March 2020 at 10:57 AM
JJackson,
I think you are just wrong about the disease in every aspect of it.

It is causing ICU hospitalizations and deaths among a very few who are elderly and already quite sick with other conditions. It is not causing morbidity in the young and healthy. The analysis I've ben waiting for out of Italy confirms what I'm saying.

https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/

"Less than 1% of the deceased were healthy persons, i.e. persons without pre-existing chronic diseases.
Only about 30% of the deceased are women.

The Italian Institute of Health moreover distinguishes between those who died from the coronavirus and those who died with the coronavirus. In many cases it is not yet clear whether the persons died from the virus or from their
pre-existing chronic diseases or from a combination of both"

Many of these people were already going to be in the hospital, in ICU on vents,dying, etc.

You're double counting, something that the panic mongers have been doing all along.

If you're concerned about morbidity and mortality among the infirm elderly, then there are ways to isolate them without interfering with life as usual for the rest of us. It's relatively easy to do.

[Mar 25, 2020] But what is that economic cost, in reality? People putting off buying a house or a car by six months or a year, resulting in an unrecoverable loss of GDP? But so what? What important difference does that make?

Mar 25, 2020 | www.unz.com

CanSpeccy , says: Website Show Comment March 25, 2020 at 4:06 pm GMT

@utu Maybe the models don't matter. At this stage, Nassim Taleb's assessment seems right:

when one deals with deep uncertainty, both governance and precaution require us to hedge for the worst. While risk-taking is a business that is left to individuals, collective safety and systemic risk are the business of the state. Failing that mandate of prudence by gambling with the lives of citizens is a professional wrongdoing that extends beyond academic mistake; it is a violation of the ethics of governing.

The obvious policy left now is a lockdown, with overactive testing and contact tracing: follow the evidence from China and South Korea rather than thousands of error-prone computer codes. So we have wasted weeks, and ones that matter with a multiplicative threat.

Some here have said that the economic cost of a lockdown or other measures that severely impact the economy exceeds the value of the lives saved. But what is that economic cost, in reality? People putting off buying a house or a car by six months or a year, resulting in an unrecoverable loss of GDP? But so what? What important difference does that make?

[Mar 25, 2020] Americans have been conditioned to never go to the hospital. Even being hospitalized can destroy one's finances, let alone for an extended period and actually receiving treatment.

Mar 25, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Daryl , March 24, 2020 at 2:14 pm

Some thoughts:

Americans have been conditioned to never go to the hospital. Even being hospitalized can destroy one's finances, let alone for an extended period and actually receiving treatment.

Lack of testing and diagnostics means that it is impossible for people to know their own condition and the severity of it. We have multiple reports of people just dropping dead in the US.

Finally, we are just slightly behind on the timeline. NYC will be in Italy/Spain's position very shortly, followed by states like Texas which are doing even less to contain it. Expect it to be worse here when it is all said and done.

Tom Stone , March 24, 2020 at 2:49 pm

Daryl, I got the bill for my latest hospital stay yesterday, I was there for 32 hours getting Chemo.
$88,393.22.
Not covered by Medicare.

John Beech , March 24, 2020 at 3:28 pm

And the old voted for Biden in FL – idiots!

Youngblood , March 24, 2020 at 3:45 pm

Wow. So sorry, both for the cancer and the outrageous cost of the treatment. I hope it is successful.

HotFlash , March 24, 2020 at 3:53 pm

Truly, I do not understand why so many Americans voted for Joe over Bernie. If, indeed, they did.

When my BFF was hospitalized for 10 days last summer, bill was $55 (ambulance not covered).

drumlin woodchuckles , March 24, 2020 at 7:11 pm

" If indeed they did" . . . is a very crucial phrase. With these digifraudulent Democratic Primary/Caucus elections, we will never know.

As for those who really did vote for Biden, decades of 24/7 psyops and infops against a mainstream population without the knowledge or energy to extract information from beyond the Media Plantation will create that kind of voting pattern.

Bsoder , March 24, 2020 at 7:35 pm

You need to get a lawyer, anyone on Medicare so admitted would be covered, they'd be some co-pays, per the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare. If the hospital accepts Medicare you were covered and should (sadly less) owe less than 1k. No way a hospital lets you in for that procedure without knowing it's getting paid. By law all they have to do is stabilize your vitals and throw you out the back door. Very sorry and upset to hear of this.

[Mar 24, 2020] When shown to be incompetent, US leadership lies.

Mar 24, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

kiwiklown , Mar 24 2020 3:51 utc | 160

Posted by: occupatio | Mar 23 2020 18:33 utc | 12
"No, China didn't cover up the Covid-19 outbreak: An analysis"

Thanks. I've saved the article for when it is memory-holed.

Crisis reveals character... the nature of people.

When shown to be incompetent, US leadership lies.

Russia says the US leadership is not "agreement-capable".

Less politely, I say they are dishonourable, shameless, ghouls who have lost their souls.

What does it profit a leader when the world's TV cameras shine on you, but you have lost your soul?


SharonM , Mar 24 2020 1:41 utc | 129

@97 Richard Steven Hack

"The number of idiots everywhere on the Internet proclaiming the following:
1) The virus won't prove to be any more dangerous than ordinary flu..."

Yeah sure, we should have just shut up and believed...

Russia interfered in the election
Russia invaded Crimea
Russia invaded Georgia
Iran is making nuclear bombs
The Skripals were poisoned by Russian agents
Assad is using chemical weapons
Saddam has weapons of mass destruction

"etc, etc., ad nauseum.
I could go on and on. The number of people who just *have to have an opinion* is staggering. And they'll argue that they're right until the cows come home."

@99 Michael Weddington

"The virus deniers here remind me of the global warming deniers."

Why not holocaust deniers? In fact, since you didn't say holocaust deniers you must be an antisemite holocaust denier nazi, right? It's not like you two are at CNN's website, you're in the alternative media, where we actually questions things instead of just having blind faith.

ted01 , Mar 24 2020 3:41 utc | 159
SharonM @129

Nailed it Sharon.

Suddenly the corporate mainstream media have become the epitome of truth, honesty and integrity.

kiwiklown , Mar 24 2020 4:21 utc | 164
jackrabbit @33 -- "Coronavirus Drives the U.S. and China Deeper Into Global Power Struggle"

I would rephrase that to "US uses coronavirus to deepen global power struggle against China"

NYT -- "These officials warn that a fast-growing China, under Mr. Xi's increasingly authoritarian rule, seeks military, economic and technological domination over the United States and its allies."

What weasel-speak! Repeating a big enough lie often enough, and you get distracted citizens to fall in line behind you for when you launch a sneak attack on China. This is nothing but a case of projection by parties who are themselves seeking to dominate the world, the better to eat other people's lunches.

[Mar 24, 2020] The Coronavirus's Spread is the Federal Bureaucracy's Failure by Matt Purple

Mar 24, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com
| The truth is always less glamorous than the perception. And the truth about 9/11 is that it was first and foremost a failure of bureaucracy.

As early as spring 2000, the CIA had learned that two of the future hijackers had traveled to Malaysia for an al-Qaeda summit. Both men had U.S. visas yet the information was never acted on. In California, the pair roomed with an undercover FBI agent. In Oklahoma, one of them was pulled over for speeding . Mere days before the attacks, they were hunkered down in Laurel, Maryland, not far from the National Security Agency's headquarters.

They were never stopped, nor were several of the other soon-to-be hijackers who were cited for traffic violations and raised eyebrows at flight schools, more Rocky and Mugsy than SPECTRE. After 9/11, a congressional investigation found that the attacks could have been prevented were it not for FBI and CIA ineptitude. According to that and subsequent reports, the agencies had failed to share information with each other, gotten bogged down in turf wars, and lacked outside-the-box thinking.

They did this because this is how bureaucracies work. The state isn't some enchanted repository of our national priorities; it's a sprawling network of individuals, who, like the rest of us, tend to place their own interests before the common good, show reluctance in the face of innovation, cling to rote procedure even under extraordinary circumstances, abuse their power. And just as the predictable failures of the security bureaucracy allowed 9/11 to happen, so too are the predictable failures of the medical bureaucracy enabling the coronavirus to spread.

Start with the feds' delayed reaction to the virus's outbreak in Washington State. There, the first case of COVID-19 in America was confirmed all the way back in January, and an infectious disease expert in Seattle, Dr. Helen Chu, had an idea. According to the New York Times , her lab had been using nasal swabs to research the flu; were they to repurpose the tests, they could check for the coronavirus. The team quickly sought the approval of the CDC, which kicked them over to the FDA. The FDA then denied their request, citing both privacy concerns over the swab results and the fact that the labs were not certified for clinical purposes. After weeks of the agency refusing to budge, the team decided to do that most American of things: ignore the government. They tested for coronavirus and found a positive. The bureaucrats promptly told the team to stop; they later relented but only in part.

Those FDA rules may be in place for good reason -- patient privacy must be protected, labs must be classified correctly -- but such rationales should quickly fall to the floor when an epidemic is raging. Because they didn't, Chu's team was forced to waste valuable time. And even those laboratories approved for clinical work were having a tough go of it. They still had to apply with the feds for emergency approval to develop their own tests, and were being stymied. "This virus is faster than the FDA," grumbled one researcher to the Times . So are turtles with polio. It's worth pointing out that all this transpired well after the government had declared the coronavirus a public health emergency.

The root of the problem seems to be that the bureaucracy underestimated just how widely the coronavirus would spread. Initial tests were limited to those who had just returned from China. Warnings from local officials that the virus was proliferating were ignored. The CDC, meanwhile, developed its own test, but the kits were quickly determined to be faulty and retracted. Precious weeks slipped by. Had measures been implemented, had people started social distancing earlier and the infected been identified and quarantined faster, the coronavirus could have been better contained. Instead the FDA tried to control the process, only to find that it couldn't. Private labs were brought in too late and struggled to meet demand, forcing them to ration tests. It wasn't until last week that the FDA started permitting companies to market tests without federal blessing, though they still must get the agency's approval within two weeks.

The process remains hamstrung by that most bureaucratic of problems: lack of coordination. Only whereas prior to 9/11 it was agencies failing to coordinate with each other, now it's the government failing to coordinate the supply chain. The labs, the medical providers, the supply manufacturers -- all need to be in harmony in order to develop tests and distribute badly needed equipment. Instead hospitals warn of ventilator shortages . Masks are running dangerously low, with Vice President Mike Pence announcing only last weekend that the government had at last placed an order for hundreds of millions more. A run on supplies following the FDA's belated easing of restrictions on private labs caused shortages, according to the Wall Street Journal . Tom Rogan at the Washington Examiner reports that pallets of medical equipment are sitting unused in warehouses because the FDA hasn't loosened its inspection protocols .

Contrast all this with South Korea, which streamlined its medical bureaucracy following the MERS outbreak in 2015. There, officials sounded the alarm in January and one week later a private lab had developed a test. Today, about 10,000 South Koreans are tested daily , many of them at drive-through diagnosis centers, compared to just a small fraction of that number in the United States.

Yes, the fish rots from the head down. Donald Trump's complacent reaction to the virus set a terrible example. His pronouncement that the outbreak was "like a miracle, it will disappear" now sounds insane. Yet the president can also only reach so far down into the bureaucracy; some of those gears need to align on their own. And they clearly failed to do so. This also can't be blamed on a lack of funding, given that Trump's supposed cuts to the medical bureaucracy never actually happened . Amid a massive federal budget and trillion-dollar deficits, we're paying more than enough to expect the government to do better than this.

I know we've convinced ourselves that the country would run better if only the damned libertarians would get out of the way, but it may be that the real problems are less trite than that. And one of them is clearly that the government has mummified itself in its own red tape. This happened despite the bright minds running its departments, human genome pioneer Francis Collins at the NIH and the oncologist Stephen Hahn at the FDA. So now the bureaucracy is taking a more deregulatory approach, lifting roadblocks to private labs, easing restrictions on trucking, lifting barriers to telehealth. They're about two months too late. Those early weeks were critical and the feds spent them methodically tripping over their own banana peels.

After 9/11, the nation consoled itself by establishing a new government agency with a fancy name, the Department of Homeland Security. Anyone who's ever talked to a DHS employee knows the confusion and bureaucratic jostling that reigned there for years. Instead of doing the same, once the coronavirus has passed, Congress should take a cue from another post-September 11 authority: the 9/11 Commission. Establish a body to investigate the government's blunders. Mimic South Korea and clear away the clutter. Because this time the costs of bureaucracy aren't just abstract notions of productivity and GDP; they're human lives. about the author Matt Purple is the managing editor of The American Conservative . email leave a comment

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[Mar 24, 2020] Hospitals, beds and ventilators in USA vs GB vs Italy

Mar 24, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Pft , Mar 24 2020 1:49 utc | 1 31

More than 250,000 people are hospitalized for pneumonia annually in the US. The mortality rate for pneumonia in the US population (all ages) is 15.1 deaths per 100,000.
An estimated 50,000 Americans die of pneumonia annually (137/DAY). 7500 Americans per day die of all causes.

In Lombardy, the precrisis total ICU capacity was approximately 720 beds (2.9% of total hospital beds at a total of 74 hospitals); these ICUs usually have 85% to 90% occupancy during the winter months. The number of intensive care units has dropped by half over the last 20 years, dropping from the highest to the lowest number of beds per capita in Europe to around 230 per 100,000 inhabitants (23 , 000 beds in lombardi -700 icu beds) with population of 10 million

The US has 15% ICU based on total hospital beds and runs at 60-77% capacity depending on hospital size (higher in winter months)

The United States has 25 ICU beds per 100 000 people (75,000), as compared with 5 -7 per 100 000 in the United Kingdom and Italy

U.S. ventilator capacity exceeds its number of ICU beds, according to data from the Society of Critical Care Medicine

Tests being used to detect COVID 19 are self validated by the manufacturer. FDA states they have not review the validation data. There is no reported specificity. A chinese study showed expanded testing of those with mild symptoms or asymptomatic were false positives. More testing yields more cases and deaths. Even with influenza only 1% of those who get it are laboratory tested.

Populations unable to think can not maintain a Democracy and Freedom, and will be doomed to serfdom. Lock Step will pave the way for the transition.

[Mar 24, 2020] Half Of All Americans Have Been Ordered To 'Stay At Home' As More Countries Impose Mass Quarantines To Fight COVID-19

Notable quotes:
"... This is specifically about coronavirus testing. In fact, CDC very much screwed up -- its test had a contaminated assay, the negative control, which made it unusable. ..."
Mar 24, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

By CNN's count, at least 13 states and 13 municipalities in the US have ordered 144,522,931 people to stay home as a result of the pandemic, according to data compiled by CNN using US Census population estimates.

Update (1324ET): President Trump on Tuesday once again tried to deny that his administration dropped the ball on the coronavirus response, while saying he would like to see the country re-open by Easter.

Of course, the CDC's botched handling of the tests has been well-documented, and the fact that nobody in the administration acting to overule the CDC and start stockpiling tests from elsewhere might be remembered as one of the administration's biggest screwups in handling the crisis.

Trump: "We did not screw up."

This is specifically about coronavirus testing. In fact, CDC very much screwed up -- its test had a contaminated assay, the negative control, which made it unusable.

World Health Organization offered us test it had been using in China.

We refused.

-- Alexander Nazaryan (@alexnazaryan) March 24, 2020

[Mar 24, 2020] Trump wants to have America reopened following coronavirus shutdown 'by Easter'

Mar 24, 2020 | www.rt.com

US President Donald Trump has finally given a date for when he would like America to at least partially reopen after the Covid-19 shutdown: April 12. Otherwise, he argued, the depression would cause far more deaths than the virus. "I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter," Trump said on Tuesday during a Fox News virtual town hall.

We have to get our country back to work. Our country wants to go back to work.

This follows his remarks on Monday night at the White House press briefing, when he would not name a date, but said he was debating loosening the restrictions in the coming weeks in order to prevent a complete economic collapse of the US.

Suicides from depression will be 'FAR GREATER' than coronavirus deaths unless America reopens for business 'soon' – Trump -- RT

Anxiety and depression from the economic crisis would cause deaths "in far greater numbers than we're talking about with regard to the virus," Trump argued.

The US is currently on Day 8 of the government's "15 days to stop the spread " program, with tens of millions of Americans either working from home or furloughed – some without pay – to encourage " social distancing."

A $2 trillion financial relief package was proposed by the Senate with the intention of sending cash payments to Americans to make up for income lost due to the shutdown. It was blocked by Senate Democrats on Sunday and again on Monday, however, as the House Democrats sought to push their own proposal, which included a laundry list of policy priorities unrelated to the pandemic.

[Mar 23, 2020] How the US is using "Chinese Virus" as a distraction from their own incompetence Asia Review

Mar 23, 2020 | asia-review.com

On the morning of March 11, US author Kurt Eichenwald tweeted

As I said, @ GOPLeader – and other GOPrs – were told in a political consultants memo to start using name "Chinese Virus" as part of some stupid political strategy.

Everyone: Go to McCarthy's twitter feed and ask "How can we trust GOP when you dont even know the disease's name?

-- Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) March 11, 2020

And just as expected, over the next few days government officials and politicians, including the respected President of the United States, started using the term "Chinese Virus".

This usage is against the new naming convention released by the WHO in 2015.

Dr Keiji Fukuda, Assistant Director-General for Health Security at WHO said in 2015 regarding the new naming convention, "We've seen certain disease names provoke a backlash against members of particular religious or ethnic communities, create unjustified barriers to travel, commerce and trade, and trigger needless slaughtering of food animals. This can have serious consequences for peoples' lives and livelihoods."

Unfortunately, the political strategy has succeeded. Instead of talking about how absolutely incompetent the US response has been, the talking point has been shifted to Americans fighting over whether its right to call it Chinese Virus, with one side saying it stigmatises innocent Asians and instigates hate crime, and the other claiming its a liberal PC agenda.

This, coupled with the spread of fake news regarding how China "covered it up for weeks", (which I wrote about here ) has successfully diverted anger away from the US government and shifted the blame to China.

For good measure, a short recap of the US's incompetence:

Censorship and misinformation (which Americans claim China is doing)

Trump calling it a hoax https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/29/joe-biden-trump-coronavirus-hoax-claim

News station host calling it a hoax https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1240640020714848257

The Trump administration barred a top US disease expert from speaking freely to the public
https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-anthony-fauci-trump-admin-stops-discussion-2020-2

Lawmaker Condemns 'Unacceptable' CDC Decision to Stop Disclosing Number of Coronavirus Tests
https://www.thedailybeast.com/cdc-decision-to-stop-disclosing-coronavirus-test-total-condemned-by-lawmaker

Official: White House didn't want to tell seniors not to fly
https://apnews.com/921ad7f1f08d7634bf681ba785faf269

Trump tried to stall intelligence report by DNI, cut funding for pandemic preparedness, CDC
https://time.com/5799765/intelligence-report-pandemic-dangers/

Seattle lab uncovered Washington's coronavirus outbreak only after defying federal regulators
https://theweek.com/speedreads/901405/seattle-lab-uncovered-washingtons-coronavirus-outbreak-only-after-defying-federal-regulators

Coronavirus: Sheriff Chitwood reveals 20 potential Volusia cases
https://www.news-journalonline.com/news/20200314/coronavirus-sheriff-chitwood-reveals-20-potential-volusia-cases

CDC wanted to recommend all over 60 to remain inside their homes, but was instructed not to by government officials https://twitter.com/LACaldwellDC/status/1238870221672386563

Downplaying the virus all the way from the start until March 16 https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1240043597434687489?s=20

Incompetence in testing

Manufacturing defects leading to days of delays https://www.wsj.com/articles/manufacturing-defect-in-some-early-cdc-test-kits-being-probed-11583119414

Testing 400 people in 40 days while the world has tests hundreds of thousands https://fortune.com/2020/03/03/coronavirus-us-test/

A Pennsylvania state laboratory is now able to handle about six tests per day
https://www.wtae.com/article/pennsylvania-begins-coronavirus-testing-at-state-owned-lab/31212554

As of March 3rd, New York City has only tested 17 people for coronavirus
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/coronavirus.page

CDC Tested Just 77 People For Coronavirus This Week (article dated 13 Mar) https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-cdc-tested-77-people-this-week_n_5e6b06c1c5b6dda30fc6424d?ncid=engmodushpmg00000004

Sick People Across the U.S. Say They Are Being Denied the Coronavirus Test https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/us/coronavirus-testing-challenges.html

The entire state of Indiana has 100 tests https://www.southbendtribune.com/news/local/coronavirus-testing-picks-up-pace-in-south-bend-region-and/article_52bdcb0e-63e9-11ea-a23f-736dca0c8273.html

Sheer incompetence

Oklahoma governor urges residents to join him at crowded food hall https://www.readfrontier.org/stories/despite-coronavirus-spread-governor-visits-packed-food-hall-urges-oklahomans-to-join-him/

Florida governor refuses to shut down beaches amid spread of coronavirus https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/florida-governor-refuses-shut-down-beaches-amid-spread-coronavirus-n1162226

[Mar 23, 2020] While the response might be overblown and MSM overly hysteric, neither virus or economic and social crisis it caused are fake

Mar 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Mar 22 2020 16:06 utc | 15

Paul Damascene @11

I suggest you read comments made on the virus-related threads.

The virus isn't fake, but the CRISIS! is.

Just a few reasons:

- USA classified all discussion related to preparation for the virus;

- suppression of testing;

- failure to prepare despite urgent warnings;

- blaming China for US/West lack of preparation (they have sufficient info);

- failure to acknowledge and implement treatment;

- rush of aid to Wall Street and corporations while slow-walking money to ordinary people (will we ever see that money?).

!!


bevin , Mar 22 2020 18:16 utc | 41

"The virus isn't fake, but the CRISIS! is.

"Just a few reasons:

"- USA classified all discussion related to preparation for the virus;

"- suppression of testing;

"- failure to prepare despite urgent warnings;

"- blaming China for US/West lack of preparation (they have sufficient info);

"- failure to acknowledge and implement treatment;

"- rush of aid to Wall Street and corporations while slow-walking money to ordinary people (will we ever see that money?).!!"
Jackrabbit@15

It is not clear what you are trying to communicate. But I assume that you are arguing that "the Crisis is fake."
The 'reasons' that you give are not reasons at all- far from proving that the crisis is fake they are simply features of the crisis itself.

Far from being fake the crisis is as plain as day. While there may be debate over whether or not the disease is exaggerated, even falsified and nothing more than another seasonal virus, the crisis, internationally and locally is obviously real.

And the proof of this is that millions of people are not working or working from home, the streets are empty in the cities, the healthcare systems are dangerously overstrained, there is an obvious need to devise food distribution networks and to substitute alternatives for reliance on the marketplace to make decisions and the invisible hand to govern. And thousands are dying-which is very real.

All these things are real. Much more real than your irresponsible claim (@33) that 'inexpensive Chloroquine' will treat the problem. You don't know that, just as I don't know that it won't-though the weight of opinion is against what you advise which might well, in the unlikely event that anyone takes you seriously, prove to be fatal.

Jackrabbit , Mar 22 2020 18:19 utc | 43
bevin @41: Far from being fake the crisis is as plain as day.

It's a manufactured crisis. The virus is real. The threat from the virus is real. But the crisis was unnecessary.

See my comment @42 for more.

!!

[Mar 23, 2020] Were Governor Andrew Cuomo's actions warranted by the level of threat?

Mar 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Circe , Mar 22 2020 15:40 utc | 6

Why is it that I feel like all leaders at Municipal, State, Provincial, Regional, and Federal levels in whatever country should watch Governor Andrew Cuomo's daily briefings? Why do I feel it's required viewing for the length of the pandemic? Why is it I feel like all leaders should cover the pandemic as thoroughly and efficiently as he's covering it? And I'm not even a big fan of the Cuomos! Only the truth matters to me, not personalities. If he's doing it right; I don't care who it is!

Watch and you'll understand why.


SharonM , Mar 22 2020 15:46 utc | 8

@6

"Why is it that I feel..."

Because you're a bootlicker?

Jackrabbit , Mar 22 2020 17:08 utc | 33
Circe @27

You probably missed that ALL NYS residents (over 19 million people) have been ordered to stay home. An unnecessary measure when the virus can be treated effectively.

And if you're sick, you're told to stay home until/unless it worsens, which allows the virus to progress to the point where treatment with inexpensive Chloroquine is less effective.

!!

[Mar 23, 2020] Countries differ in thisr approaches to containing coronavirus epidemics

Mar 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

c1ue , Mar 22 2020 19:34 utc | 58

@JackRabbit #38

...

The economic consequences of lockdowns in the US - I've noted before - are going to be extreme in the US because of its high cost of living and highly complex, interdependent economic value chains.

Secondly, China has both high savings rates (albeit skewed by income inequality) as well as much lower cost of living. Some interesting details TAMU study - including that Chinese households had more assets in total than US households... in 2010!

[Mar 22, 2020] Mask piracy among neoliberal nations: Wonderful show of world-wide solidarity

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... 1) Pompeo and Grenell reportedly arguing that coronavirus has created window of opportunity for a direct strike on a weak and divided Iran. ..."
"... Deputy Health Minister Alireza Raisian has criticized the #UK for not delivering millions of masks #Iran bought in preparations ahead of #Covid19 outbreak. The London govt. refused to deliver them citing US sanctions! Note that Germany took supplies meant for Switzerland, The US via the Italian Mafia (I suppose) gets masks from Bergamo. etc. ..."
Mar 21, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Stonebird , Mar 21 2020 21:25 utc | 31

I just think that the US "Intelligence" and most of the US Administration just haven't got it. I suppose when you are waiting for the "rapture" anything that can add to the chaos is to be included.

1) Pompeo and Grenell reportedly arguing that coronavirus has created window of opportunity for a direct strike on a weak and divided Iran. They were arguing about the severity of the strike.

2) Deputy Health Minister Alireza Raisian has criticized the #UK for not delivering millions of masks #Iran bought in preparations ahead of #Covid19 outbreak. The London govt. refused to deliver them citing US sanctions! Note that Germany took supplies meant for Switzerland, The US via the Italian Mafia (I suppose) gets masks from Bergamo. etc. Wonderful show of world-wide solidarity.

Pompeo should hold his "rapture" in his hot little hand and .....

[Mar 22, 2020] Lockdowns Not Enough to Defeat Coronavirus WHO's Ryan

Mar 22, 2020 | www.usnews.com

Countries can't simply lock down their societies to defeat coronavirus, the World Health Organization's top emergency expert said on Sunday, adding that public health measures are needed to avoid a resurgence of the virus later on.

"What we really need to focus on is finding those who are sick, those who have the virus, and isolate them, find their contacts and isolate them," Mike Ryan said in an interview on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show.

"The danger right now with the lockdowns ... if we don't put in place the strong public health measures now, when those movement restrictions and lockdowns are lifted, the danger is the disease will jump back up."

Much of Europe and the United States have followed China and other Asian countries and introduced drastic restrictions to fight the new coronavirus, with most workers told to work from home and schools, bars, pubs and restaurants being closed.

[Mar 22, 2020] Measures in Spain and France

Mar 22, 2020 | medium.com

In one extreme, we have Spain and France. This is the timeline of measures for Spain:

On Thursday, 3/12, the President dismissed suggestions that the Spanish authorities had been underestimating the health threat.
On Friday, they declared the State of Emergency.
On Saturday, measures were taken:

On Monday, land borders were shut.

Some people see this as a great list of measures. Others put their hands up in the air and cry of despair. This difference is what this article will try to reconcile.

France's timeline of measures is similar, except they took more time to apply them, and they are more aggressive now. For example, rent, taxes and utilities are suspended for small businesses.

[Mar 22, 2020] Those disbursements to wage earners are vital for the social cohesion to remain in place. I thought Tulsi Gabbard championing that minimum basic income strategy was essential as well.

Notable quotes:
"... I empathies totally with USians that are trapped in the vulgar exploitative nightmare of the usury in that country ..."
Mar 22, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

uncle tungsten , Mar 22 2020 10:02 utc | 126

chu teh #103

Those disbursements to wage earners are vital for the social cohesion to remain in place. I thought Tulsi Gabbard championing that minimum basic income strategy was essential as well.

I empathies totally with USians that are trapped in the vulgar exploitative nightmare of the usury in that country . Debt Jubilee for all under $100,000 income would be a start. But that might create a vulgar backlash as well.

The naked ferocity of capitalism in the USA is truly a fearsome thing.

[Mar 22, 2020] There didn't need to be a crisis or a panic. But a CRISIS! is something that is politically useful: to direct hate against China; to provide extraordinary support to favored interests like Banks and Wall Street and Boeing.

Notable quotes:
"... By mid-February, it was clear that certain drugs and anti-virals were effective. It was important to have widespread tests so that these drugs could be administered early, especially to vulnerable populations. Yet weeks later, the West (especially USA) was still unprepared to test. ..."
Mar 22, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Mar 22 2020 6:40 utc | 102

@101

I raised the same issues a couple of days ago:

The real danger was always in the possibility that the healthcare system is overwhelmed. Then you get large numbers of unnecessary deaths.

So a country needs to flatten the curve. The best way to do that is to close the schools as soon as community spread is detected. In the West, this should've been done in early February - it wasn't.

By mid-February, it was clear that certain drugs and anti-virals were effective. It was important to have widespread tests so that these drugs could be administered early, especially to vulnerable populations. Yet weeks later, the West (especially USA) was still unprepared to test.

There didn't need to be a crisis or a panic. But a CRISIS! is something that is politically useful: to direct hate against China; to provide extraordinary support to favored interests like Banks and Wall Street and Boeing.

The Empire Games Covid-19

<> <> <> <> <>

In addition, it seems that USA/Trump was hoping that remdesivir, developed by Gilead Sciences, would be the (expensive) drug of choice to treat Covid-19.

!!

[Mar 22, 2020] Best Coronavirus Trump Statements Timeline Synopsis Ever Put Together

1 minute 22 second video with Trump statements in chonological order @ https://twitter.com/i/videos/tweet/1240985096838053889
There is a saying the you fight the war with the army you have, not with the army you want.
Notable quotes:
"... Ok. Let me start by stating that I am not a "staunch" Trump supporter. However, I just really despise the constant visceral negative, hatred towards our Country's President. ..."
"... As I am sure you are aware, it is a tremendously difficult job, especially in today's crisis. I would think it would be better serve of your time and efforts to be constructive and optimistic, and hopeful. Rather than pinpointed every single steps and missteps he makes. He is certainly no perfect - but his goal is the same as all of ours: to defeat this virus in the best manner possible with the resources available. ..."
"... For the entire Trump Presidency it was all about the stock market. So, here we are. ..."
Mar 22, 2020 | moneymaven.io

Please play this.

Anthony Scaramucci @Scaramucci

I hope this is played everyday everywhere until Nov 8. Unless ⁦ @ realDonaldTrump ⁩ resigns as he should immediately.

https://twitter.com/i/videos/tweet/1240985096838053889

35.6K 8:54 AM - Mar 20, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy

23.6K people are talking about this

Mish

20 hours ago Here is a 1 minute 22 second video timeline of Trump's amazing handling of the coronavirus.

Please play this.

It will take less than two minutes of your time.

One missing key quote is a statement Trump made bragging about having natural talent coupled with a proclamation that he could have been a scientist instead of president.

More Questions:

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

njbr 20 hrs

The dumb-asses in DC still don't get it. "Top" leaders crowding around a single microphone in a stage no larger than a public restroom. Working toward a 1 time $1200 check that probably wont be issued/delivered for another couple weeks. What about the weeks after that--are they going to spend the next couple weeks going around about the next check?? Has the production of ventilators actually been accelerated-who could tell from what has been said? Why are nurses and doctors in my area asking the public for donations of PPE at the very beginning of the serious phase? What happens when the doctors and nurses start tipping over? Two partially ready hospital ships may help in one spot each on the coast, but what about everywhere else? Has anyone even checked on the production capacity for the maybe helpful malaria medicine--has anyone been directed to begin proactive super-production of this product? On and on.

DeeDee3 20 hrs

hard to prove deliberate neglect when you eliminate all of the evidence. No testing means "no virus" and sadly supported the hoax theory.

Another doc died in the city today. ER's are unprotected. what conclusion can we draw from all of this?

Zardoz 20 hrs

Thousands will die because of his incompetence... and his followers will blame the Chinese

egilkinc 20 hrs

There should be a tracker of the number of cases [among medical personnle] in the US along with this

Sechel 20 hrs

Oh my g-d. This is excellent! I think Trump has learned some bad lessons from Goebbels. Repeat the lie and repeat it often and people will take your version of events. This really serves to correct the record! Good work!

PecuniaNonOlet 20 hrs

And yet there will be an avalanche of Trump supporters defending the idiot. It is truly beyond me.

michiganmoon 20 hrs

Actually, Trump should resign and give the GOP a chance this November.

Had Trump not downplayed this and had tests ready, he could have played on a loop Biden on January 31st saying travel restrictions from Wuhan were racist and xenophobic.

thesaint0013 20 hrs

Ok. Let me start by stating that I am not a "staunch" Trump supporter. However, I just really despise the constant visceral negative, hatred towards our Country's President.

As I am sure you are aware, it is a tremendously difficult job, especially in today's crisis. I would think it would be better serve of your time and efforts to be constructive and optimistic, and hopeful. Rather than pinpointed every single steps and missteps he makes. He is certainly no perfect - but his goal is the same as all of ours: to defeat this virus in the best manner possible with the resources available.

To criticize previous tweets, interviews, and depict his flaws and errors does not help the common goal. The nature of some of the questions posed to him during the press conferences should be a bit more respectful and again, it doesn't serve any positive outcome to try and "catch" him in a lie, and how he may have said something that was not factual or false.

Again, he's not perfect and neither are anyone of us. However he is our President and we should support his and all of our common goal to defeat this virus.

Russell J 20 hrs

Not making excuses for Trump at all but he/we have people who are specialists and are responsible for being ready at all times for something like this and are responsible for being on the look out for this. Somebody should have came forward, even as a whistleblower. I've been aware for about 2 months now.

Thank you WWW.PEAKPROSPERITY.COM, MISH and WWW.ZEROHEDGE.COM

This was an epic failure of Trump, his administration and America in general.

ghoffa 20 hrs

Hi,
@MishTalk @Mish
I wanted to sincerely thank you MISH from my whole extended family. I have been reading you since 2007 when Ron Paul removed the scales from my eyes on the Fed and govt., Jekyll Island book, the "financial markets" (all modern day money changers). Every picture I see of Fed chairpersons, their eyes look dead black sharks eyes (to quote a famous book which I subscribe, the eyes are the windows to the soul).

In addition our mob style duolopoly govt and for the most part complicit MSM (all with significant influencing billionaire ownership to control the news - easily searched). I've learned so much from this blog and the many commentors in this space ( a personal fav is @Stuki ) . Nothing short of brilliant and reminds me of my fav news source Zerohedge and it's articles and commentors.

A special thanks for pointing us to Chris Martenson (peakprosperity.com) as my wife and I have watched every day his free daily videos since JAN @24th and our extended family is as prepared as we can be. God help us all with what's coming.

For those who haven't watched it, Dr. Martenson has a great 3 min video on exponential growth on YTube. Search his name and exponential. It will help you prepare for what our govt knows is coming in enourmous exponential growth in fatalities. Even knowing, it will be an emotional thing to prepare for. Prepping home supplies is one thing, prepping emotionally is also important per Dr. Martenson. HCWs be damned.

As this impacts people personally, I expect insider leaks to come from many fronts. We're working with neighbors to get prepared as we're all on our own now as the money changers (evil) bail out the money changers (evil) amidst a system that is so debt leveraged it can't likely be bailed out. "everything's a nail and the Fed has a hammer".

Lastly this brings a famous quote to mind as the people rise up against corrupt govt, corp bailouts after stock buy backs, etc. Let alone the monsters upon monsters creating lab viruses (regardless of the source of this virus), and unregulated GMOs changing the fabric of life.....

"All it takes for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing". Margaret Mead
G

QE2Infinity 20 hrs

Come on! First off, anyone can be made to look bad by taking snippets out of context and stringing them together. That said, Trump does tend towards braggadocio. If that is off putting to you, he can be annoying. I much prefer a transparent fool to the more sly variety that plays the part well while sticking a knife in your back.

But let's be honest here. The president can do very little. The bureaucracy of the government is a jobs program for the less ambitious and politically inclined. It's staffed with incompetent bureaucrats that show up, surf the web and may get around to an hour or two of honest work. Public unions guarantee they can't be fired.

Obama converted the CDC into a PC jobs program for lefties, just like he converted NASA into a Muslim outreach program.

May one ask: why is a self proclaimed libertarian screaming for more government action? Wouldn't it be great if one of the outcomes of this crisis is that local communities became more self reliant and more self sufficient!

Sechel 20 hrs

that's from a website called therecount.com looks interesting.

Greggg 20 hrs

For the entire Trump Presidency it was all about the stock market. So, here we are.

numike 20 hrs

while we all point fingers lets look at a useful guide regarding the mess we are ALL in now https://www.seriouseats.com/2020/03/food-safety-and-coronavirus-a-comprehensive-guide.html

Food Safety and Coronavirus: A Comprehensive Guide Questions about COVID-19 and food safety, answered. www.seriouseats.com

Tengen 20 hrs

The graphic at the end of the video already looks out of date and shows how rapid the spread has been. For March 2020 it shows 5,002 cases in the US (and counting) but right now I'm seeing 24,137 cases.

So much for "in a couple of days the 15 is going to be down close to zero".

njbr 20 hrs

What can the President do?

Force and organize the production of necessary goods.

Mish Editor 19 hrs

May one ask: why is a self proclaimed libertarian screaming for more government action? Wouldn't it be great if one of the outcomes of this crisis is that local communities became more self reliant and more self sufficient!

Mish Editor 19 hrs

Trump did not Drain the Swamp. He IS the swamp

Mish Editor 19 hrs

Anyone who still supports this President's actions is a TDS-inflicted fool.

Jim Bob 19 hrs

I've followed Mish for ~ 12 years online and on the radio for brilliant economic analysis. Lately his work has been undermined by irrational political opinion. Mish has turned into Krugman. I won't be back.

abend237-04 19 hrs

The Donald is obviously afflicted with the same narcissistic megalomania prerequisite for a successful run at any elective office above County Coroner, anywhere in this country.

That said, he can apparently read a graph, and he's right: The two drug combination of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin are working to treat this damn thing, BUT:

It is, indeed, not a Covid-19 preventative.

If you get it, and you dink around at home too long waiting for improvement, arriving at ICU needing ventilation leaves you with roughly the odds of Russian roulette of surviving, especially if you're older.

Lacking testing, the only remaining means available to knock the transmission rate down quickly is social distancing/lockdown. But, enough of that prevention can leave us wishing we were dead anyway.

Unfortunately, all the college kids jamming the bars and beaches is setting the stage for continued exponential growth by hordes of asymptomatic spreaders.

The march of folly continues.

I like what I'm seeing of Cuomo. He'd be a good guy to have in the room in a serious fight; This qualifies.

DBG8489 19 hrs

As someone who hates all politicians, there is zero love lost between Trump and myself. I had hopes when he was elected that he would make a difference but it was clear based on how he looked after his private meeting with Obama on inauguration day that he was in over his head.

Having said that, I will say this:

From at least the "major" state level up, it would appear that not one single elected official or the top advisors and bureaucrats who work for them have shown anything but complete and utter failure in their handling of this emergency.

You have senators selling off piles of stock while either saying nothing or telling the rest of us that it was bullshit. And trust me - they were not the only ones. If anyone cares to investigate, they will likely find this problem rampant. Elected officials should not even be allowed to trade stocks when they control the entire economy - not even through alleged "blind trusts" - it's bullshit. But that's a conversation for another time.

You have congressional reps and senators blaming each other and/or the other party and passing laws and bailouts without even reading the bills they are passing.

You have the Treasury and the Fed printing money and throwing it at every hole that opens up without the slightest regard for what the unintended consequences of those actions may entail.

You have governments of the "major" states (CA, NY, NJ...etc) who know they can't simply print money being exposed using any extra money they had (along with taxes based on tourism that have now disappeared) to fund God knows what now demanding that everyone else pony up to pay for their failure to plan...

The lack of leadership in the major states and at the Federal level is abysmal ACROSS THE BOARD.

And that includes members of BOTH parties and nearly every single bureaucratic agency involved.

You can single Trump out if you want, but he's not alone. He's just an easy target because 49% of the population hated him before this started.

njbr 18 hrs

....Top health officials first learned of the virus's spread in China on January 3, US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Friday. Throughout January and February, intelligence officials' warnings became more and more urgent, according to the Post -- and by early February, much of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA's intelligence reports were dedicated to warnings about Covid-19.

All the while, Trump downplayed the virus publicly, telling the public the coronavirus "is very well under control in our country," and suggesting warm weather would neutralize the threat the virus poses....

...The administration did begin taking some limited action about a month after Azar says the administration first began receiving warnings, blocking non-citizens who had been to China in the last two weeks from entering the country on February 3 -- a move public experts have argued at best bought the US time to ramp up its testing capabilities, which it did not use, and at worst had no beneficial effects at all.

Trump finally assembled a task force to address the virus, putting Vice President Mike Pence in charge of the effort on February 26, and declared a national emergency on March 13. And, just this week -- nearly three months after first receiving warnings from his intelligence officials -- the president's public tone about the crisis shifted: "I've always known this is a real -- this is a pandemic," he said Tuesday as he admitted, "[the virus is] not under control for any place in the world."....

Realist 18 hrs

I have been watching political leaders in my own country get on television daily. They have all done a great job of informing the public about the dangers of this virus. They have all relied on the experts to relay information to the public about what the government is doing, and what individuals should be doing. This is true at the national, regional, and local levels.

In addition businesses have been sending out emails, radio announcements and tv messages explaining what they are doing in regard to this pandemic.

In fact, I am amazed at what a good job everyone is doing.

I am also watching what is happening in the US. Every US state governor and city mayor I have seen on tv has done a wonderful job of presenting the facts to the public and provided instructions as to what they are doing and what the public should be doing.

Then there is the gong show that is Trump. I could not imagine that anyone could be as bad as he is; months of lies, denials, suppression of the truth, and a complete and utter lack of preparation for something he was warned about many times. Denying one day that the virus was a pandemic; only to claim the very next day that he had known it was a pandemic for months; and then the very next day say that no one could have seen this coming; and finally saying that his response to the virus rates a 10 out of 10.

Worst President ever. Sadly, many, many Americans are going to suffer and die because America had this moron in charge.

Mish keeps referring to worldometer to get stats from. Their numbers seem to match up with numbers I see in my own country and in the US.

Disturbingly, today, the mortality rate for closed cases ticked up 1% to 12%. 12978 deaths and 94674 recovered. That is not the direction I expected it to go.

daveyp 17 hrs

You get what you vote for. To have such a malignant narcissist of such profoundly limited intellectual honesty and capacity "leading" your nation through this is truly tragic for your country. Even the hideously vile ultimate Washington insider Hilary would have done a better job.

truthseeker 17 hrs

Mish I agree with much of the criticism of Trump, yet had he done everything you and others suggest, there is this implied assumption that everything would have worked out perfectly. You know I am impressed the way the country seems to be uniting to such a great degree, that I think there is at least some hope for our country's future though there are huge challenges that lay ahead absolutely!

abend237-04 17 hrs

I will now proceed, once again, to bitch about the root cause of our current pandemic, which is causing many to experience cosmic scale frustration with The Donald, which I share:

Civilization has now been hit squarely in the head with three killer coronavirus outbreaks in 18 years, yet still has no unified global new viral antigen detection system. We could have if our world "leaders" would make it happen.

Local supercomputers, however massive, will never crack this nut, but the billions of powerful, web-accessible smartphones could if linked and used by a parallelized, intelligent scheduler to raise the alarm when a new antibody/pathogen is discovered in human blood anywhere.

Such a system could have lifted the burden from a lonely doctor struggling to raise the alarm in Wuhan, before Covid-19 killed him, and placed it squarely in front of disease control experts, worldwide. It can be done; We must do it.

Sars cov-3/4/5/6/7/8/9/n could kill us all if we don't.

[Mar 22, 2020] Liberal NPCs Hate Russia, Conservative NPCs Hate China

Mar 22, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Mar 21 2020 23:10 utc | 54

Caitlin Johnstone also sees the response being manipulated to focus hate on China: Liberal NPCs Hate Russia, Conservative NPCs Hate China

But she sees this China-bashing as mostly a political reaction:

In reality these people are rallying behind the campaign to blame China for the health crisis they're now facing because they understand that otherwise the blame will land squarely on the shoulders of their president, who's running for re-election this year.
instead of a deliberate Deep-State strategy (which is my view).

We can argue who created the virus (I'm still looking for any rebuttal to the Chinese claim that USA must be the source because it has all five strains of the virus), but the Empire's gaming of the virus outbreak seems very clear to me.

!!

[Mar 22, 2020] Coronavirus - On Western Government Failures And Possible Therapies

Mar 22, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jen , Mar 21 2020 19:51 utc | 3

Thus the Washington Post headlines:

U.S. intelligence reports from January and February warned about a likely pandemic

U.S. intelligence agencies were issuing ominous, classified warnings in January and February about the global danger posed by the coronavirus while President Trump and lawmakers played down the threat and failed to take action that might have slowed the spread of the pathogen, according to U.S. officials familiar with spy agency reporting.

The intelligence reports didn't predict when the virus might land on U.S. shores or recommend particular steps that public health officials should take, issues outside the purview of the intelligence agencies. But they did track the spread of the virus in China, and later in other countries, and warned that Chinese officials appeared to be minimizing the severity of the outbreak.

If the spy services were really concerned about the issue why did they not warn the public? Instead of leaking new idiotic fairytales they could have leaked a warning about the pandemic. Instead we were given this:

If the intelligence services had taken the pandemic seriously they could have warned the public via their countless stenographers in the media. Instead they kept the media filled with false anti-Russian stories and told Trump that the Chinese are lying which they were in fact not.

Trump of course would have not have believed the intelligence reports anyway. Why would he? The FBI and CIA have for three years tried to get him impeached. They created Russiagate based on a fake dossier. They lied to get FISA warrants to spy on his campaign. When Russiagate finally fell apart the CIA sent a fake 'whistleblower' to launch Ukrainegate. In Trump's place there is no reason to believe a word of whatever any of the 'intelligence officials' say.

The intelligence services failed to issue effective warnings. But they were not the only ones. All institution in 'western' countries and their leaders have lacked in their preparation for a larger outbreak.

China warned us early on. The WHO was informed in late December. On January 3 the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was informed by his Chinese colleagues. After China recognized that the new SARS-CoV-2 virus indeed jumped from person to person it took radical measures to get a grip on the epidemic and those measures have worked well. China has only 3,255 death in a nation of 1.4 billion people. Today all checkpoints were removed from Wuhan city and life there is slowly turning back to normal.

Since when did the CIA, the NSA, the DIA and the rest of the much vaunted 17 alphabet-named intel agencies in the US ever provide much in the way of "intelligence"?

The CIA famously failed to foresee the revolution that felled Iranian shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and the role Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini played in it, in 1979. The CIA also failed to foresee the downfall of Communist govts in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in 1989 and 1991. Instead the CIA spends US taxpayer millions on brainwashing and torture programs like MK ULTRA and their like in universities and institutions in the US and Canada (McGill University) from the 1950s onwards.

The current activities of the CIA and FBI in promoting anti-Russia / anti-China propaganda and propaganda aimed at destabilising these and other nations that don't bow to the US are equivalent to a global witch-hunt hysteria. The CIA's patron saint should be 17th-century English self-proclaimed Witchfinder General Matthee Hopkins. Senator Eugene McCarthy probably wouldn't come close to this fanatic.


SharonM , Mar 21 2020 20:18 utc | 15

I thought it was well known that U.S. intelligence services don't exist to warn the public about possible dangers from abroad. They exist to create dangers abroad and at home.

"The U.S. intelligence services fear to come under questioning for not raising enough warning about the novel coronavirus pandemic."

Fear being questioned? U.S. intelligence agencies don't fear being questioned--I thought this was well-known too. It's going to be harder and harder to write articles from the perspective of being in favor of the U.S. regime using martial law on us without completely forgetting what the U.S. regime stands for in the first place.

The Corbett Report released a video today about martial law. In it, he shows us a German document from 2013, entitled:
"Information from the German government – Report on risk analysis in civil protection 2012"

"In it, frightening similarities with what is currently happening can be seen – in particular by explicitly mentioning the "SARS coronavirus (CoV)". The scenario presented, in which the spread, course, duration, mortality etc. are described, goes as far as to make a drastic restriction of fundamental rights necessary.
The scenario states in this respect:"

"The competent authorities, first of all the public health authorities and primarily the public health officers, must take measures to prevent communicable diseases. The IfSG [Infektionsschutzgesetz] allows, among other things, restrictions of basic rights, such as the right to inviolability of the home. Within the framework of necessary protective measures, the fundamental right of personal freedom and the freedom of assembly can also be restricted. In addition to these measures to be ordered directly by the public health officer, the Federal Ministry of Health can order by statutory order that threatened sections of the population have to take part in protective vaccinations or other measures of specific prophylaxis, whereby the right to physical integrity can be restricted".
https://www.globalresearch.ca/coronavirus-new-world-order-something-rotten-state-denmark/5706464

Knowing that b is German, I thought this could be of interest to him;)

Here is the link to Corbett's video from today:
"Medical Martial Law 2020"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2ZRT-gWZ8M

Jackrabbit , Mar 21 2020 22:32 utc | 50

"The U.S. intelligence services fear to come under questioning for not raising enough warning about the novel coronavirus pandemic.

IMO, this is a misreading.

I think a better interpretation is that US media is providing cover for Deep State officials (including high-level intelligence officials) that gamed the virus response. In that regard, this is the key phrase:

The intelligence reports didn't predict when the virus might land on U.S. shores or recommend particular steps that public health officials should take ...

=
The intelligence services failed to issue effective warnings."

But we know that they were providing very effective warnings: Senator Richard Burr, who is Chair of Intel Cmte, WAS getting appropriately dire warnings and acting upon those warnings: trading stock and telling his closest friends and supporters about the looming pandemic and the terrible effects it would have.

=
"But they were not the only ones. All institution in 'western' countries and their leaders have lacked in their preparation for a larger outbreak."

Well, we shouldn't over look the fact that the top US health officials are all currently or formerly military officers:

I expect that top health officials in other Western countries are also be connected to the military. These officials "failed us" in the same way that our media "fails us": they serve the interests of the EMPIRE-FIRST Deep State.

More here: The Empire Games Covid-19

!!

[Mar 21, 2020] New Jersey Orders 9 Million Residents To 'Stay At Home'; 86 Million Americans Now On Lockdown

"2. All New Jersey residents shall remain home or at their place of residence unless they are 1) obtaining goods or services from essential retail businesses, as described in Paragraph 6; 2) obtaining takeout food or beverages from restaurants, other dining establishments, or food courts, pursuant to Paragraph 8; 3) seeking medical attention, essential social services, or assistance from law enforcement or emergency services; 4) visiting family or other individuals with whom the resident has a close personal relationship, such as those for whom the individual is a caretaker or romantic partner; 5) reporting to, or performing, their job; 6) walking, running, operating a wheelchair, or engaging in outdoor activities with immediate family members, caretakers, household members, or romantic partners while following best social distancing practices with other individuals, including staying six feet apart; 7) leaving the home for an educational, religious, or political reason; 8) leaving because of a reasonable fear for his or her health or safety; or 9) leaving at the direction of law enforcement or other government agency."
Mar 21, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Following a hint from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who suggested during a press conference earlier this week that Connecticut and New Jersey might follow suit with lockdowns of their own, NJ Gov. Phil Murphy on Saturday signed an executive order barring citizens from leaving their homes unless they're part of the "essential" workforce.

The stay-at-home order covers all of the state's 9 million residents, and follows similar mandates that have been handed down in California, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania.

Murphy insisted that residents practice social distancing when they leave the house to buy food or pick up medicine, or go to perform 'nonessential' jobs.

"We must flatten the curve and ensure residents are practicing social distancing," New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said in announcing the new restrictions. But, he added, "Even with this order in effect...life in New Jersey does not have to come to a complete standstill."

He told residents not to panic, but added "we are at war."

Starting at 9 p.m. Saturday, New Jersey residents must stay home and all nonessential businesses have to close indefinitely. All gatherings including weddings, in-person services and parties, are canceled until further notice, Murphy said. He added that the rules he laid out supersede all those set by towns or cities or counties in his state, The governor made the announcement during his Saturday press conference. "We need you to just stay home," he said, adding that, as of 12:30 pm, the state had counted 1,327 positive tests and 16 deaths.

Including New Jersey's 9 million people, 86 million Americans are under a China- or Italy-style lockdown, or something closely approximating that.

Making a major announcement on our fight against COVID-19. WATCH: https://t.co/9ERzeFMFT5

-- Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) March 21, 2020

Here's a breakdown of cases by county as of 12:30 pm.

• Mercer: 30
• Middlesex: 116
• Monmouth: 92
• Morris: 64
• Ocean: 62
• Passaic: 67
• Somerset: 34
• Sussex: 6
• Union: 81
• Warren: 5
• Under Investigation: 140

-- Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) March 21, 2020

We suspect CT Governor Ned Lamont will soon follow up with a similar order of his own, perhaps staggered by a day or so to not provoke more panic.

[Mar 21, 2020] US intelligence reports from January and February warned about a likely pandemic

Mar 20, 2020 | washingtonpost.com

U.S. intelligence agencies were issuing ominous, classified warnings in January and February about the global danger posed by the coronavirus while President Trump and lawmakers played down the threat and failed to take action that might have slowed the spread of the pathogen, according to U.S. officials familiar with spy agency reporting.

The intelligence reports didn’t predict when the virus might land on U.S. shores or recommend particular steps that public health officials should take, issues outside the purview of the intelligence agencies. But they did track the spread of the virus in China, and later in other countries, and warned that Chinese officials appeared to be minimizing the severity of the outbreak.

Taken together, the reports and warnings painted an early picture of a virus that showed the characteristics of a globe-encircling pandemic that could require governments to take swift actions to contain it. But despite that constant flow of reporting, Trump continued publicly and privately to play down the threat the virus posed to Americans. Lawmakers, too, did not grapple with the virus in earnest until this month, as officials scrambled to keep citizens in their homes and hospitals braced for a surge in patients suffering from covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Intelligence agencies “have been warning on this since January,” said a U.S. official who had access to intelligence reporting that was disseminated to members of Congress and their staffs as well as to officials in the Trump administration, and who, along with others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive information.

“Donald Trump may not have been expecting this, but a lot of other people in the government were — they just couldn’t get him to do anything about it,” this official said. “The system was blinking red.”

How damning are Richard Burr’s and Kelly Loeffler’s coronavirus stock trades? Let’s break it down.

[Mar 21, 2020] Tulsi Gabbard says insider traders should be 'investigated prosecuted,' as Left and Right team up on profiteering senator

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "better prepared than ever ..."
"... "akin to the 1918 pandemic." ..."
"... "Congress/staff who dumped stocks after private briefings on impending coronavirus epidemic should be investigated and prosecuted for insider trading," ..."
"... "Members of Congress should not be allowed to own stocks." ..."
"... "stomach churning," ..."
"... "For a public servant it's pretty hard to imagine many things more immoral than doing this," ..."
"... "Richard Burr had critical information that might have helped the people he is sworn to protect. But he hid that information and helped only himself." ..."
"... "If you find out about a nation-threatening pandemic and your first move is to adjust your stock portfolio you should probably not be in a job that serves the public interest," ..."
"... "calling for immediate investigations" ..."
"... "for possible violations of the STOCK Act and insider trading laws." ..."
"... Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! ..."
Mar 21, 2020 | www.rt.com

In a rare moment of bipartisanship, commenters from all sides have demanded swift punishment for US senators who dumped stock after classified Covid-19 briefings. Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has called for criminal prosecution. As chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr (R-North Carolina) has received daily briefings on the threat posed by Covid-19 since January. Burr insisted to the public that America was ready to handle the virus, but sold up to $1.5 million in stocks on February 13, less than a week before the stock market nosedived, according to Senate filings . Immediately before the sale, Burr wrote an op-ed assuring Americans that their government is "better prepared than ever " to handle the virus.

Also on rt.com Liberal icon Sean Penn wants a 'compassionate' army deployment to fight Covid-19

After the sale, NPR reported that he told a closed-door meeting of North Carolina business leaders that the virus actually posed a threat "akin to the 1918 pandemic." Burr does not dispute the NPR report.

In a tweet on Saturday, former 2020 presidential candidate and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard called for criminal investigations. "Congress/staff who dumped stocks after private briefings on impending coronavirus epidemic should be investigated and prosecuted for insider trading," she wrote.

"Members of Congress should not be allowed to own stocks."

Congress/staff who dumped stocks after private briefings on impending coronavirus epidemic should be investigated & prosecuted for insider trading (the STOCK Act). It is illegal & abuse of power. Members of Congress should not be allowed to own stocks. https://t.co/rbVfJxrk3r

-- Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) March 21, 2020

Burr was not the only lawmaker on Capitol Hill to take precautions, it was reported. Fellow Intelligence Committee member Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and her husband sold off more than a million dollars of shares in a biotech company five days later, while Oklahoma's Jim Inhofe (R) made a smaller sale around the same time. Both say their sales were routine.

Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Georgia) attended a Senate Health Committee briefing on the outbreak on January 24. The very same day, she began offloading stock, dropping between $1.2 and $3.1 million in shares over the following weeks. The companies whose stock she sold included airlines, retail outlets, and Chinese tech firm Tencent.

She did, however, invest in cloud technology company Oracle, and Citrix, a teleworking company whose value has increased by nearly a third last week, as social distancing measures forced more and more Americans to work from home. All of Loeffler's transactions were made with her husband, Jeff Sprecher, CEO of the New York Stock Exchange.

Meanwhile, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York) and Ilhan Omar (Minnesota) have joined the clamor of voices demanding punishment. Ocasio-Cortez described the sales as "stomach churning," while Omar reached across the aisle to side with Fox News' Tucker Carlson in calling for Burr's resignation.

I am 💯 with him on this 😱 https://t.co/Gbi3i2BagY

-- Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) March 20, 2020

"For a public servant it's pretty hard to imagine many things more immoral than doing this," Carlson said during a Friday night monolog. "Richard Burr had critical information that might have helped the people he is sworn to protect. But he hid that information and helped only himself."

As of Saturday, there are nearly 25,000 cases of Covid-19 in the US, with the death toll heading towards 300. Now both sides of the political aisle seem united in disgust at the apparent profiteering of Burr, Loeffler, and Feinstein.

Right-wing news outlet Breitbart savaged Burr for voting against the STOCK Act in 2012, a piece of legislation that would have barred members of Congress from using non-public information to profit on the stock market. At the same time, a host of Democratic figures - including former presidential candidates Andrew Yang and Kirsten Gillibrand - weighed in with their own criticism too.

"If you find out about a nation-threatening pandemic and your first move is to adjust your stock portfolio you should probably not be in a job that serves the public interest," Yang tweeted on Friday.

If you find out about a nation-threatening pandemic and your first move is to adjust your stock portfolio you should probably not be in a job that serves the public interest.

-- Andrew Yang🧢 (@AndrewYang) March 20, 2020

Watchdog group Common Cause has filed complaints with the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Senate Ethics Committee "calling for immediate investigations" of Burr, Loeffler, Feinstein and Inhofe "for possible violations of the STOCK Act and insider trading laws."

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[Mar 21, 2020] Korea and Germany virus tests numbers vs the USA

Mar 21, 2020 | caucus99percent.com

I would say that Germany's testing is far superior @Marie
to the US. They test a far larger number of people and don't have the restriction of having to show symptoms before one can get tested. This gives them a larger base of infected so it shows a lower ratio for deaths/confirmed. Earlier detection will also greatly improve outcomes. The slope of their new infections is also starting to flatten - unlike the US where it is getting steeper with each passing day.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-cases-covid-19?country=USA+DEU+IRN

These factors are actually a really, really bad warning sign for the evolution of the virus outbreak within the US. The US, as a fist world country should not have outcomes like a second world country.

#7.1
COVID-19 infections, but an incredibly low number of deaths and patients in serious condition. The numbers may be valid but if so, there's an element of luck in Germany's favor.

up 5 users have voted.

Marie on Sat, 03/21/2020 - 5:21pm

Haven't seen any data on testing in Germany

@CB
The only country I've seen that has been releasing daily figures on testing is South Korea and they've been doing it since their first case on 20 Jan 2020. Update 21 Jan 2021 . First confirmed case in Germany was on 28 Jan.

As of 21 Mar:
Germany: confirmed cases 21,854. (population 83 million)
South Korea: confirmed cases 8,799. (population 51 million) Total tests administered 327,599.

So, SK has better contained the internal spread than Germany and has released more complete information on the imported cases.

At this time, I'm not going to speculate as to why SK's deaths are so much higher than Germany's. But do note that if Germany's health care for a virus with no cure is so far superior to SK's, why are there also so few recoveries in Germany - 180 compared to SK's 2,612.

#7.1.2
to the US. They test a far larger number of people and don't have the restriction of having to show symptoms before one can get tested. This gives them a larger base of infected so it shows a lower ratio for deaths/confirmed. Earlier detection will also greatly improve outcomes. The slope of their new infections is also starting to flatten - unlike the US where it is getting steeper with each passing day.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-cases-covid-19?country=USA+DEU+IRN

These factors are actually a really, really bad warning sign for the evolution of the virus outbreak within the US. The US, as a fist world country should not have outcomes like a second world country.

Marie on Sat, 03/21/2020 - 5:30pm
btw:

@CB
Confirmed cases - Germany:
19 Mar - 17,372
20 Mar - 19,848
21 Mar - 21,854

Confirmed cases - South Korea
19 Mar - 8,565
20 Mar - 8,652
21 Mar - 8,799

[Mar 21, 2020] FEMA has been put in charge of COVID-19

Mar 21, 2020 | caucus99percent.com

CB on Sat, 03/21/2020 - 1:34pm

FEMA has been put in charge of COVID-19

@Lily O Lady
NHS will report to them.

"US has 55 million masks" "we should sanitize and reuse them"

China makes N35 masks at the rate of tens of millions per day. They are shipping millions to other countries around the world. Sinopec even constructed a brand new factory with 12 production lines from scratch in 10 days to manufacture the PP material over a month ago.

Trump bragging about how prescient he was in handling this pandemic.

Lying about China not telling world what was happening for two to three months despite WHO reports from early January.
He keeps repeating how he acted very early.

Scapegoating China again. What a fucking lying fuckwit.

Still don't know how many or when test kits will come out.

Blaming all problems on previous administration - inherited the deficiencies.

One reporter catches him out on when he knew about China from his public statement on Jan 24.

Watch the following video. Trump knew about the virus at least by Jan 3 (the day it's genome was published)

//www.youtube.com/embed/Zm0lcZ4RsjI?modestbranding=0&html5=1&rel=0&autoplay=0&wmode=opaque&loop=0&controls=1&autohide=0&showinfo=0&theme=dark&color=red&enablejsapi=0

Lily O Lady on Sat, 03/21/2020 - 1:55pm
The problem now with test kits is that we are running

@CB

out of the reagents to run the tests. So samples can be collected, but may not be processed. There will be more cover-ups when this becomes generally known. Attention! Forward fail!

CB on Sat, 03/21/2020 - 2:14pm
Most of the reagents come from China

@Lily O Lady @Lily O Lady
as do most of the precursors for the various drugs that are made in the US.

Here's a video of how China ramped up mask production within days of learning about the COVID-19 infection.
Someone should have the Trumpeter watch this video. He might discover why masks can't be cleaned and reused.

//www.youtube.com/embed/dZYVaokFBzc?modestbranding=0&html5=1&rel=0&autoplay=0&wmode=opaque&loop=0&controls=1&autohide=0&showinfo=0&theme=dark&color=red&enablejsapi=0

[Mar 21, 2020] Tucker Senator Burr sold shares after virus briefing

Highly recommended!
Mar 21, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Bowhead31 , 5 hours ago

The problem is these people no longer see themselves as public servants.

Maria Summers , 6 hours ago

The Georgia Senator is just as guilty as the rest of them, regarding "Insider Trading".

shane passey , 3 hours ago

She's a crook just like the rest of the politicians. They say they be there for the people. But they're really there to make themselves rich

[Mar 21, 2020] Don't forget our congress critter Senator Kelly Loeffler

Mar 21, 2020 | caucus99percent.com

@supenau

who make profits as well. I cannot remember exactly when insider trading for them became legal but it should be no surprise to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention that they're ALL doing it. That is one reason, at least in my semi-educated opinion, they did not go after Trump for emoluments during Shampeachment, because THEY ALL DO IT.

That goes all the way to the White House, no doubt.

Marie on Sat, 03/21/2020 - 10:28am

Looks as if the crisis profiteers were on top of it:

Think about this:

Weeks before you had any inkling you were going to lose your job, was selling off millions of stocks -- and *buying* stock in a teleworking company.

-- Robert Reich (@RBReich) March 20, 2020

[Mar 21, 2020] Coronavirus cases surge at nursing homes with at least 73 facilities in 22 states affected

Mar 21, 2020 | www.washingtonpost.com

...Across the United States, the number of reported cases of coronavirus at nursing homes, assisted living centers and other elder care centers spiked in recent days, with at least 73 facilities in 22 states now reporting infections, according to a review by The Washington Post of reports from states, local media reports and nursing home announcements.

As of Friday evening, at least 55 coronavirus deaths occurred among people living in elder care facilities, though the number is probably higher because official counts often omit a description of the person's last place of residence . That figure represented more than a quarter of U.S. deaths then attributed to the pandemic, even though fewer than 1 percent of Americans live in such facilities.

[Mar 20, 2020] PA Governor has ordered the shutdown of all non-life-sustaining businesses, and he intends to enforce it with the State Police and other agencies starting Saturday.

Mar 20, 2020 | www.unz.com

Milton , says: Show Comment March 20, 2020 at 3:10 am GMT

Well, here in PA, the Governor has ordered the shutdown of all non-life-sustaining businesses, and he intends to enforce it with the State Police and other agencies starting Saturday. He said the enforcement will last "indefiintely." This is like something out of a bad horror movie: https://www.pennlive.com/news/2020/03/all-non-life-sustaining-businesses-in-pa-must-close-gov-wolf.html

[Mar 19, 2020] A tidbit showing how serious Italy is about their lockdown

Mar 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

c1ue , Mar 19 2020 16:32 utc | 55

And in other news: a tidbit showing how serious Italy is about their lockdown:
Guardian with news on Italy
Police stopped and checked 700,000 citizens between 11 and 17 March, 43,000 of whom were found to have violated the decree, which also ordered the closing of shops, bars, restaurants, gyms and swimming pools.

One of the most serious cases happened in Sciacca, Sicily, when a man who had tested positive for Covid-19 was discovered by police while out shopping, despite the strict order to self-isolate at home. Prosecutors opened an investigation and accused the man of "aiding the epidemic". If convicted, he could face up to 12 years in prison.

On 10 March a 30-year-old man was stopped by the police in Turin at 2.30am while soliciting a sex worker.

Police near Venice pressed charges against a priest because he was officiating at a funeral. Another priest was reported for the same reason in Torre Annunziata in Campania, together with relatives of the deceased. Funeral services are banned under the decree.

The prosecutor's office in Aosta, in north-west Italy, opened an investigation against a man for "aggravated attempt to spread the epidemic" because he had not informed his doctors of suspected coronavirus symptoms before undergoing plastic surgery on his nose. The man subsequently tested positive for Covid-19.


To put this in perspective: Italy has a population of 60M - so police stopped more than 1 in 100 people in the whole country!
This is not even at China level lockdown.
What will the US do?

[Mar 19, 2020] Coronavirus Testing Source Data - Our World in Data

Mar 19, 2020 | ourworldindata.org
United States – CDC samples tested 21,105 11 Mar 2020 Report, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 16 Mar 2020, 16:00 ET Figures refer to specimens tested. Data is updated at noon Mondays through Fridays. The current report, published on 16 March 2020, includes only consolidated estimates up until 11 March 2020.
United States – COVID-Tracking project 41,552 16 Mar 2020 COVID Tracking Project 16 Mar 2020 16:00 The source reports the following breakdown: 4,019 positive; 35,840 negative; 1,691 pending

[Mar 17, 2020] Coronavirus - A Lockdown Is Not Enough

Notable quotes:
"... We must test every person's temperature at airports and trains and build up drive thru testing capacity. If one does not search for the virus one will not find it. We must test, test, test to track all virus carriers down and to stop the spreading. ..."
"... There must be a mandatory isolation of people who are probably infected but do not show symptoms as well as separate isolation of suspected and detected cases with 'mild' symptoms. ..."
"... Telling a probably infected person to shelter with their family, as is now done in the U.S. and the U.K, will only kill more people. 75%-80% of the cases in China got infected through direct family contact. The family chain must be broken to effectively stop the epidemic. ..."
"... The delay between the shutdown in Wuhan and a fall in new daily cases was 12 days . 10 to 14 days from now we will probably see a drop in the number of new cases in European societies and within the shutdown areas in the U.S. But that is not guaranteed unless the additional measures come into play. ..."
"... Moon of Alabama ..."
"... My fear is, that after 30-40 years of neoliberal indoctrination, no solidarity of social resposibility exists anymore here. ..."
"... Earlier, Tehran called on Washington to lift its economic sanctions as they prevent Iran from adequately responding to the Covid-19 outbreak. Other countries, such as Russia and China, have also urged the US to cancel the sanctions against Iran. ..."
Mar 17, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Dr. Carl Juaneau, who is specialized in epidemiology, has pointed me to a page where he collects useful information about the novel Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2 and the current pandemic it causes.

COVID-19: Why America May Be Hit Hard for 3-4 Months & What To Do

It is quite good. Make sure that you scroll beyond the long country statistic for additional useful information.

---

Eight days after we wrote Why We Must Shut Everything Down And Do It Now it finally gets done. European countries have closed their borders and told their people to hunker down. Major car companies like Volkswagen, Peugeot and Fiat have stopped their production as car sales have slumped anyway. Airbus shut down two of its production sites to revamp them for better protection of its workers. In the U.S. the Bay Area, New York, Seattle and other major cities have also basically closed down.

Even Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson has changed his mind. Instead of taking it "on the chin" as he had suggested and letting many people die until the rest achieves 'herd immunity' Britain will now finally try to stop the spreading epidemic.

Racism is the reason that this is happening so late. China, South Korea and Singapore had already show what needs to be done fo fight the epidemic and how to do it successfully. But Asian voices do not count in 'white' decision making. The political action in Europe and the U.S. only started to happen after Italy was hit very hard.

And our governments are still not doing enough.

We must test every person's temperature at airports and trains and build up drive thru testing capacity. If one does not search for the virus one will not find it. We must test, test, test to track all virus carriers down and to stop the spreading.

There must be a mandatory isolation of people who are probably infected but do not show symptoms as well as separate isolation of suspected and detected cases with 'mild' symptoms.

Telling a probably infected person to shelter with their family, as is now done in the U.S. and the U.K, will only kill more people. 75%-80% of the cases in China got infected through direct family contact. The family chain must be broken to effectively stop the epidemic.

Probably infected persons, i.e. those who had contact with another infected person, should be put under quarantine in sport arenas or exposition facilities to be supervised by medics.

Contact tracing teams must ask each of them with whom they met over the last days and then check on those persons. This requires lots of people and resources but China has show that it is doable. Tracing cellphones may be useful to help with this. Community monitoring may be a viable alternative.

Additional hospital capacity must be build. There must be hospitals exclusively for Covis-19 cases and others for people with different medical problems.

NYT science and health reporter Donald McNeil, who was in China during the shutdown, explains very well how China has beaten the epidemic in Wuhan. Please watch this:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/e3gCbkeARbY?start=31

Organizing all those measures is exactly what our governments should have done since the end of January. Today they are still only discussing most of those measures.

Boris Johnson is said to have changed his strategy based on a new study from the Imperial College. The study says:

Two fundamental strategies are possible: (a) mitigation, which focuses on slowing but not necessarily stopping epidemic spread – reducing peak healthcare demand while protecting those most at risk of severe disease from infection, and (b) suppression, which aims to reverse epidemic growth, reducing case numbers to low levels and maintaining that situation indefinitely.

Mitigation was the way Boris Johnson had planned to go because he wanted to achieve 'herd immunity' for all of Britain. That is something that can only be done through vaccinations. The idea was clearly lunatic. The study says that such a 'mitigation' would have resulted in "hundreds of thousands of deaths and health systems (most notably intensive care units) being overwhelmed many times over."

That leaves suppression as the only way to go. Cut the epidemic down as much as possible and test, test, test to find each and every new case. Cutting the epidemic down requires a two months shutdown and all the above listed additional measures.

There was by the way nothing new in Johnson's 'new' Imperial College study. Here is Richard Horten, the editor of the famous medical journal Lancet , telling it like it is (emphasis added):

richard horton @richardhorton1 - 6:56 UTC · Mar 17, 2020

It said it took a study from Imperial to understand the likely burden of COVID-19 on the NHS. But read the first paper we published on COVID-19 on Jan 24. 32% admitted to ITU with 15% mortality. We have wasted 7 weeks. This crisis was entirely preventable.

The morning after the dramatic change in strategy to COVID-19 by this govt, I can't help but feel angry that it has taken almost two months for politicians and even "experts" to understand the scale of the danger from SARS-CoV-2. Those dangers were clear from the very beginning.

Chinese clinicians and scientists -- Chen Wang, George Gao, Chen Zhu, Bin Cao -- did the world a great service by immediately sharing their data, warning the world that SARS-CoV-2 was a dangerous new virus. I'm appalled to say that western "experts" failed to heed their warnings.

Laura Kuenssberg says (BBC) that, "The science has changed." This is not true. The science has been the same since January. What has changed is that govt advisors have at last understood what really took place in China and what is now taking place in Italy. It was there to see .

Even with a shutdown the situation for Britain's National Health Service is likely to become catastrophic. The red line in the graphic below is the actual critical case capacity the NHS has. There are some 10 critical care beds per 100.000 people. All prediction variants show that it will be exceed several times. Johnson's 'do nothing' strategy would have required 180 critical care beds per 100,000 people. Even with all measures that will now be taken there will likely be a need for several more critical care beds for each one that currently exists.


bigger

"You may live" and "you must die" decisions will have to be made as there is not enough capacity in place.

Shutting down most public life is now clearly the best thing to do. In Italy, the town of Lodi (green) had the first case, and locked down on Feb 23. Bergamo (red) waited until March 8. See the difference:


Source - bigger

Today ANSA reported that there are now no more free intensive care beds in Bergamo, a city with more than 120,000 inhabitants.

The delay between the shutdown in Wuhan and a fall in new daily cases was 12 days . 10 to 14 days from now we will probably see a drop in the number of new cases in European societies and within the shutdown areas in the U.S. But that is not guaranteed unless the additional measures come into play.

The late shutdown decisions by 'western' governments come at a very high price. Many more people will die because the time and information China gave us to prepare was not used to make the necessary decisions. The late decisions will also increase the time it will take to fight the epidemic down. They thereby also increased the economic damage all this will cause.

People should ask their governments why they disregarded the information and experience from Asia.

---
Previous Moon of Alabama posts on the issue:

Posted by b on March 17, 2020 at 18:39 UTC | Permalink

This is a worthwhile opinion piece to read, not for its information but for its view of the situation,

When the Coronavirus Scare Is Over, Economic Armageddon Will Remain


Beibdnn , Mar 17 2020 18:58 utc | 3

Here in a part of South Western rural France the Gendarmes are out and about stopping people. If you don't have written permission to be outside your residence, e.g. to go shopping, going to the chemist etc, the fine starts at 35 euro. If you get continually caught the fine increases to 1.330 Euros. France IS taking the virus seriously, better late than never.
james , Mar 17 2020 18:58 utc | 4
thank you b... the video in the middle is good.. china has done everything they can to help... meanwhile, trump refers to it as the china virus...

boris the chimp is finally on board... i still can't believe the uk people voted for him.. i think we are on new ground here and as others have said - things are not going to return to normal any time soon.. this is a bigger event then 9-11 in terms of significance and impact.

Billy , Mar 17 2020 19:04 utc | 7
China's is a perfect example of how to act. We need to kick all capitalist journalists out of the country, and have the US government take the lead in all future reporting on the virus. Shut down these comment sections immediately. We can only beat this if we all think exactly the same.
Russ , Mar 17 2020 19:25 utc | 10
This is just vile. What a complete psychological meltdown. Pure hysteria. Sieg Heil.

For the life of me I can't imagine why those here who have surrendered to this insanity even pretended to oppose the empire, the "war on terror", creeping and now galloping totalitarianism...

I'd bet any amount of money that deep down it's not really any physical fears for oneself (let alone for others) that has everyone losing their minds and shrieking for the government to imprison them all in order to save them, but that it's seeing this worthless economy of junk tottering.

Well, now you have your own White Helmets/OPCW to worship and obey.

Thank god I still know some people in real life who still retain their humanity and vow to continue living as human beings, even as so many are, in real time, openly screaming that they want to rush to permanent totalitarianism right this moment.

And over NOTHING even remotely comparable as an evil to the "cure" for which they shriek.

DontBelieveEitherPr. , Mar 17 2020 19:26 utc | 11
I must admit: I clearly am not able to judge this. Both sides are very convincing to me. And both sides are both extremes. What side is true? I dont have a fucking clue.

But my personal belief as a (young) old school social democrat always is to give preference to social concerns over economy. As i am in danger myself with having a chronic lung disease, i surely understand that exposing 100,000s of my fellow compatriots here in Germany to death (which are expected when correlating the death rate and likely spreading in case of no shutdowns), is no position to take.
Eugenists like the Algo Saxons may differ.

We will only know for sure in some years. But not taking the measures now would be a gamble with the lives of millions all over the world.

My fear is, that after 30-40 years of neoliberal indoctrination, no solidarity of social resposibility exists anymore here.

That was different long time ago, but the times where our society would have pulled and stood together are long gone.
Going grocery shopping is totally mad now, no more bread, soap, milk, sugar, grain, canned vegetables.. (and ofc the famous toilet paper hoarders).

Even flu vacs are out, even for risked demographics like me with lung disease.

The veneer of civilization is already coming off, what will be in 2-3 months??

I expected our economy to crash, our society and the EU to disintegrate. But SO SOON? Even i am suprised.

Tom_LX , Mar 17 2020 19:35 utc | 12
A much clearer description of the Italian situation.

This was updated on 17th of March,

According to the latest data of the Italian National Health Institute ISS, the average age of the positively-tested deceased in Italy is currently about 81 years. 10% of the deceased are over 90 years old. 90% of the deceased are over 70 years old.

80% of the deceased had suffered from two or more chronic diseases. 50% of the deceased had suffered from three or more chronic diseases. The chronic diseases include in particular cardiovascular problems, diabetes, respiratory problems and cancer.

Less than 1% of the deceased were healthy persons, i.e. persons without pre-existing chronic diseases. Only about 25% of the deceased are women.
....

The doctor also points out the following aspects:

Northern Italy has one of the oldest populations and the worst air quality in Europe , which has already led to an increased number of respiratory diseases and deaths in the past and is likely an additional risk factor in the current epidemic.


Link
Hvd , Mar 17 2020 19:47 utc | 15
Wouldn't it be simpler and cheaper given the death statistics to isolate the at risk population.

Maybe we could avoid the depression that assuredly will follow your prescribed course of action. A depression that will kill far more people than this virus if we isolate the olds. I happen to be one of the olds and would rather take the risks attendant on my strategy then risk my child's future with yours.

Likklemore , Mar 17 2020 19:51 utc | 16
Thanks b, for your continuing helpful information.

US Healthcare professionals are in fright. On the previous thread I posted the press release from the Society of Critical Medicine-the system will be overwhelmed by shortage of specialists and ventilators.

That's not the only shortages I see.

The US leadership have a shortage of basic decency. In this COVID-19 pandemic the US should lift sanctions on Iran:
Earlier, Tehran called on Washington to lift its economic sanctions as they prevent Iran from adequately responding to the Covid-19 outbreak. Other countries, such as Russia and China, have also urged the US to cancel the sanctions against Iran. LINK

Karma will bitch slap.

lgfocus , Mar 17 2020 20:19 utc | 20
DontBelieveEitherPR @17

I'm with you on everything you said. I think it is possible that both things are true. We have a raging epidemic that needs to be addressed by all of humanity working together. I would prefer that be voluntary, but as you stated, we may lack the social responsibility to make that happen. At the same time, the crisis is being used to usurp freedoms that stand a good chance of being permanently removed.

Based on the information available, I'm pretty certain that this was created as a bio-weapon. How or who released it, if intentional or not, is not yet known to us. Sadly, as an American, I'm not discounting that my country created and released it against its perceived enemy (China, Iran). After all, we know that the use of nuclear weapons to conquer Russia has been and still is acceptable by the USA as long as our losses were only xx million.

Regardless, for now we have two tasks. 1) To do all we can to protect and treat as many people as possible and especially our health care workers as outlined by b. 2) To demand that any draconian processes that removed our freedoms are thoroughly and immediately repealed as soon as the crisis abates. We should be pressing our governments on both of these NOW. If we fail in either of these, we will have succumbed to the will of the NWO.

I see some good that has come out of this situation so far. First, more people seem to be waking up to the desire to care for others both in their own community and abroad. Second, the awakening to the corrupt and fragile economic system we have. One that is once again quick to provide socialism for banks and large corporations and capitalism for everyone else.

Good luck to all. If we work together we can beat this.

Peter AU1 , Mar 17 2020 20:39 utc | 27
lysias 24

Areas that were not hard hit in China came out of lockdown a week or so back.

Paul Damascene , Mar 17 2020 20:41 utc | 28
b--
Although I would not be surprised to learn that racism (and the Great Game hybrid infowars) do play a role; I think another distinguish feature is the degree to which corporations and neoliberal actors hold sway over Western governments. Even though Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and China have powerful business combines, I think there is still a sense of a national industrial strategy (that recognizes the people as a competitive resource). I had expected and hoped to see Russia under President Putin also recognizing that effective management of the pandemic, and coming out the other side quickly and with minimal damage, to join China and the other effective responders, might be seen as a source of immense strategic advantage. Then I saw a Russian football stadium jammed with people, just 2 days ago. So maybe not.
lysias , Mar 17 2020 20:43 utc | 29
Did Western governments fail for so long to learn from the Chinese example because of racism or because they wanted the epidemic to occur?

My household has had the foresight to stock up on a few months' worth of rice and beans. Is that hoarding? Should we be made to share it? Rice and beans are not exactly luxury.

Some Random Passerby , Mar 17 2020 20:50 utc | 30
@6 james

I do not believe we did vote for Johnson. Several indicators include a doubling of postal votes from 19% in 2017 to 38% in 2019, the suicidal remain stance by Starmer (Trilateral Commission member and next leader of Labour), the media telling us there would be an 80 seat win 48hrs before the vote and Prime Minister Theresa May telling Corbyn "We will not let you become Prime Minister"

I still ponder just who We is, and how far We goes...

psychohistorian , Mar 17 2020 20:50 utc | 31
The American Liberace Grifter in Chief tweeted that this is a Chinese virus to show everyone his superior brilliance.

Americans and much of the Western world deserves every gram of bad karma coming its deserved way...and I am an American

Thanks for the evolving reporting b. Signs of a honorable journalist

Richard Steven Hack , Mar 17 2020 20:52 utc | 32
San Francisco and most Bay Area counties have now ordered a "shelter in place" - it will be a misdemeanor offense to go out without a good reason (although charges will be "a last resort", whatever that means.)

Well, are the Board of Supervisors going to feed us, too? Because I need to go the store today - assuming there's any food left in the store. I went to my usual convenience store a block away from me that I usually go to, intending to pick up my usual lettuce and tomatoes. They're completely out of tomatoes, although they still had lettuce.

This is going to be a problem in a lot less than two weeks. And given that this is likely to continue for at least a month, maybe three or four... Everyone is assuming these measures will only be for two weeks. Good luck with that...

My dental appointment for next Monday was canceled today, as dentists are closing down. They said they would reschedule in two weeks. Good luck with that, too...

bevin , Mar 17 2020 21:03 utc | 36
S It really beggars belief that normally sensible people persist in the nonsense that the current crisis was designed to take away the liberty of Americans.

Any government that has wanted to do that has simply had to ask them: Americans give away liberties, civil rights, legal safeguards with a relish. Then they re-elect the politicians who stole those freedoms. This was well established by the time of the Palmer Raids. In the last century Americans have readily agreed to ban socialists in trade unions, watch while primaries are stolen, allow the President to arrogate the war making power. And anything else a fascist could ever ask for.

And yet, we are suddenly asked to believe, it has now become necessary to arrange a pandemic in order to persuade people to sacrifice their rights to cough what they want where they want over whomsoever they might choose; to go to work whether sick or well, because it is their god given right to spread any diseases that they might have acquired.

So far, all that I have seen from the imperialist governments, which are clearly at a complete loss as to what to do, are the long overdue imposition of sensible restrictions on potential disease spreaders, that were routinely accepted in Chaucer's fucking day!

As I have noted before, the current crises are a severe and perhaps terminal embarrassment to the capitalist class, which is beginning to realise that the ideology that didn't work in the late C18th doesn't work 200 plus years later, simply because it has been rebranded as neo-liberalism.
Now is the time to be pressing for reform, for the sort of responses that b outlines above and for the complete destruction of the for profit healthcare system from pharmaceutical manufacturing to the "care home" racket. And all in between.

Then we can get to work on providing a social safety net- a week after the SNAP Food Stamp programme was gutted.

dltravers , Mar 17 2020 21:03 utc | 37
If or when they institute drive through testing coupled with online self diagnosis you will see a mad rush of healthy people rushing for the test like they did for toilet paper. This is a sociologist and psychologists dream. They will be studying this event in detail for years.

There was distrust from what was going on in China but I think the US did pay attention to what was going on in Korea and Japan. So far the affects are minimal and only time will tell if this explodes or recedes.

It is easy to be a keyboard quarterback. Getting resources coordinated in a massive country is quite another story.

Piero Colombo , Mar 17 2020 21:12 utc | 40
Hvd @15

Your proposal makes a lot of sense, except for one thing:

We don't really know which strain is going to hit us, here in the US. All five of currently identified strains of the virus have been reported here, while Iran, where a special one is raging, different from the one in Hubei and extremely deadly by the looks of it (1/2 of total cases are reported dead; what with part of the government getting ill right at the start, these 3 things are of course feeding the theory that this is some biological war action by Israel and/or the US, and who can blame the theorizers?) Be that as it may, the fact that we are not sure if we are to be hit by a very virulent or relatively tame virus -- tame for the population under-65, that is.

Isolating everybody? Not possible for a multiple-month duration.

Tom74 , Mar 17 2020 21:12 utc | 41
Some Random Passerby | Mar 17 2020 20:50 utc | 30

Yes, I am also very doubtful 'we' voted for Johnson. As well as the ridiculously high, and conveniently spaced, alleged postal vote, the unseemly hurry to hold that general election in December and the media's orchestrated campaign against the Labour campaign now looks even more suspicious given subsequent events. Was the plan to clear the decks of UK politics, with Brexit etc, and make sure all opposition was completely humiliated and neutralised so that a stooge like Johnson could with a free hand collude in crashing the financial markets and wrecking the economy so the banks could be bailed out again (as I feel will happen)? All under the cover of the coronavirus.

DFC , Mar 17 2020 21:15 utc | 42
It is impossible to convince some people, for many they will never be convinced that this is a pandemic, because they do not want to know what is happening right now in the overwhelming ICU's in North Italy or Madrid, but probably they end up seeing this in their cities if their leaders do not take draconian measures.

OK some of them even knowing this epidemic will kill hundred of thousands of fellow countrymen will not change their minds, but may be some o them have a suprise...you never know with this disasters

karlof1 , Mar 17 2020 21:19 utc | 45
The armchair epidemiologists are really something else! They're in the same boat as Jared Kushner and TrumpCo as the following citation from this article makes clear (Hat Tip to Pepe Escobar):

"For weeks [Trump] resisted telling Americans to cancel or stay away from large gatherings, reluctant even on Thursday to call off his own campaign rallies even as he grudgingly acknowledged he would probably have to. Instead it fell to Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government's most famous scientist, to say publicly what the president would not, leading the nation's basketball, hockey, soccer, and baseball leagues in just 24 hours to suspend play and call off tournaments. Mayors and county executives, hospital executives, and factory owners received no further direction from the president as he talked about the virus in the Oval Office on Thursday than they did during his prime-time address to the nation the night before. Beyond travel limits and wash-your-hands reminders, Mr. Trump has left it to others to set the course in combating the pandemic and has indicated he was in no rush to take further action."

At first, Trump clearly thought he torpedoed China's economy with his bioweapon attack and there'd be few if any desperate consequences. Pompeo, Pence, and Trump continued to pile on with ubber-arrogant racism and smears of China, while within their ideologically addled brains they assumed China would never be able to mount the sort of defense and counter-attack that ensued. Once again, they were 100% wrong, and the coming blowback one hopes will finally force the Outlaw US Empire to succumb.

... ... ...

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/div

[Mar 17, 2020] Maryland governor announced unprecedented measures

Mar 17, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

In addition to the usual closures and orders to increase hospital capacity, he's also prohibiting utility providers from turning off power, water, heat etc. for nonpayment.

Today I announced additional actions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Maryland. They may sound extreme, and they will be terribly disruptive, but they are also absolutely necessary to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Details here: https://t.co/XwwTJot69H

-- Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) March 16, 2020

I have ordered the closure of all bars and restaurants in the state, as well as fitness centers, spas, and theaters, effective at 5:00 p.m. today. The order allows for restaurants to continue carry-out, drive-thru, and delivery services.

-- Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) March 16, 2020

We are marshaling every tool in the arsenal of public health to combat this crisis. I have issued an omnibus public health order that includes increasing hospital capacity, activating the Maryland Responds Medical Reserve Corps, & lifting restrictions on healthcare practitioners.

-- Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) March 16, 2020

It is impossible to know how long this threat will continue. What I do know is that we cannot afford to wait to take action.

For updates on our administration's actions, visit https://t.co/Z1UGRIJCGm .

For health resources, visit https://t.co/Shy9A0czWz .

-- Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) March 16, 2020

I am prohibiting utility providers from shutting off any residential customer's service or charging any residential late fees, and prohibiting Maryland courts from ordering the eviction of any tenant who can show that their failure to pay rent was the result of COVID-19.

-- Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) March 16, 2020

We are marshaling every tool in the arsenal of public health to combat this crisis. I have issued an omnibus public health order that includes increasing hospital capacity, activating the Maryland Responds Medical Reserve Corps, & lifting restrictions on healthcare practitioners.

-- Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) March 16, 2020
Apparently, the reason Trump's comment about the ventilators and respirators earlier - asking states to try and find their own through their own supply chains, as Trump said during the press conference - touched such a nerve among the governors is because there's some kind of nationwide "problem" with supplies, according to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who discussed the issue with the Washington Post.

"There is a problem with supplies and ventilators," Hogan said. "There's not enough supplies. The states don't have enough. The federal government doesn't have enough. They're not getting distributed fast enough. And that's a problem for all of us.

[Mar 17, 2020] Roche has started shipping tests to labs across the US.

Mar 17, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Roche, the Swiss drug company that is one of several companies working with the administration to increase the supply of tests, has started shipping tests to labs across the US.

[Mar 17, 2020] I have strange sensations in my lungs, and even felt out of breath periodically. I just realizated that somewhere in January, a friend fell ill with a double pneumonia. She recovered, but she now has pulmonary fibrosis as a result of that episode.

Mar 17, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Lurk , Mar 17 2020 0:56 utc | 104

BTW, I have not seen any comments here like this speculative admission that I am about to make:

I suspect that I have in fact contracted the dreaded corona virus. It has been making the rounds in my area. For the past week and a half I have been unusually fatigued and in the last week I have felt strange sensations in my lungs, and even felt out of breath occasionally. No fever, sore throat or coughs. Definitely something unusual in my lungs.

I am 50 years old, no medical issues and generally in good health. I would have applied for a test, but around here they stopped testing anybody but the bad cases that get admitted to the hospital.

Girlfriend has been coughing for two weeks and even had a bit of a fever at the onset.

If this is not simply an ordinary case of flu or cold, I wonder what the exposure route would have been.

GF works with disabled people and did a shift with a group of children who were snotty and coughing right before she got her symptoms.

A little over two weeks ago I attended a weekend sports event in Belgium with many people from Brussels and Paris also in attendance, cities that were early hits in Europe.

A few days later, I picked up my parents in the airport in Amsterdam after their flight back from Atlanta. The had been touring the US and had been on a cruise ship from San Diego to Fort Lauderdale, via Panama and the Caribean.

What really struck me this afternoon, was the realization that a little while ago, somewhere in January, a good friend of ours suddenly fell ill with a double pneumonia. She recovered with antibiotics, but afterwards it turned out that she now has pulmonary fibrosis as a result of that epsiode. This transpired while the corona virus was a thing far away over the horizon. Now I wonder about it.

Anyway, no panic. Taking my vitamins and minerals and brewing soups with lots of ginger and garlic.

Kind of worried about my stepdad who is coughing a lot. He says it's just a cold. Hmmm...

[Mar 16, 2020] Did Trump administration seek exclusive vaccine deal with German biontech company?

Mar 16, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

ak74 , Mar 16 2020 20:40 utc | 35

@ Ort | Mar 16 2020 19:45 utc | 24

Dude, I don't give a rat's ass about Donald Trump or any other American political leader.

Democrat and Republican. They are all scum. All of them.

But the German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, foreign minister Heiko Maas, and the German Health Ministry are treating this American takeover threat as real:

"At a news conference on Sunday, interior minister Horst Seehofer was asked to confirm the attempts to court the German company. 'I can only say that I have heard several times today from government officials today that this is the case, and we will be discussing it in the crisis committee tomorrow,' he said."

Coronavirus: anger in Germany at report Trump seeking exclusive vaccine deal
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/not-for-sale-anger-in-germany-at-report-trump-seeking-exclusive-coronavirus-vaccine-deal

Germany tries to stop US from luring away firm seeking coronavirus vaccine
https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-germany-usa-idUSL8N2B8075

[Mar 16, 2020] Senator Schumer wants at least $750 billion to combat coronavirus, help economy

Mar 16, 2020 | www.reuters.com

U.S. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer will propose legislation totaling at least $750 billion to combat the coronavirus outbreak and help the economy, his office said in a statement on Monday. He will present the package as early as Tuesday, the statement said.

The plan would be in addition to an $8.3 billion aid plan that Congress has already passed, as well as a multi-billion-dollar package the House approved last week, the statement said.

Schumer's plan would include money to address hospital capacity issues, expand unemployment insurance, increase Medicaid funding, and provide immediate payment forbearance on federal loans, the statement said. Democrats are a minority in the U.S. Senate.

[Mar 16, 2020] Had China locked down Wuhan just one day earlier, there might be much fewer cases to treat. This is the reality of exponential spread.

Mar 16, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Wve , Mar 15 2020 19:34 utc | 9

JAMA published a retrospective analysis of the Chinese experience
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762130
It demonstrated that there is a 12 day lag between "confirmed" cases today and true infections today.
Further review of this study:
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

Shows that had China locked down Wuhan just one day earlier, there could have been 40% fewer cases to treat or 32,000 cases. This is the reality of exponential spread.

It also arrives at a correlation of 800 current true infections for each death. So Italy likely has over 1M true infections, as opposed to the 24,000 "confirmed "cases reported today.

Godspeed, all.

[Mar 16, 2020] After a panned national address on COVID-19, the president's on the ropes by Curt Mills

Notable quotes:
"... His administration, it was argued, or facets of it, including the president himself, had willfully ignored the worst, tail-end risks of the international proliferation of the Coronavirus disease, COVID-19 or Wuhan flu, as stated in more off-color corners, including the Republican leadership. ..."
"... America is a week away from following the example of Italy, now on national lockdown, it's argued. The subtext: a lapse into genuine Third Worldism can not be ruled out, a coming catharsis for years of national breakdown, as well as the outlaw nature of the Trump presidency. ..."
"... Added into the dissatisfaction, in some quarters, is the discordance, ongoing even five years into Trump's national, political career, between Trump on the stump and the more polished parlances of the presidency. ..."
"... For every American concerned that the United States' response is lethargic and embarrassing, and more so than it might have been a generation ago, there's a rival perspective skeptical of an elite class that brought the country the Y2K pandemonium and the Iraq war. ..."
"... Under Trump the CDC has cut its budget for pandemic preparedness by 80% (in 2018) and Bolton oversaw the termination of the heads of pandemic response. I think we can safely assume that these measures weakened the response to the threat (that and Trump's baffling nonchalance when he could have been preparing cannot logically have failed to cost lives as potential carriers went about their day-to-day lives. ..."
"... Finally, he's unable to twist, outrun or scapegoat his way out of reality. Reaping what he is (and sows)... should've tried something a little more diplomatic with China than a punitive trade war... ..."
"... Unfortunately the COVID-19 crisis is showing that Trump really has no real leadership abilities but is only a reactionary. ..."
"... He's not "facing his fiercest trial". He's running away from it. The first thing he did was pass the buck to Pence, who handed it off to a bunch of incompetent political appointees at CDC, who botched it because they were corrupt mediocrities, totally out of their depth, and trying to do whatever they thought would keep Trump happy and maybe enrich some of their own cronies. ..."
"... There will be endless pallets of cash, billions, even trillions. It will be floating all over the place, totally untraceable, like in Afghanistan or Iraq. By the time this virus is finished with us, not only will Wall Street and the New York banks be bailed out again, but screw-ups like Seema Verma and other hacks hired by Trump and Pence will be multimillionaires. You just watch. ..."
"... Aside from the facts that no President has ever been as filthy mouthed, crude and insulting, bum Trump iis actually one of the FI's- a term I think I made up, but whatever- Trump is one of the 'Functioning Insane.' I'm telling you all: this guy, along with Vice President Pence, Jared Kushner and Pompeo and Esper at 'defense,' should be removed because they are mentally socio-pathic. They don't value human life. They're gonna lead this nation to misery that would be truly tragic. Appoint a commission from the Congresses and remove these weirdos now! ..."
Mar 16, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

he United States government, America's economic infrastructure and the country's character are being stress-tested. So is the American president.

Let's not be bashful: President Donald Trump addressed the nation Wednesday, a rare salvo from the Resolute Desk, against a backdrop of belligerent criticism. His administration, it was argued, or facets of it, including the president himself, had willfully ignored the worst, tail-end risks of the international proliferation of the Coronavirus disease, COVID-19 or Wuhan flu, as stated in more off-color corners, including the Republican leadership.

America is a week away from following the example of Italy, now on national lockdown, it's argued. The subtext: a lapse into genuine Third Worldism can not be ruled out, a coming catharsis for years of national breakdown, as well as the outlaw nature of the Trump presidency.

If the president's goal was to put these anxious criticisms at abeyance, he failed Wednesday night, perhaps through no fault of his own as fewer Americans actually watch these addresses anymore, relying instead on a clique of viral tastemakers. But his address was marred by factual slip-ups. Not all travel from Europe, namely by U.S. citizens, is suspended, for instance, and the government is, apparently, only, at current, willing to pick up the tab for Corona co-pays, not the entirety of the treatments. Trump also failed to bat down paranoid speculation that he, himself, is sick.

Added into the dissatisfaction, in some quarters, is the discordance, ongoing even five years into Trump's national, political career, between Trump on the stump and the more polished parlances of the presidency.

Formal addresses aren't really his bag. Trump looks like he's in a straight jacket. Which is quite the manacle for a politician for whom body language -- gesticulation -- is so central.

He did better Thursday morning.

Even as the market weathered its worst morning since Black Monday, the ruinous '87 crash, Trump swapped the last night's diminishing digs for a more flattering, extemporaneous environment. Astride Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, goofily, amidst the crisis, still on hand for St. Patrick's Day, Trump said, referring to the Europe ban: "It's also possible we could end it early." Trump noted: "It was an important thing to do." He appeared irked, but, perhaps, at ease.

And in an intentionally divisive remark, love it or hate it, Trump said: "Well, I think, the Democrats won't be having rallies." He continued: "But nobody showed up to their rallies anyways."

For now, America waits. The Corona crisis cuts, deep, both ways.

For every American concerned that the United States' response is lethargic and embarrassing, and more so than it might have been a generation ago, there's a rival perspective skeptical of an elite class that brought the country the Y2K pandemonium and the Iraq war.

Most every observer concedes the tail-end risks, but such trenchant skepticism, some might say nihilism, seems to define the spirit of this outsiders' administration.

Hard questions will be asked when the dust clears, hopefully, by summer.

Why were American supply chains so, completely vulnerable to the turmoil emanating from a mafia state such as China? Why was John Bolton, as national security advisor, allowed to take such a narrow view of national security that he shuttered a special bureau dedicated to pandemics?

Or perhaps why, hopefully not, did America panic?


the long view KevinS a day ago
I think he'll go down as one of the worst and most hated presidents in history. Some of those who will hate him most will be people who voted for him, people like me, people he betrayed by working for Wall Street and foreign interests instead of putting America First.
Dave G. 4 days ago
Two weeks ago I heard someone float the idea that there are those hoping this is a pandemic that wipes out millions just so we can finally nail Trump. I wouldn't doubt there are a few radical crazies who would wish such a thing. Now, as I'm hearing more and more come out and say this is proof Trump is wrong about everything, that this is sure to spiral us into recession and that will end the Trump presidency for sure, I'm starting to think it's not just a few crazies. When politics becomes the all defining everything, I suppose that's what you get.
Awake and Uttering a Song Dave G. 3 days ago
"When politics becomes the all defining everything, I suppose that's what you get."

This applies to people on both the left and right.

In my opinion, the long war against Christianity (not only on the left, but some powerful forces on the right) and the decrease in believers has led to a lot of people replacing the transcendent with politics. And, some in-betweeners who have blended Christianity with politics into a blasphemous, toxic cocktail.

marisheba Dave G. 3 days ago
So if Hillary Clinton had been elected president, governed as badly as you feared, and then made a colossal mistake that hurt millions of Americans, you wouldn't be relieved on some level that at least the one silver lining was that she was going to get kicked out of office? Being glad for the potential end of something that you see as truly disasterous and bad for the entire country is just natural, regardless of the reasons.
Dave G. marisheba 3 days ago
It never dawned on me to. First, I would make sure the harm was a direct result, and not just partisan punditry. Second, if she really did make such a mistake that led to the suffering of millions, of course I would want her to pay. But please, think on this. Last night we had to calm our ten year old down who was crying in bed. Why? Because this time, he said, we might all die. This time?, I asked. Yes, because at his age, most of his aware life he has heard 'Trump and Korea Nukes! We're going to die, everyone to a major target! Trump, and Russia, he's destroying our nation's democracy! Trump and WWIII, he started WWIII! We're going to Die! And on and on and on. Right now, teen suicide is at its all time highest, and for the first time ever, suicide is one of the leading cause of death for children my youngest's age. For the last going on four years, he and his age group have been exposed to one catastrophic crisis that will surely kill us all after another. And last night, it finally got to him.

I remember in school when Reagan was elected. Conventional wisdom was that he would either destroy our economy, or his war mongering ways would provoke the USSR into a full nuke war and the end of humanity. They even made a hyped TV movie about it.

That had quite an impact on my generation. And that was then. I can't imagine what the thrice daily alarm bells of hysterics and panic that have been used against Trump by his opposition (on both sides of the aisle) have done to the young ones of our nation. But last night, I got a pretty good idea. If this does finally work to defeat Trump, I hope the collateral damage is worth it.

cka2nd Dave G. 2 days ago
The pre-Gorbachev Soviet leadership certainly bought into the hysteria about Reagan. They apparently thought he was crazy and would launch a first strike nuclear war.
Dave G. cka2nd 2 days ago
We all did. That's what got me interested in politics. By the time 1984 and 85 rolled around, it was obvious that Reagan wasn't 1) going to destroy America's economy and, more importantly 2) wasn't going to nuke the world. How could so many intelligent people be so wrong I wondered. That's when I began learning the art of political speech. My opponent never disagrees with me on the best way to reduce crime. My opponent wants criminals to escape and kill my family. Things haven't changed much in 30 years.
fuow Dave G. 17 hours ago
My husband and I raised a child who was too well aware of world events. I understand your concern as a parent. There's not much you can do to prevent your child from reading and hearing what is being said out there - on all sides.

We focused on a stable home life, focusing on school and work around the farm. His greatest fear - this was before we could legally marry - was that something would happen and our family would be torn apart. Lots of time spent reviewing contracts and protections with our lawyer helped on the rational level, but emotionally - it hurt him, badly. Probably one reason he is, today, a lawyer who works as a public defender.

However - to address your Hillary concerns: We have seen how other advanced countries deal with health care. We have dispositive evidence that you conservatives did disband exactly those teams and those offices of the government which were set up to provide rapid responses to exactly this sort of health crises. We know you conservatives fought health insurance and sick leave and every other means of breaking that awful exponential curve from the day Trump took office. So, yes, we have direct cause and effect. Goodness, you knew about this in December (the briefings given to the White House are now public record, you can't pretend anymore they weren't) and you wasted all of December and all of January and all of February.
How much more direct need it get?

fuow Dave G. 17 hours ago • edited
You spent the eight years of the Obama presidency making the most outrageous claims about FEMA death camps and a return to open racism I had thought we'd not see in the USA again.

Of course commentators are going to speculate on the damage this failure to protect the American people will do to the Trump re-election, and the sycophants in the Republican Party. That does not mean anyone wants to see people die.

I, a yellow-dog, would gladly trade another four years of Trump for the lives of those already lost to this virus and those yet to come. And I am as far to the Left as any Democrat and have as much anger at the fundagelical Christians as any gay man of my age for what they did to us during the Aids Holocaust. You're not going to find any large group of people on the left wishing death and destruction on our fellow citizens just to get rid of Trump.

Now, asking our fellows on the Left to please set aside purity testing for once and to get out and vote. That's where you'll find our energies focused.

Dave G. fuow 15 hours ago
Who? Me? I never bought into those. And I condemned those who railed against Obama because of racism. I also railed against those who exploited or encouraged racism and used racism for political expediency. As for the virus, we'll have to see. Again and again, take precautions, err on the side of too much caution. But as each and every medical expert says, stop the panic. And that includes exploiting this, like racism of old, for political gain.
marqueemoons Dave G. 3 days ago
I don't think anyone genuinely hopes that. Surely not?!
Dave G. marqueemoons 3 days ago
I'm sure some do. Why not? We have no problem saying some want war in the Middle East just for oil. Or that some want this or that policy that could hurt or kill minorities because racism. I'm often taken by the ease with which we will ascribe the most horrible desires and motives, and then turn on a dime and act shocked when the same principle is applied to a different group of people. I don't believe the majority do. Though you can't help but wonder when you hear people smack down any good or positive news and want to emphasize only the worst case scenarios. Especially when, for the last three years, this is only the latest case where, largely due to Trump, we're on the brink, we're going to die, and that's that.
marqueemoons Dave G. 2 days ago
Before that, Obama was creating death panels and the government was creating concentration camps and stockpiling bullets... this time, though, it's a bit different. There have been major blunders by Trump but he's managed to push past them. The virus won't be browbeaten and its cold science to look at the numbers seen elsewhere in the world and draw the conclusion that this will be most severe, and that Trump's wilful unpreparedness will contribute to it.

Under Trump the CDC has cut its budget for pandemic preparedness by 80% (in 2018) and Bolton oversaw the termination of the heads of pandemic response. I think we can safely assume that these measures weakened the response to the threat (that and Trump's baffling nonchalance when he could have been preparing cannot logically have failed to cost lives as potential carriers went about their day-to-day lives.

Dave G. marqueemoons 2 days ago
And I didn't care for such hysterics then, either. The only difference is that when such over the top hysterics were aimed at Obama, much of the mass media swung in to defend Obama and attack and marginalize those trying to whip people into frenzies. For the last three years, however, it's been those same media outlets leading the panic and latest doomsday sky is falling shout fests. If people are being to slow to take this seriously, it might just be a little of the old Boy Who Cried Wolf.
stephen pickard Dave G. 2 days ago
OK, I read all that you have said. I lived through the end of WW11, the Korean war, the red scare( drinking water being poisoned by flouride) hot cold war( getting under desks) the polio epidemic( touch one's chin to your chest test) the measles, the Cuban crisis, the Vietnam war, the 68 riots, the killing of students at Kent State, the drug epidemic of the 60's, all of the financial melt downs for the last 70 years, the gas shortages, aids, all of the middle east wars, all of the stock market crashes, 9-11, the sex revolution, the civil rights assassinations, segregation, terrorism both foreign and domestic, and too many other threats to remember. Frankly there have been a few years patched together when life was generally without one crisis or another. Mostly when I was younger but only because I didn't understand much about the fact that life is just so messy. My family would be considered lower middle class alway pinching pennies. I thought we were just like everyone else though. I do recall being very afraid about epidemics, nuclear war, commies under every rock and so on. Through all of these things we persisted not because we were unusually strong but rather because that's just what you do. We had good leaders, not so good leaders, government was good in most ways not so much in other ways. The American dream was met by most of my generation , thus there are fewer mountains to climb. Now world wide data tells us that those measures of progress have improved in ways unimaginable in my youth of the 40's. Without a question Trump is the worst human being ever to be elected to the Presidency. Sure there were other deeply compromised leaders, but their private lives were not on display. This time it is different. The unprecedented lies, the unprecedented malfeasance permitted to languish, the unprecedented unqualified Presidential appointments and the like surely makes it seem that we are , this time going down the tubes. I do not share that view. We will get by, your children should not be scarred for life, you and they will soldier on, a vaccine will be formulated, the economy will regroup with sound businesses surving, God fearing people will go to church, schools will continue to muddle along with some new educational theory implemented. So buck up, remain vigilant, raise your children to be strong, take it one day at a time. I could go on about the life of my 102 year old father who was born in 1918 during the Spanish flu outbreak that took his life mother's life. Oh yes , WW11, the great depression of 1929, the dust bowl, and everything since. He still sees the news. But he is now worried about one thing. Global climate change brought on by the world's use of fossil fuel. I share the old man's concern. I have recounted all these things to help put today's problems in perspective. But If we do not address climate issues, then nothing else much matters to my great grandchildren, and your grandchildren. As my dad told me yesterday, " good luck and God speed ".
marqueemoons Dave G. 2 days ago
Good for you; I think the response to Obama's 'death panels' etc was probably defensive because it was clearly entirely based on fever-dreams. Whereas Trump is actually saying these things. And while there have been some doomsday predictions, this one is the real thing and the administration response has been not just unproductive (when it could have been manufacturing ventilators) but counter-productive (rejecting WHO testing kits, making clear that more tests meant more cases and more cases weren't welcome, telling the nation Trump had a hunch things wouldn't be bad) and before that, cutting pandemic response budgets by 80% and getting rid of the team responsible for pandemic response. The latter two are typically Republican (removing redundancy from government is fairly central to the platform) but a wrong belief being shared doesn't make it any less wrong.
fuow Dave G. 17 hours ago
You have FOX News. You have all the fundagelical churches. Trump just award the Medal of Freedom to a man who is telling people the COVID 19 virus is just another cold bug.
fuow Dave G. 18 hours ago
I'm just not seeing us liberals and progressives say that the want people to die to be rid of Trump. I do agree that we on the Left are deeply concerned about the things Trump has done (and failed to do.) Global climate change is seen by us as an existential threat.
Dave G. fuow 15 hours ago
Of course not. But think of how we assume with ease that any and all criticism of Obama was likely racism. Think of the speed with which we'll say any involvement in the Middle East is only because of oil and greed. That's what's called having the institutions that make the social narrative on your side. I have no doubt there were those who only cared about oil or didn't like Obama because of racism. But it's absurd to think such foul motives exist only one on political side. No doubt there are those hoping for a full blown catastrophe, no matter the cost, in order to beat Obama, just as they hoped for (if not encouraged) a collapse and ruin in our response to 9/11 in order to make Bush look bad. Heck, they began yelling Recession for almost three years before it hit in 2008. I doubt all of it was motivated by pure concern. I have no problem believing that any group has its worst elements. But right now, my concern is those who are pushing this past the panic that everyone is warning against, and it's not just liberal opponents of Trump.
fuow Dave G. 18 hours ago
I follow quite a few liberal and progressive sites (and TAC, because it's good to be reminded that there are still some, if only few, sane conservatives left). The only places I'm seeing such calls are re-posted comments from the far-right, hoping to incite anger and revenge against us thar libruls.

Nobody on the Left wants a tanked economy, much less people dying just to end the worst Republican presidency of the twenty-first century.

On a practical level, the only people now left clinging to Trump are the sort who not only deny global climate change, but believe supply-side economics will solve everything and COVID 19 causes nothing but a mild cold.

Everyone else is seriously thinking about what to do in November this year. When you've lost even Dreher, you've lost it. Gay bashing and domination over women will just have to take a back seat to rebuilding what will be left of our country.

OrthoAnabaptist 3 days ago
Finally, he's unable to twist, outrun or scapegoat his way out of reality. Reaping what he is (and sows)... should've tried something a little more diplomatic with China than a punitive trade war...
PR Doucette 3 days ago
Unfortunately the COVID-19 crisis is showing that Trump really has no real leadership abilities but is only a reactionary. If he was a real leader instead of pretending that banning Europeans was going to protect the US, which is highly doubtful, he had urged all schools and universities to close immediately for the next 2-4 weeks as it is increasingly recognized that healthy children and young adults can be infected with COVID-19 but not show any symptoms and are therefore a major cause of the spread of COVID-19, in part because of their personal hygiene practices being less fastidious than adults. Real leaders make hard choices that are not always popular. Trump seems so lacking in leadership abilities that he doesn't even seem to recognize the hard choices he has to make if he really wants to protect Americans.
Luke 3 days ago
Y2K pandemonium? Whatever. Coders worked hard to iron out the date glitches before they caused problems. Planes falling out of the sky was never a real possibility.

As for this...

Why were American supply chains so, completely vulnerable to the turmoil emanating from a mafia state such as China? Why was John Bolton, as national security advisor, allowed to take such a narrow view of national security that he shuttered a special bureau dedicated to pandemics?

That's what happens when you mix corporate greed and Republican-controlled governments. Both Bush and Trump hired Bolton.

bumbershoot 3 days ago
The man is not fit to lead.
Feral Finster 3 days ago • edited
Even if COVID-19 proves to be a "hoax" or just a damp squib, we have now seen with our own eyes how Trump will react to a real crisis, not just in Puerto Rico but right here.

Suffice it to say, that this evidence does not give us any reason for confidence in our intrepid leader.

Mid Maryland 3 days ago
He's not "facing his fiercest trial". He's running away from it. The first thing he did was pass the buck to Pence, who handed it off to a bunch of incompetent political appointees at CDC, who botched it because they were corrupt mediocrities, totally out of their depth, and trying to do whatever they thought would keep Trump happy and maybe enrich some of their own cronies.
Riverton Mid Maryland 2 days ago
"corrupt mediocrities, totally out of their depth, and trying to do whatever they thought would keep Trump happy and maybe enrich some of their own cronies."

Don't say that like it's past tense, "Mid Maryland". It's about to happen. There will be endless pallets of cash, billions, even trillions. It will be floating all over the place, totally untraceable, like in Afghanistan or Iraq. By the time this virus is finished with us, not only will Wall Street and the New York banks be bailed out again, but screw-ups like Seema Verma and other hacks hired by Trump and Pence will be multimillionaires. You just watch.

Fayez Abedaziz 3 days ago
Aside from the facts that no President has ever been as filthy mouthed, crude and insulting, bum Trump iis actually one of the FI's- a term I think I made up, but whatever- Trump is one of the 'Functioning Insane.' I'm telling you all: this guy, along with Vice President Pence, Jared Kushner and Pompeo and Esper at 'defense,' should be removed because they are mentally socio-pathic. They don't value human life. They're gonna lead this nation to misery that would be truly tragic. Appoint a commission from the Congresses and remove these weirdos now!

Then new people will be be at the next election for President.

And, I'll say: ever since I came to America when I was seven years old, I'm truly watching a horror show between big mouth Trump's solving nothing anywhere, just actually...making everything worse.

By the way, it doesn't bother anyone that Trump's daughter and Kushner, her husband are deciding wars and so on for America? For America's troops and their families? That Pence is a strange weirdo 'end of times' extremist religious nut?

I'm thinking now that every other American is an FI.

F in Leadership 2 days ago
Trump already flunked "his fiercest trial". He wasted two months denying the reality and gravity of the threat, and now it's spreading all over the country.
southern still 2 days ago
The "trial" is over. Trump is finished. Hopefully the cowardly Republican senators up for election this year will be kicked out along with the man they voted to acquit. I say this as someone who voted for Trump with misgivings but also a lot of hope, goodwill, and prayers. Now I just pray that we will be spared any more consequences of electing him.

[Mar 16, 2020] Trump s Coronavirus Control Failure by Daniel Larison

Notable quotes:
"... False and contradictory statements, wrong judgments, bad decisions, a tour-de-force of managerial incompetence ... Trump's virus response has helped to spread the disease. ..."
"... It was never "under control". It isn't under control because of Trump's stupidity and incompetence, and the stupidity and incompetence of the people he hires. ..."
"... Trump has blown many opportunities, but this time he may end up blowing up his chances for reelection, and a lot else, besides. ..."
"... As much as I loathe HRC, I think her administration would have handled this virus situation much better. Believe me, I hate to say it, but I think it's true. ..."
"... In grudging fairness to the casino swindler, this is what comes of a half-century right-wing campaign to gut public services of all kinds, and to paint scientists (as well as intellectuals generally) as an enemy. ..."
"... Now we find that American public health machinery -- perhaps **the** most fundamental function of governance -- can't even competently put together 19th-Century level quarantine measures. This is where 40 years of Reaganism was always going to end up. Same with Trump, who, far from being some kind of Russian puppet, has always been the perfect representative of what the Republican Party truly is . ..."
"... Budget cuts to the CDC budget only became an issue with the advent of the coronavirus. In November, the status of this virus may well determine the outcome of the elections. ..."
Mar 15, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com
The president continues to mislead the public about the government's response to coronavirus:

Trump in January (first US case): "We have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China."

Trump in February (36 confirmed cases): "We have it very much under control in this country."

Trump today (3,000+ cases): "It's something we have tremendous control of."

-- Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 15, 2020

The president has repeatedly paired false promises of "control" with inadequate or wrongheaded measures that have contributed to the worsening of the situation. Last week's announcement of a 30-day ban on travel from some parts of Europe not only caused a panic among Americans because the president failed to describe the policy correctly, but it also set up a dangerous situation where returning Americans would face a huge bottleneck at major airports where customs officials were completely unprepared for the influx of travelers. The lack of resources and manpower combined with the lack of safety preparations meant that thousands upon thousands of people, some of them infected with the virus, were crushed together for many hours. If the goal had been to enable the spread of the virus to as many people as possible, one could hardly have designed it better.

Cheryl Benard recounts her experience at Dulles International Airport as she returned from Europe:

I had thought I was lucky to get one of the last seats home. And I was confident, because Dulles had been identified by the administration as one of the handful of U.S. airports equipped to test arriving passengers and admit or quarantine them accordingly, that I would find a rigorous protocol in place upon arrival. Obviously, the administration would not take such a momentous step without solid preparation.

I could not have been more wrong. Upon landing, I spent three hours in a jammed immigration hall trying to decide which analogy fit better: the ignorant Middle Ages during the plague years or the most chaotic airport in the least developed country [bold mine-DL].

The pictures you may have seen only begin to capture the chaos. There was no attempt to enable social distancing; we were packed closely together. Two giant queues of people -- one for U.S. citizens and green-card holders and one for foreign nationals -- wound their way through the cavernous hall. I counted and came up with approximately 450 people in each section, for a total of just under a thousand. Many were coughing, sneezing and looking unwell.

When I inched closer to the front, I could see that a scant six immigration desks were in service. Two additional desks to the left had less traffic. These are ordinarily for people in wheelchairs; now, the wheelchairs were mixed in with the rest. When I asked a security guard about the other lines, he told me they were for people with a confirmed corona diagnosis. There was no separation for this group -- no plastic sheets, not even a bit of distance. When your line snaked to the left, you were inches away from the infected [bold mine-DL].

The mess at Dulles was replicated at O'Hare, DFW, JFK, and elsewhere. There were no preparations made because this administration never prepares for anything and doesn't think more than one move ahead. Jeremy Konyndyk was understandably appalled by the latest in a series of debacles:

This is disastrous. Sign of hastily made, poorly planned, terribly executed policy. https://t.co/IoQ0auLrms

-- Jeremy FLATTEN THE CURVE Konyndyk (@JeremyKonyndyk) March 15, 2020

Other airports too. Good God. You could hardly invent a better scenario for superspreading events.

Any cases of COVID in these crowds will have a far higher chance of spreading to others in these lines than if they were just allowed in unchecked. https://t.co/VONae40vHU

-- Jeremy FLATTEN THE CURVE Konyndyk (@JeremyKonyndyk) March 15, 2020

Meanwhile, one of the things that the government might be doing to get the situation more under control is one of the things that they keep failing to do:

The US population is estimated at 333 million.

As of Friday afternoon, the @TheAtlantic could verify only 16,471 people have been tested.

South Korea, by this point in its #COVID -19 outbreak, had tested 100,000+ people. https://t.co/v3RgdA7nTb @ASlavitt #coronavirus

-- David Beard (@dabeard) March 15, 2020

When asked about the testing failure last week, the president infamously said , "I don't take responsibility at all." When pressed on the 2018 decision to eliminate the global health security team from the National Security Council that Trump approved on Bolton's recommendation, the president professed ignorance about it and said that "someone else" had done it. As always, Trump's own actions are someone else's fault, and he accepts no responsibility for anything while seeking to take all the credit for other people's work. The president will keep lying to the public that everything is under control while doing as little as possible to bring the outbreak under control.

In the midst of this ongoing failure, the Surgeon General berated the media for covering the administration's major failures:

The surgeon general just said from WH briefing podium, "no more finger-pointing or criticism" and called for "less stories looking at what happened in the past.

-- Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) March 14, 2020

Criticism and calling attention to mistakes made by the government are the things that are supposed to make our political system better able to adapt and learn from failure. Understanding how and why government officials made critical errors is essential to limiting the damage from those errors and, if possible, rectifying them. Telling journalists that they should write fewer stories about how things got to this point is to tell them that they should give up any pretense of being reporters and just resign themselves to stenography. If not for the finger-pointing and criticism directed against the administration's slow and inadequate response, it is likely that things would already be even worse than they are. Were it not for the very public embarrassment that extensive media overage of the government's mistakes has caused the president and his allies, the administration would have felt no pressure to change. As it is, the administration is still not moving quickly enough, but if they weren't being pushed by intense public scrutiny they would be even more behind than they are.


Broad Street 7 hours ago

False and contradictory statements, wrong judgments, bad decisions, a tour-de-force of managerial incompetence ... Trump's virus response has helped to spread the disease.

It was never "under control". It isn't under control because of Trump's stupidity and incompetence, and the stupidity and incompetence of the people he hires.

Feral Finster 6 hours ago
It is truly rich that Trump had a golden opportunity to look decisive and presidential, to lead a frightened public to safety, and in an election year, no less. A golden opportunity, and Trump blew it.
blimbax Feral Finster 4 hours ago
Trump has blown many opportunities, but this time he may end up blowing up his chances for reelection, and a lot else, besides.

As much as I loathe HRC, I think her administration would have handled this virus situation much better. Believe me, I hate to say it, but I think it's true.

fuow blimbax an hour ago
I must agree. Hillary would not have done much of what I, a liberal Democrat, wanted to see done. Her administration, however, would have been filled with intelligent, competent people and the plans already in place (thank you, President Obama!) would have been put into practice in December, when our monitors in China reported what was happening without the spin.
sglover 6 hours ago
In grudging fairness to the casino swindler, this is what comes of a half-century right-wing campaign to gut public services of all kinds, and to paint scientists (as well as intellectuals generally) as an enemy.

America has had a hand in.many genuine triumphs of public health over the last century. Yellow fever. Hookworm eradication. Polio. Lots more. Things you'd think Americans might be proud of. But right-wingers and chest-thumping "patriot" types never seem to give a damn about those *cultural* achievements. Not "moral" or "patriotic" enough. Doesn't get the blood pumping, apparently.

Now we find that American public health machinery -- perhaps **the** most fundamental function of governance -- can't even competently put together 19th-Century level quarantine measures. This is where 40 years of Reaganism was always going to end up. Same with Trump, who, far from being some kind of Russian puppet, has always been the perfect representative of what the Republican Party truly is .

(More precisely, the right-wing coalition it represents. The Republican Party per se seems to be a kind of administrative husk.)

Disqus10021 sglover 5 hours ago
In grudging fairness to the casino swindler, we should remember that a lot of the readers of this web site voted for Trump in 2016 because he promised to nominate conservative candidates to Federal courts and because he was opposed to abortion. These same voters helped give Republicans a majority in both the House and Senate for the following two years. Budget cuts to the CDC budget only became an issue with the advent of the coronavirus. In November, the status of this virus may well determine the outcome of the elections.
sglover Disqus10021 3 hours ago • edited
a lot of the readers of this web site voted for Trump in 2016 because he promised to nominate conservative candidates to Federal courts and because he was opposed to abortion.

Yes. And those Federalist Society-spawned judges will be a valuable asset to corporate boards all around the world, for years to come! Congrats to those readers, on their big score! But I hope they're not dumb enough to believe that they are getting a cut of the asset stripping....

Budget cuts to the CDC budget only became an issue with the advent of the coronavirus.

Right. Similarly, the cuts to the fire department budget only became an issue during, you know, fires , when it turned out that the hoses were full of leaks. An awkward discovery at an awkward time, no?

fuow Disqus10021 an hour ago • edited
There is great danger in making a pact with the Devil - and that is precisely what conservative Christians did by putting Trump in office.

The danger lies not in Satan breaching the terms of the agreement. Just the opposite. The conservative Christians got what they wanted - judges who will do their damnedest to turn this country into a conservative Christian theocracy. Satan delivered to the letter.

Unfortunately for the conservative Christians, the mechanism of delivery turned out to be Trump. The price for those judges is the debasement of the Christian faith for generations to come.

Well played, Satan. Well fooled, conservative Christians.

Pacta sunt servanda...and the bill has just come do. Oh, and I wouldn't count on those judges for too long, either. You have managed the unthinkable - uniting the Democratic Party.

cka2nd sglover 5 hours ago
Agreed, but let's not forget how deeply the Democratic Party bought into the neo-liberal, Reaganite consensus, including privatization and contracting out hollowing out public agencies and ceding competence and self-policing to the private sector
sglover cka2nd 3 hours ago
True, but really theirs are mostly sins of omission and timidity. They're lousy defenders and advocates for public interests, but they generally don't go wrecking working, useful institutions on ignorant whims.
kouroi 6 hours ago
Classy Trump and the US, trying to buy a German company working on Coronavirus vaccine, but to make it available only for the US. The German government was not amused:

https://www.politico.eu/art...

Is the US the Evil Empire?

sglover kouroi 6 hours ago
I love how these gangsters are making my country loathed throughout the world. Gratuitously. I've yet to hear the Trump cult explain how it can possibly be to **our** advantage, in any situation, to be liked less and disliked more. It's a stunted eight-year old's concept of "respect". The millisecond high of showing them pesky furriners tends to have lingering, unpleasant, expensive aftereffects.
cka2nd kouroi 5 hours ago
Jesus wept.

"'The American regime has committed an extremely unfriendly act,' said Social Democrat MP Karl Lauterbach, who said that German health workers on the front lines — as well as people around the world — needed to have access to something developed in Germany, and that no country should be able to purchase exclusive access to the vaccine."

Until 2001, Lauterbach was a member of Germany's Christian Democratic Union. When's the last time you saw a mainstream European politician refer to the American government as a "regime?"

"'Capitalism has limits,' he said."

Sounds like Bernie Sanders, no?

[Mar 16, 2020] Dr. Fauci Says He's Open To National Shutdown, Warns Domestic Travel Ban Not Out Of The Question

Notable quotes:
"... "I think Americans should be prepared that they are going to have to hunker down significantly more than we as a country are doing," Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on NBC's "Meet the Press." ..."
"... people in areas with "obvious community spread" need to be extremely cautious. All people everywhere still need to be practicing social distancing, including young people who think they're not a high risk for severe infection. ..."
"... "I'm not saying the rest of the country is okay...but if you are in an area where there is clear community spread you want' to be very, very, very cautious." ..."
"... Pressed about the response on "Face the Nation", Dr. Fauci said the "peak" of the outbreak in the US will hopefully be lower than the numbers seen in Italy. "I want to be overreacting," Dr. Fauci said. He added that the US is practicing travel bans and containment and mitigation in the country, and while "it is correct that case numbers will go up" he hopes that the US will never get to that "really bad peak". ..."
"... "If you're elderly...you shouldn't put yourself in a place where you're around crowded people." ..."
"... It may come to the situation that we "strongly recommend...myself personally I wouldn't go to a restaurant because I have an important job to do" Dr. Fauci said. But he didn't say whether all Americans should avoid going out, or if he would support blanket closures. ..."
"... we have a strategic national stockpile of ventilators and things like that. ..."
"... As far as how long it will take for the US to "rev up" testing, he said his understanding of where we are with the "companies who are getting involved" is that we will have "enough" tests in a few days, and that the number will only continue to go up. ..."
Mar 16, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Dr. Anthony Fauci has just performed a legendary feet for politicos and public servants in Washington: On Sunday, he appeared on all five of the major national "Sunday Shows" of the main news networks: ABC's "This Week", CNN's "State of the Union", CBS's "Face the Nation", NBC's "Meet the Press" and Fox News's "Fox News Sunday", cementing his role as the face of the federal response to the coronavirus outbreak that has emptied out super markets and stoked panic across the US, where nearly 60 have already died.

Overall, his tone was optimistic, but cautious. During his appearance on CNN, Fauci acknowledged that "it's possible" that "millions could die" from the virus if the US didn't act quickly to combat the outbreak. During his interview on "Meet the Press," Dr. Fauci said he would "open" to a 14-day shutdown of schools and businesses in the US. He also said that Americans should be prepared to "hunker down" for a while.

"I think Americans should be prepared that they are going to have to hunker down significantly more than we as a country are doing," Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

He told Chuck Todd that all Americans need to be cautious, but people in areas with "obvious community spread" need to be extremely cautious. All people everywhere still need to be practicing social distancing, including young people who think they're not a high risk for severe infection.

"I'm not saying the rest of the country is okay...but if you are in an area where there is clear community spread you want' to be very, very, very cautious."

Though he said we shouldn't close every school in the country right now, he said local officials need to remain "ahead of the curve", and even said he would be in favor of some kind of national shut down, if not for 14 days, but for as "long as we could."

"I would prefer as much as we possibly we could. I think we should be very aggressive and make a point of overreacting."

On "Fox News Sunday", Dr. Fauci was asked whether he would support a domestic travel ban. He replied that though it hasn't been seriously considered, he would be open to a domestic travel ban like what Italy did, and that such a national lockdown wouldn't be "out of the question."

"That has not been seriously considered - doing travel bans in the country - though we are keeping a lot of things in mind," Dr. Fauci said, before ending the interview.

While certain members of Congress were encouraging Americans to go out and live their lives, Dr. Fauci said Americans should avoid bars and restaurants.

"I would like to see a dramatic diminution of the personal interaction that we see in restaurants and in bars."

He added that any elective surgeries should be cancelled: "Anybody who doesn't need to be in the hospitals...keep them out of the hospitals" he said on "Meet the Press".

Pressed about the response on "Face the Nation", Dr. Fauci said the "peak" of the outbreak in the US will hopefully be lower than the numbers seen in Italy. "I want to be overreacting," Dr. Fauci said. He added that the US is practicing travel bans and containment and mitigation in the country, and while "it is correct that case numbers will go up" he hopes that the US will never get to that "really bad peak".

While the mortality rate in China looked to be about 3%, a number that is "quite high", Dr. Fauci noted, he hoped the rate in the US would be around 1%, which is still 10x greater than the flu's 0.1%.

"Overwhelmingly more people recover from this than have serious trouble," Dr. Fauci said.

Should Americans get on a plane right now? Fauci was asked on "Face the Nation".

Dr. Fauci said vulnerable Americans should avoid all travel and avoid public places whenever possible.

"If you're elderly...you shouldn't put yourself in a place where you're around crowded people."

It may come to the situation that we "strongly recommend...myself personally I wouldn't go to a restaurant because I have an important job to do" Dr. Fauci said. But he didn't say whether all Americans should avoid going out, or if he would support blanket closures.

Asked what's the plan if hospitals get overwhelmed, Dr. Fauci assured his interviewer that the government's efforts should prevent this from happening, though he couldn't rule out the possibility that this would happen...and plan for it.

"We're doing everything we can to make sure that worst case scenario will happen. It's possible they could be...but if in fact there's a scenario that's very severe, it's conceivable that would happen, which is why we have a strategic national stockpile of ventilators and things like that.

"We would not be being realistic if we weren't to say that possibility didn't exist...but there is planning to prevent that."

As far as how long it will take for the US to "rev up" testing, he said his understanding of where we are with the "companies who are getting involved" is that we will have "enough" tests in a few days, and that the number will only continue to go up.

Watch the interviews below:

[Mar 15, 2020] The projections for NYC are sobering, to say the least

If you think about it, NYC enornment with its high density of population, subway and recirculating airconditioners is not that different from the environment of the cruise ship like Daemon princess. So around 10% of population can be affected. That's over one million. assuming 15% of severe cases that 150K patients.
Mar 15, 2020 | twitter.com

(1/11) The #NYC Region is in trouble. Our #COVID19 case load is growing so quickly that we risk running out of hospital beds in UNDER TWO WEEKS. To avoid a crisis at our hospitals, we need to act now. 1,200 hospital beds are not enough. @BilldeBlasio @NYCSpeakerCoJo @NYGovCuomo pic.twitter.com/QLpWr6bIWQ

-- Michael Donnelly (@donnellymjd) March 12, 2020

[Mar 14, 2020] Seven things China has done right to battle coronavirus

Mar 14, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

psychohistorian , Mar 14 2020 5:52 utc | 210

Below is a link to Xinhuanet and following it are the story section headings

Seven things China has done right to battle coronavirus

1. FULL RESPONSE
2. MASS MOBILIZATION
3. POLITICAL DETERMINATION
4. TIMELY POLICY ADJUSTMENT
5. EASING ECONOMIC PAIN WHILE FIGHTING DISEASE
6. TRANSPARENCY, COORDINATED ACTION
7. POWER OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY

China is a civilization state making the West look highly immature.

Norwegian , Mar 14 2020 5:56 utc | 211

@c1ue 164
So yes, connect the dots. Why is Italy worse than the US - when the US trades far more?

Because the US sees it as a war about economic supremacy? The US has no problem trading with China. The problem starts when China trades with other countries. The US is waging a war against european countries by forcing them to sanction on Russia (while itself trading with Russia), sabotaging Nord Stream 2, and now we have this mishap in Italy which happens to trade with China. Connect the dots indeed.

[Mar 14, 2020] Here is a table showing the "doubling time" of the spread of the virus for various countries.

Mar 14, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

atomician , Mar 14 2020 8:55 utc | 230

Here is a table showing the "doubling time" of the spread of the virus for various countries.
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
Italy's doubling time is 4 days, which brought its health care system near to collapse. Note that the US doubling time is 3 days! And this may be an underestimate because testing has been hindered, and many case are undetected. The doubling time for China is an impressive 32 days.

[Mar 14, 2020] Trump rightly announced a national emergency, marking a sharp shift in his approach to the greatest crisis of his presidency. by Jacob Heilbrunn

Mar 13, 2020 | nationalinterest.org

It was a somber Donald Trump who spoke at the White House today to declare a "national emergency" and that "we're doing a great job." Gone was his language about exaggerated fears and a "hoax" surrounding the coronavirus. His own daughter, Ivanka, stayed home rather than visit the White House because of her exposure to an Australian official who has the coronavirus.

Not only was the shift in tone marked, but Trump also referred constantly to the numerous public health experts and corporate CEOs flanking him as he faced the biggest crisis of his presidency. Dr. Anthony Fauci indicated that the coronavirus may remain virulent for another eight to nine weeks: "I can't give you a number. It depends how successful we are." Trump himself sought to convey confidence by emphasizing that his administration had moved quickly to impede the spread of the coronavirus, including quickly ordering travel bans. How effective will his emergency declaration prove?

The most important thing that the administration can do is work to remove the uncertainty surrounding the extent of the spread of the virus. Until there is more clarity, economic activity will be hobbled as investors and businesses retreat from incurring any additional risk. In this regard, Trump's decision to announce an emergency was a case of better late than never. Failure is not an option. Left unchecked, the worst-case estimates are that the coronavirus could kill up to 1.5 million people and turn America into Italy writ large. Writing in the Washington Post today, the Italian journalist Monica Maggioni underscores just how grim that prospect would be: "I find myself confined in a place where time is suspended. All the shops are closed, except for groceries and pharmacies. All the bars and restaurants are shuttered. Every tiny sign of life has disappeared. The streets are totally empty; it is forbidden even to take a walk unless you carry a document that explains to authorities why you have left your house. The lockdown that began here in Lombardy now extends to the entire country."

Some of the most important pledges Trump made were that he would offer up to $50 billion in federal funding to states to battle the coronavirus. He indicated that hospitals can now "do as they want. They could do as they have to." He added, "I'm urging every state to set up emergency operations centers effective immediately." He indicated, in response to a question after his opening statement, that he himself would undergo a coronavirus test, something that he had previously resisted. Trump also said that up to five million tests would be available by the end of the month-a lofty goal. The danger for Trump is that, as is his wont, he is overpromising. Still, the move to establish drive-thru testing at places like Walgreens and Walmart parking lots makes good sense. Trump's weakest moment by far came when he responded to a question about the lack of testing that until now has badly hampered efforts to stop the virus-"No, I don't take responsibility at all."

To help prop up the economy, he indicated that government purchases for the strategic reserve would be increased. Wall Street responded positively to Trump's remarks as the stock market rose, ending up almost two thousand points on Friday. But Trump also pooh-poohed a multi-billion dollar bill backed by House Democrats to address the coronavirus crisis, remarking that they "are not doing what's right for the country." Among other things, it does not include the payroll tax relief that Trump is supporting. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is vowing to vote on the bill.

For now, the measures that Trump announced today will mark a significant shift in his administration's approach to the pandemic. Former Food and Drug Administration head Scott Gottlieb tweeted, "Actions by White House today to sharply increase testing capacity and access, declare a national emergency, implement new steps to protect vulnerable Americans, support assistance for those hardest hit by mitigation steps, all very important. Will meaningfully improve readiness."

[Mar 14, 2020] Here's a useful infographic showing the Italian experience of COVID-19

Mar 14, 2020 | www.unz.com

LondonBob , says: Show Comment March 13, 2020 at 11:02 am GMT

Here's a useful infographic showing the Italian experience of COVID-19. Really drives home the need for us to support more vulnerable groups, including elderly and those with chronic diseases. pic.twitter.com/nlk1lPW0Xk

-- Stephen Donnelly (@DonnellyStephen) March 13, 2020

Reposting this graph I added to Steve's blog. Interesting to see when Italy starts to peak, are they already?

Kim , says: Show Comment March 13, 2020 at 11:10 am GMT
@reiner Tor Seems people who smoke have made themselves more vulnerable to the bug. They have done this despite 50 years of vigorous anti-smoking measures and propaganda.

They knew the risks. They rolled the dice. Now they should be sent to the end of the line and treated last.

[Mar 14, 2020] Difficulties of imposition strict quarantine without banning air treval

Mar 14, 2020 | www.unz.com

LondonBob , says: Show Comment March 13, 2020 at 9:14 am GMT

My Chinese colleague from work's parents have been holed up in an apartment in Zhengzhou for 45 days with only minimal freedom to go out for supplies by appointment, then a virtual battery of heat and temperature tests to get back in the building.

The city (10 million) hasn't had a new case for 2 weeks and they were on the verge of relaxing the strict isolation rules.

Then some Chinese fella who'd been travelling in Europe returned to Zhengzhou, travelled home on public transport doing his shopping on the way, and it turns out he's infected.

I don't know the precise translation from mandarin but it was something like "the whole city want to string him up"

[Mar 14, 2020] Italians are frightened and mostly they are following the goverment instructions

Mar 14, 2020 | thesaker.is

Cris on March 12, 2020 , · at 1:05 pm EST/EDT

News from an Italian guy in Switzerland: situation in Italy is heavy, people are frightened but mostly they are following the instructions to stay at home and limit the visits. And people are also frightened because we do not know exactly how this virus works, how much time this blockade will last, and what we will do after. Our society is no more accustomed to turmoils and lack of reliable information.

On the other side of the Alps, still there are less cases but I want to stress that Italy and rest of Europe are following very different instructions. In Italy, they tested almost everybody at the beginning, and now only people with symptoms but also everybody requesting a test for himself. In Europe, in general they are testing only old people with symptoms, while refusing to test young people. So it is easy that the real number of cases are underestimated. Looking at the numbers, I guess that this underestimation in United States is much larger.

Italian government didn't want to be blamed, and probably they want to approve some controversial laws during this blockade when nobody will go to protest. They didn't care about economic damages. Other governments in Europe are more worried for the economy, probably they did a bet to resolve the epidemics while avoiding to discover the real numbers.

Concerning the number of deaths, in Italy is much higher for at least three reasons: lack of beds in the hospitals, heavily reduced due to the austerity with respect to the rest of Europe, an aging population, and the fact that they are ascribing to the virus also deaths occurred probably for previous illnesses in the presence of the virus as concause. In most of other countries, they are not checking after death.

We will hold on, meanwhile let us stay tuned also on big markets collapse and, obviously, on Syria

Thanks for your work!
Best

[Mar 14, 2020] US military intelligence came to the conclusion over a month ago that coronavirus cases would reach "pandemic proportions" domestically by the end of March.

Mar 14, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Alpi , Mar 13 2020 23:09 utc | 145

Rather ominous article from W. Webb in Mintpress:

https://www.mintpressnews.com/us-intelligence-unsettling-role-classified-9-11-like-coronavirus-response/265687/

This quote is particularly trouble some:

" While the plans of the federal government remain classified, recent reports have revealed that the military and intelligence communities -- now working with the NSC to develop the government's coronavirus response -- have anticipated a massive explosion in cases for weeks. U.S. military intelligence came to the conclusion over a month ago that coronavirus cases would reach "pandemic proportions" domestically by the end of March. That military intelligence agency, known as the National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), coordinates closely with the National Security Agency (NSA) to conduct "medical SIGINT [signals intelligence]."

[Mar 14, 2020] The Chinese media has been touting the narrative of quick recover, fast-track resumption of the economy since the epidemic started.

Mar 14, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , Mar 14 2020 1:39 utc | 175

@ Posted by: JasonT | Mar 13 2020 23:53 utc | 155

That may end up being the case for the USA and other western democracies, but definitely not for China:

Commentary: Do not let economic globalization fall victim of pandemic

China to fast-track work resumption across industrial chain

And those are just from today. The Chinese media has been touting this narrative (quick recover, fast-track resumption of the economy, keep the targets for the year) since the epidemic started.

[Mar 14, 2020] Man Walks Out Of 'Quarantine Motel' Goes Shopping, Hops On Public Bus

Mar 14, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Man Walks Out Of 'Quarantine Motel' & Goes Shopping, Hops On Public Bus by Tyler Durden Sat, 03/14/2020 - 16:25 The pattern in many major cities hard-hit by coronavirus has been to utilize hotels as quarantine centers as local health facilities become overwhelmed. And yet in some instances especially in the West, there's ambiguity surrounding quarantine of confirmed or suspected cases as legally 'mandatory' or merely 'urged' and strongly suggested.

Though nearly unprecedented in recent American history, 'motel quarantine' is fast becoming a thing in places like Washington State and California, the latter witnessing Gov. Gavin Newsom issuing an executive order Thursday allowing some city authorities to take over hotels and motels for medical use , including in places like Sacramento and the San Francisco area. Such methods are being used especially for returning cruise ship passengers with potential exposure.

But in an explosive and unusual story which is likely to become a more common occurrence as 'motel quarantine' grows and as the line between civil liberties vs. health authorities' mandate remains blurred, Bloomberg details that a man walked straight out of coronavirus quarantine near the hardest hit area near Seattle and onto a public bus .

Security guard walks in front of the former EconoLodge in Kent. Image source: Seattle Times

"In an incident sure to stir debate around the Seattle-area's motel for isolating people who might have the coronavirus, one of its first tenants walked out, despite a security guard's attempts to stop him," the Bloomberg report begins.

"The man arrived Thursday while awaiting test results, according to a statement from King County, which recently bought the site in a suburb south of Seattle to ease the burden on local hospitals."

The following morning the man was seen crossing the street to browse a local convenience store where he allegedly shoplifted.

Security camera screengrab provided from local police of quarantined man exiting the hotel premises, via The Seattle Times.

He then boarded a public bus, which was immediately after taken out of service when authorities learned of the situation.

According to The Seattle Times , the man's test later came back negative, but not before causing a local panic :

By Friday evening, the person's test results had come back negative, but not before raising questions about how the county planned to address staffing and security at quarantine facilities as more people become sick.

The person had been experiencing homelessness and was placed at the motel Thursday night.

The incident underscored what will be a staggering challenge ahead of public officials as the virus continues to spread: how to quarantine "hundreds or thousands" of people who become sick in coming months and aren't able to stay in their own homes, or don't have homes in which to stay .

The Econo Lodge-turned-coronavirus-quarantine site on Central Avenue North in Kent, near Seattle:

Via Kent Reporter

The bizarre episode took place at an 85-room Econo Lodge in Kent, located within the sprawling Seattle–Tacoma metropolitan area.

This morning:
Plan to use Kent motel as "quarantine site" for #coronavirus patients stirs concern. @KellyKOMO4 with the details... https://t.co/z6jQ3myJCR #komonews #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/TzL2FB9DWC

-- Ryan Yamamoto KOMO (@YamsTV) March 5, 2020

"The fears that we have stated and the concerns we had from the beginning when we knew this facility was going to be put in Kent at that motel have all come true," said Kent Mayor Dana Ralph. "The things we predicted would happen have happened."

The motel had recently been purchased by the county and repurposed as a quarantine site - a deeply controversial moved which has drawn the ire of local residents, who fear more such "breaches" involving quarantined and possibly infected individuals.

[Mar 13, 2020] Bureaucracy, equipment shortages, an unwillingness to share, and failed leadership doomed the American response to COVID-19

Mar 13, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Tom_LX , Mar 13 2020 20:10 utc | 104

Here come the excuses,

Health

The 4 Key Reasons the U.S. Is So Behind on Coronavirus Testing

Bureaucracy, equipment shortages, an unwillingness to share, and failed leadership doomed the American response to COVID-19.

Excuses via ATLANTIC

[Mar 13, 2020] Life in Rome by Robert Waldmann

Mar 13, 2020 | angrybearblog.com
Hot Topics I am in a city with a curfew (enforced ?) where only pharmacies, supermarkets and those stores where someone from China sells all sorts of household stuff are open. Rome hasn't reached the dread levels of Wuhan and Milan, but the Italian government is trying to get ahead of the curve.

It is strange and alarming that there is little traffic (it is also impressive that Romans don't obey the traffic code even when there is little traffic). People are really trying to stay home all the time (I was semi home bound before it was cool).

I have learned about the activities which people consider absolutely necessary. A large fraction of people walking around are walking dogs. Many people are wearing masks (absolutely sold out everywhere) and gloves. I discover there are some things I have to touch. These include an ATM (alarmingly often) and cash.

One striking thing is that people wait outside of the supermarkets and pharmacies. This is a rule that does not have to be enforced -- people are scared. Good thing it's not cold in Rome during March (or February or actually ever at all in the globally warmed year of our lord 2019/2020). This makes me notice the high rates of infection in Iceland and Norway. I guess up there (where I have been in July with a rain coat) the choice is risk of Covid 19 or of frostbite.

The extreme measures (not just ordered but orders which are actually obeyed, by Romans) are impressive because as of the day before yesterday there were only 200 cases in Lazio (region which includes Rome). The fact that one of the cases was governor Zingaretti (also head of the Italian Democratic Party) might have amde a difference.

The news spreads even faster than the virus. Down here the health care system is under strain but not overwhelmed (yet) but people read about (and see on TV) reports on how in Lombardy Triage has reaquired it's original meaning. During World War I, It was red = critical, yellow = serious monitor but not critical, black = doomed. In normal times black now means deceased.

In Lois Armstrong Airport New Orleans during Katrina there were living people with black tags (for will nor survive a flight and so will die here). I was appalled. Now in parts of Northern Italy there aren't enough respirators for patients who would die without one. This is part of why the Italian case fatality rate is high. It is also important that Italians have had low fertility for decades and are old on average.

I guess I haven't written anything that people don't know already. I will update when the wave of contagion overwhelms us. I fear that I will be giving readers a hint of future action in their home town.

[Mar 13, 2020] Did some running around the local Medical Industrial Complex this morning. What a difference a week makes. The attitude about the coronavirus is completely different from last week.

Mar 13, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

ambrit , March 12, 2020 at 2:24 pm

Reply about conditions in Hattiesburg for Judy2Shoes.
Did some running around the local Medical Industrial Complex this morning. What a difference a week makes. The attitude about the coronavirus is completely different from last week.

Now there are people walking around the clinic and hospital wearing masks, and some 'rubber' gloves. Signs up everywhere about precautions for the coronavirus. When I went to pay off a small bill associated with Phyl's leg case, there was a big sign in the glass door for the Financial Department saying that, essentially, if you show the basic symptoms, do not come into that office but go to the ER entrance for evaluation.

No signs of panic here yet. This region is still "low information" concerning the spread and severity of the pathogen, but at least it is now a major concern locally.

All the best for your uncle.

judy2shoes , March 12, 2020 at 3:22 pm

Thank you so much, Ambrit. That makes me feel better. I have a lot of relatives in MS, but their level of concern has been shaped by the MSM. It's so much better to hear from someone like you, who is actually paying attention.

In my neck of the woods (eastern Washington), I've been trying for weeks to get people to make prudent purchases of staples to store away – just in case.

One elderly neighbor kept saying people were overreacting, but I kept at her, pointing out having a few extra supplies on hand might be a good idea and wouldn't be hoarding.

When I told her that Trump wasn't telling the public the truth, she said that people don't understand that it's his job to keep the public calm. I could have walked her through the dangerous results of his lying (and everything else he's doing), but I let it go. At least she started to collect supplies a couple of weeks ago, and now she's in somewhat of an overreacting mode. I don't care. Whatever keeps her safe.

Best to you and Phyl, Ambrit.

ambrit , March 12, 2020 at 4:46 pm

Less than stellar news addendum.
Do call that 'Assisted Living' place and agitate for your uncle now. This afternoon, local news announces that Hattiesburg has first probable case in Mississippi. A man who visited Florida recently is "self isolated at home" after a first positive test result. Secondary test being done now. Test happening at State lab.
See: https://www.wdam.com/2020/03/12/forrest-county-man-is-first-presumptive-coronavirus-case-miss/
At least the locals are mentally prepared now
Be strong.

MLTPB , March 12, 2020 at 5:37 pm

Didn't Arizona declare war on California in 1934?

Will we see states blocking other states? Can they do that?

ambrit , March 12, 2020 at 7:59 pm

That Lake Havasu travesty is all "Water Over The Dam" now. The real 1930s War was between the Coastals and the Okies. See "The Grapes of Wrath" for a literary rundown on that one. (No Pink P -- y Hats in that fight. People were killed.)
Insofar as the States have their own Health Authorities, they could ban certain types of "contagious" people from entering their environs. I have seen cases of local Organs of State Security requiring exile from a particular State in return for non-prosecution of certain non-violent offenses.
The balance of power between the States and the Federal Government is an always evolving 'situation.'

[Mar 13, 2020] In 2018, Trump fired the entire US pandemic response team.

Notable quotes:
"... The New New Deal ..."
Mar 13, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

deplorado , March 12, 2020 at 2:17 pm

From Twitter:

Judd Legum @JuddLegum

WORTH REPEATING: In 2018, Trump fired the entire US pandemic response team.
These were the experts with decades of experience dealing with precisely the kind of situation we are in today.

Trump did not replace them.

He eliminated the positions.

https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1238108656950001666?s=20

allan , March 12, 2020 at 3:10 pm

Another fun fact from Twitter:

Michael Grunwald @MikeGrunwald
I had forgotten my own reporting that @SenatorCollins
stripped $870M for pandemic preparations out of the 2009 stimulus.

[page image from Grunwald's book, The New New Deal ]

11:30 AM · Mar 12, 2020· Twitter for iPhone

There was some discussion here the other day about who's responsible for the sorry state of the CDC
and pandemic preparation in particular. Now, the Dems controlled all the WH, Senate and House in 2009,
so obviously they share some of the blame, but if Collins hadn't demanded this,
it probably wouldn't have happened.

I'm very disappointed with Susan Collins.

Louis Fyne , March 12, 2020 at 3:26 pm

Typical modern, bipartisan American short-termism.

In my opinion, things would not have been not better under a Hillary admin. -- -but at least we'd have a no-fly zone in Syria. USA!

ambrit , March 12, 2020 at 5:42 pm

Now we have a no fly zone in Continental Europe!

[Mar 13, 2020] Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis called Merkel's remark "unhelpful" and said it could cause panic

Mar 13, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Dr. Brian Monahan, attending physician of Congress, told a closed-door meeting of Senate staffers this week that 70 million to 150 million Americans -- a third of the nation -- could contract the coronavirus. Dr. Anthony Fauci testified that the mortality rate for COVID-19 will likely run near 1 percent.

Translation: between 750,000 and 1.1 million Americans may die of this disease before it runs its course. The latter figure is equal to all the U.S. dead in World War II and on both sides in the Civil War.

Chancellor Angela Merkel warns that 70 percent of Germany's population -- 58 million people -- could contract the coronavirus. If she is right, and Fauci's mortality rate holds for her country, that could mean more than half a million dead Germans.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis called Merkel's remark "unhelpful" and said it could cause panic. But Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch seemed to support Merkel, saying between 40 percent and 70 percent of the world's population could become infected.

Again, if Fauci's 1 percent mortality rate and Lipsitch's estimate prove on target, between 3 billion and 5 billion people on earth will be infected, and 30 million to 50 million will die, a death toll greater than that of the Spanish Flu of 1918.

There is, however, some contradictory news.

China, with 81,000 cases, has noted a deceleration in new cases and South Korea appears to be gradually containing the spread of the virus.

Yet Italy, with its large elderly population, may be a harbinger of what is to come in the West. As of Thursday, Italy had reported 12,000 cases and 827 deaths, a mortality rate of nearly 7 percent. This suggests that the unreported and undetected infections in Italy are far more numerous.

In the U.S., the death toll at this writing is 40, a tiny fraction of the annual toll of the tens of thousands who die of the flu.

But the problem is this: COVID-19 has not nearly run its course in the United States, while the reaction in society and the economy approaches what we might expect from a boiling national disaster.

The stock market has plunged further and faster than it did in the Great Crash of 1929. Trillions of dollars in wealth have vanished. If Senator Bernie Sanders does not like "millionaires and billionaires," he should be pleased. There are fewer of them today than there were when he won the New Hampshire primary.

What does the future hold?


[Mar 13, 2020] Data about NYC epidemics are actually very encoraging

Mar 13, 2020 | www.unz.com

OscarWildeLoveChild , says: Show Comment March 13, 2020 at 12:21 pm GMT

@Carlton Meyer I've been following a few doctors on Youtube, for about a month now (dispassionate, evidence-based docs), and their opinions vary on how serious this is.

What I don't is, if this is as contagious as they say (and it does seem to be) and as life-threatening as they say, then given that there are several cases in NYC, why are we not already seeing thousands of deaths there- a city where millions are crammed together daily, many without good hygiene, many who have been for several weeks now, using public transportation. I don't get it. It would seem the effects of any virus that were as bad as they're saying, would already be reaching peak zombie level conditions in places like NYC, Chicago, Boston, SF and DC.

Scratching my head.

[Mar 13, 2020] Lifespan is not equal healthspan

Mar 13, 2020 | www.unz.com

Svevlad says: Show Comment March 13, 2020 at 12:19 pm GMT 200 Words But would a drop in life expectancy be a bad thing?

Like the man on viriculture.com used to say, healthy life =/= long life. We work towards extending one's lifespan, yet we don't extend their "health span". We just extend the period when one is already falling apart. The older you are, the more meds you need, the more healthcare you need etc etc.

So the longer the lifespan the bigger the load on healthcare and pension funds.

The main problem is, that our economic and cultural systems are at this point, 90% biologically incompatible with us. A good chunk of our lives we study (especially so when you study something like medicine, i believe at this point it's for genuine masochists). By the time you get to a nice position in your career you're probably going to be older than 35. For good birth rates etc that's unnaceptable.

So, the solution is to extend the "health-span". Preferably, you need to slow aging down at least by 10, maybe even 15 years, while keeping the overall lifespan the same. The current way is simply unsustainable

[Mar 13, 2020] Like all the other viruses that have floated around over the years be this one is being hyped up

Mar 13, 2020 | www.unz.com

Calculator , says: Show Comment March 13, 2020 at 11:55 am GMT

@Kratoklastes ...Like all the other viruses that have floated around over the years be this one is being hyped up.

The hype works precisely because of your remark #3 but it will die a natural death after everyone makes their money and the public gets bored.

I mean if just 1B people get a shot costing $50 that is a whole lot of Yuan. Store owners also appear to be sneaking that extra markup on soaps and disinfectants and toilet paper. Y2K also comes to mind and I am sure that Aids /HIV continues to kill more people annually than this virus ever will. In the meantime I caution all nose pickers to leave those buggers alone and not report any unusually large specimens. It will only skew the statistics and increase the panic.

[Mar 13, 2020] MSM dirty dange around human mortality

Mar 13, 2020 | www.unz.com

utu , says: Show Comment March 13, 2020 at 6:30 am GMT

@Anonymous (n)
60,000 people die every month in Italy. Many of them old. Now we have 1,000 reported dead due to the Covid-19. Most of them old. Many of them would have died anyway from some cold or flu that would further aggravate their poor state of health. This year Covid-19 got there first.

[Mar 13, 2020] Steve Bannon is just using inflammatory language throughout, to diss the CCP

Mar 13, 2020 | thesaker.is

Analyst on March 12, 2020 , · at 11:23 pm EST/EDT

Dear Saker: I am a little confused here.

You request that opinions should be limited to fact based
but in the next sentence you state "The truth is that NONE OF US really knows for a fact what this virus can do, we are all guessing."

well .whether fact based or speculative here are two alternate views>

"My own view on the Coronavirus situation, is that I trust the Chinese Government to be doing all it can possibly do, to contain the epidemic.

There are a lot of people there, living in close proximity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlF0LcQO9Tg

In that context, Steve Bannon is just using inflammatory language throughout, to diss the CCP

I can well understand why the CCP will not allow any US personel anywhere near the patients, nor allow them to have access to any of the medical data.

If Bannon is implying that the CCP has something to hide, then the CCP also has its own suspicions as to how this virus suddenly appeared

A lot of stuff has in the past come out of Livermore Labs and in the UK from Porton Down, which "should not" be released I know of southern coastal cities in the UK being sprayed with viruses from the air in the 1950s – a deliberate programme supported by the UK government

The CCP will also be fully aware of British activities within Syria and then there is the Skripal incident, a home-grown Boris the Buffoon manufactured crisis

If one looks at UK and US official government behaviour towards Hong Kong, then one can easily surmise that there are attempts to find other means to destabilise China

Just saying "

Another view >

"There was an interesting item on Facebook a few days back, claiming to be written by a Chinese military official, a staunch supporter of the communist party and the government, but a man 'with a conscience.'

He claimed the virus was manufactured with a view to causing reduction of higher brain functions (i.e. lowering the IQ) and inducing docility into those who are protesting in Hong Kong.

It was first tested, according to his narrative, more discreetly on rounded-up Uighurs in the prison camps, well away from anywhere likely to be observed, and everyone who was exposed, died. There was a massive clean-up and cover-up operation

Realising it needed more work if it was to be deployed in HK, they did some further modifications and had intended to do a new test in Hubei, but this was pre-empted by a shoot-out near the meat market that has been mooted as the source of the outbreak. Someone, I'm not sure now who he reckoned it was, attempted to 'kidnap the bio weapon in order to grab the technology it represented, but the consignment was hit by a bullet and the virus escaped. Those in charge ensured there were no survivors as witnesses in that area.

He further claimed that the mortality rate is actually 100% but that it has been put about that it is only 2% – this underplaying being with the complicity of the USA, Russia and the UK and presumably the EU, in order to forestall mass panic. He claimed only those wearing hazmat suits stand any chance, and that the pandemic will claim the lives of all but top officials who have recourse to protective measures. He said that the actual symptoms in the final stages are up to five days of agonising pain with internal organs haemorrhaging in a similar way to Ebola.

Of course, the article was anonymously written, as he said his life and that of his family would be forfeit if he were to be identified. Which makes it a narrative that is easy to fake but impossible to completely refute. "

[Mar 13, 2020] I do not think the corona virus outbreak was deliberate. The first thing that people crafty enough to unleash this sort of thing would think of is blowback

Mar 13, 2020 | thesaker.is

Patricia Ormsby on March 12, 2020 , · at 8:04 pm EST/EDT

Like the Saker, I do not think the corona virus outbreak was deliberate. The first thing that people crafty enough to unleash this sort of thing would think of is blowback.

Perhaps the depopulationists–but this is a really ineffective way of going about it.

I do think, however, that it arose in a "laboratory" of tens of millions of human subjects all undergoing an enormous experiment. Please humor me a moment.

If there were a deliberate element in all of this, it would be the hype and rush be the first to implement an untested technology about which dire warnings were already being sounded.

... ... ...

AndyT on March 12, 2020 , · at 10:19 pm EST/EDT
Virologists and epidemiologists have yet to discount that the coronavirus was a bio attack. This does NOT mean that it was an attack, merely that the possibility of a bio attack cannot be discounted. While there remains a lot of circumstantial and anecdotal "evidence" that this was an economic attack perpetrated by America against China, this does NOT prove conclusively that such an attack took place, nor does it prove that such an attack did not take place. There is an abstract submitted to ChinaXIV (a research website) that, although not yet peer reviewed, suggests that the virus dd NOT originate at the Wuhan Seafood Market and that it was introduced:

http://www.chinaxiv.org/abs/202002.00033

Any reference as to who introduced the coronavirus to the market is pure speculation at this juncture, although the circumstantial and anecdotal evidence could be construed as overwhelming against the US considering the timing, geographic location and proximity to the Wuhan Seafood Market of the US soldiers present for the International Military Games.

I am not a virologist or epidemiologist (I am an engineer), however it is not completely out of the realms of possibility for a virus to make the transition from animal to human host; and the conditions in which animals are kept in Wuhan and surrounding areas is certainly not of the same standard as the West – both from the perspective of hygiene and humanitarian considerations. Another abstract that does looks into the origins of the virus states:

"The genomic features described here may in part explain the infectiousness and transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 in humans. Although genomic evidence does not support the idea that SARS-CoV-2 is a laboratory construct, it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the other theories of its origin described here, and it is unclear whether future data will help resolve this issue. Identifying the immediate non-human animal source and obtaining virus sequences from it would be the most definitive way of revealing virus origins."

http://virological.org/t/the-proximal-origin-of-sars-cov-2/398

Much mention has been made of the corona-virus in question (COVID-19) binding to the ACE-2 receptors found in the lungs and heart – most particularly in those of Asian heritage. It would not be outside the realms of science for this to be a logical target for the virus, given its geographic location, but the hypothesis of it being engineered to target a specific racial genotype is also not outside the realms of possibility.

"Our findings indicated that no direct evidence was identified genetically supporting the existence of coronavirus S-protein binding-resistant ACE2 mutants in different populations (Fig. 1a). The data of variant distribution and AFs may contribute to the further investigations of ACE2, including its roles in acute lung injury and lung function12. The East Asian populations have much higher AFs in the eQTL variants associated with higher ACE2 expression in tissues (Fig. 1c), which may suggest different susceptibility or response to 2019-nCoV/SARS-CoV-2 from different populations under the similar conditions."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41421-020-0147-1

I agree with Andrei's analysis that a bio-weapon is both unwieldy and difficult to control when used in a purely military application, but when used as an economic weapon, the possibility is mentioned in the odious The Project for a New American Century's (PNAC) report titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century."

"advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool."

This does not prove that the tragedy unfolding out of Wuhan was a bio-weapon, but certainly demonstrates the possibility of intent. At this juncture, neither side of the argument can provide any proof, so the the hypothesis remains pure speculation. The Chinese government is not directly accusing the US of a bio attack, but it is extremely worrying that both the Russian and Chinese governments remain highly suspicious.

[Mar 13, 2020] "CORONAVIRUSES HAVE ALWAYS INFECTED HUMANS, PANIC IS UNWARRANTED"

the MSM news cycle is clearly a tool for disinformation and misdirection – propaganda is what has been engineered
Mar 13, 2020 | thesaker.is

Jorge L Borges on March 12, 2020 , · at 2:45 pm EST/EDT

"CORONAVIRUSES HAVE ALWAYS INFECTED HUMANS, PANIC IS UNWARRANTED"
Posted by agencycyta | Mar 9, 2020 | Science , Featured , Health | 0 |

"Coronaviruses have always infected humans, panic is unwarranted"
According to an Argentine virologist in France, Pablo Goldschmidt, there is no evidence to indicate that the fatality or morbidity of COVID-19 is superior to that caused by influenza viruses or the common cold.

(CyTA-Leloir Foundation Agency) -. For the virologist and infectious disease specialist Pablo Goldschmidt, the panic surrounding the strain of coronavirus identified in China (COVID-19) is as unwarranted as the one created in 2003 with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). ) or in 2009 with the influenza A (H1N1) virus.

"The ill-founded opinions expressed by international experts, replicated by the media and social networks repeat the unnecessary panic that we have previously experienced. The coronavirus identified in China in 2019 causes neither more nor less than a strong cold or flu, with no difference until today with the cold or flu as we know it, "says Professor Goldschmidt, also a biochemist, pharmacist and psychologist graduated from the UBA, volunteer for the World Health Organization (WHO), former praticien hospitalier of the public hospitals in Paris and author of the book "People and microbes, invisible beings with whom we live and make us sick" (2019).

The Argentine specialist lives more than four decades in Europe. At the Faculty of Medicine of the hospital center de la Pitié-Salpetrière in Paris, he obtained diplomas in pharmacokinetics, clinical pharmacology, neuro-psychopharmacology and pharmacology of antimicrobials. At the Université Pierre et Marie Curie Paris VI he received a doctorate in molecular pharmacology. The theoretical and practical training of the Paris Curie and Pasteur Institutes also concluded with degrees in fundamental virology and molecular biology. As a volunteer at the WHO, he integrates humanitarian missions in Guinea Conakry, Bissau, Pakistan, Ukraine, Cameroon, Mali and the Chad border with Nigeria. And it aspires to obtain from the Argentine State a mandate to exercise the right to speak before the international organization.

In dialogue with the CyTA-Leloir Agency, Goldschmidt expresses its tension in the face of the global terror generated by the quality of information that is disseminated about the new coronavirus and considers it necessary that the data that is propagated be placed in the geographical and social context. "You can't create hysteria on the entire planet," he says.

-Which viruses are considered responsible for respiratory diseases?

Viral respiratory conditions are numerous and are caused by several viral families and species, among which the respiratory syncytial virus (especially in infants), influenza (influenza), human metapneumoviruses, adenoviruses, rhinoviruses, and several coronaviruses, already described years ago. It is striking that earlier this year global health alerts have been triggered as a result of infections by a coronavirus detected in China, COVID-19, knowing that each year there are 3 million newborns who die in the world of pneumonia and 50,000 adults in the United States for the same cause, without alarms being issued.

– The fact that it is transmitted by saliva or by cough increased the fear of the population?

Many microorganisms are transmitted by this route in humans. The cold, transmitted by saliva and cough, is caused by more than 150 rhinoviruses. Ten million people were infected by saliva and cough with the tuberculosis agent in 2018, of which 1 million were children and 205 thousand died. The same happened with bacterial meningitis, transmitted by saliva, which affected more than a million people in a year. Measles is also transmitted by saliva, hence the urgency to protect the population with vaccines.

-You. Do you consider the international alerts launched due to the coronavirus to be exaggerated?

Our planet is the victim of a new sociological phenomenon, scientific-media harassment, triggered by experts only on the basis of laboratory molecular diagnostic analysis results. Communiqués issued from China and Geneva were replicated, without being confronted from a critical point of view and, above all, without stressing that coronaviruses have always infected humans and always caused diarrhea and what people call a banal cold or common cold. Absurd forecasts were extrapolated, as in 2009 with the H1N1 influenza virus.

And the risk of complications?

A cold can present as a benign, self-limiting disease; but it is known that all respiratory diseases, however banal they may be considered, can severely affect the frailized people, people with cardiocirculatory problems over 65 years, people with metabolic disorders, immunosuppressed, transplanted and, above all , to poorly fed people without shelter, and to those who do not have access to competent health teams that provide them with effective medicines. This situation, clearly revealed for so many other diseases, is repeated in all infections and COVID-19 is no exception.

Why does each individual become infected and react differently to viral infections?

The first step for a virus to infect a person depends on the virus's ability to recognize "locks" or proteins on the surface of cells in certain organs, not all. Once it attaches to its lock, it can penetrate the cell and put all the cellular machinery of the infected subject at its service to replicate itself. It has been determined that there are individuals with many "locks", others with few and others with easier "locks" to open, which is determined by the genes. On the other hand, there is a defensive apparatus of proteins encoded in DNA that is known by the name of "reactoma". In short, all humans are unique living beings against microbial aggression and against the malignant transformations of our tissues. Therefore, in certain individuals,

Is the coronavirus detected in China a new agent?

Those who launched the international alerts did not take into account data that shows whether this virus or other similar viruses circulated in previous years. Or if people who were already exposed to other coronavirus variants have partial or total protection against the 2019 strain.

-Why do you not accept the extrapolation from one country to the other of the forecasts issued by international agencies?

First, it is appropriate to compare the mortality and morbidity data with the number of positive cases (those confirmed by the laboratory in relation to the number of severe cases or the number of deceased persons). The first thing that emerges from the data, beyond the biological criteria referring to the individual capacity to get sick and defend against viral aggression, are doubts regarding the figures, if it is not considered that the affected people did or did not have access to competent and equipped health, and if they received timely treatments with adequate and bioequivalent drugs.

– Would these factors contribute to explain the differences in mortality and morbidity between countries?

If there is no biological justification for individual predisposition, the difference could be due to the quality of the medical institutions, the reasons that caused the time to pass before the affected people go to health centers, or the quality of the training of medical centers and the availability of resources to treat acute respiratory diseases. We must impose moderation and use concrete data. There is no evidence to show that the 2019 coronavirus is more lethal than respiratory adenoviruses, influenza viruses, coronaviruses from previous years, or rhinoviruses responsible for the common cold.

[Mar 12, 2020] In Rochester, NY the national guard will help cleaning efforts and deliver food in the designated "containment area" in a one-mile (1.6 km) radius around the area where the contagion appears to have originated, until the lockdown is lifted on March 25

This is odd, the John Hopkin's Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases dashboard no longer shows cases at the U.S. city level, only state level summaries. Are they no longer capable of collecting data at the city level?
Mar 12, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Likklemore , Mar 11 2020 0:34 utc | 56
Adding to his woes, Erdo will now turn his focus to COVID-19 as Turkey reported its first case.

Cases listed by countries at interactive LINK

In US, national guards to enforce the coronavirus quarantine in New Rochelle, NY

"The troops will help clean and deliver food in the designated "containment area" in a one-mile (1.6 km) radius around the area where the contagion appears to have originated, until the lockdown is lifted on March 25."

[Mar 12, 2020] Joe Rogan interview today with Michael Osterholm is an internationally recognized expert in infectious disease epidemiology

Mar 12, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

james , Mar 11 2020 3:16 utc | 71

joe rogan interview today with Michael Osterholm is an internationally recognized expert in infectious disease epidemiology from today...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3URhJx0NSw

[Mar 12, 2020] Korean government decided to designate call centers, clubs, gyms and other establishments frequented by large numbers of people as high-risk areas and mobilize more resources to quarantine them

Mar 12, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , Mar 11 2020 11:35 utc | 93

More circumstancial evidence South Korea is failing to contain the virus:

Gov't scrambles to contain spread of virus at 'crowded' places

As part of such efforts, the government decided to designate call centers, clubs, gyms and other establishments frequented by large numbers of people as high-risk areas and mobilize more resources to quarantine them.

The move comes after an alarming new mass infection of the novel coronavirus was reported at the call center in Guro, at a time when reports of new cases in Daegu, the southeastern city at the center of the nation's COVID-19 outbreak, have been decreasing in recent days.

My bet is that, since the South Korean government can't do preventive quarantine of private business (because of the obvious fact it is a capitalist society), they are chasing the virus where it bursts, quarantining the place where it is already given is a cluster. That will make the South Korean map look like Swiss cheese - at best.

[Mar 12, 2020] I know of a Miami emergency room tech who just finished a 72 hour shift, was given a 12 hour break who says they are overwhelmed and getting burned out.

Mar 12, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

BillWade , 11 March 2020 at 01:09 PM

Might not it be prudent to take all personnel currently in basic training from all branches and give them basic medic training and oxygen ventilator training and have them ready to deploy where ever needed. The Lombard region of Italy is already considering lowering the triage age from 70 to 60.

I know of a Miami emergency room tech who just finished a 72 hour shift, was given a 12 hour break who says they are overwhelmed and getting burned out.

[Mar 12, 2020] New Jersey Confirms Community Spread Of Covid-19; Italy Closes All Stores Except Groceries Pharmacies

Mar 12, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Summary:

* * *

Update (1650ET): Italy has confirmed that it will order all stores in the country that sell items other than medicine and food to close. Factories can continue working, but all restaurants and bars must close as well. The prime minister stressed that there is "no need for a run on supermarkets."

Watch Conte's address live:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/cV4eDHkGA54

* * *

Update (1635ET): NJ Governor and former Goldmanite Phil Murphy just announced 8 more cases in the state, bringing its total to 23. The state has also confirmed its first case of "community spread".

UPDATE: We now have 8 more presumptive positive cases of #COVID19 in New Jersey.
• 3 female cases, 5 male cases
• 4 cases from Bergen County, 2 cases from Middlesex County, and 2 cases from Monmouth County
• Range in age from 17- to 66-years-old

-- Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) March 11, 2020

Current #COVID19 statewide stats:
• Presumptive Positive Tests: 23
• Negative Tests: 57
• Tests in Process: 20
• Persons Under Investigation: 37
• Deaths: 1

For regular updates: https://t.co/UyohzX5yGk

-- Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) March 11, 2020

We've received $14 million in federal grants from @CDCgov to assist in our ongoing efforts to contain the spread of #COVID19 . We're working around the clock with our local, state, and federal partners to protect the health of New Jerseyans.

-- Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) March 11, 2020

Watch the rest of the press conference below courtesy of 10 Philly:

[Mar 12, 2020] I'm not trying to minimise the impact, but my feeling is that it has more to do with the falling rate of profit than the number of sick people.

Mar 12, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Barovsky , Mar 11 2020 17:57 utc | 32

b, time for a cooler head. Okay, as the Russian virologist said, a new virus is a 'meeting of strangers', so we have to get to 'know' each other first and this takes time. So, just as we got to 'know' the various flu varieties and built immunities to them, so too the virus gets to 'know' us and undergoes its mutations. After all, if it kills all its hosts, it kills itself.

The thing about 'bat' flu is that it seems to kill the old and the sick but leaves the majority with well, flu and I'm one of those old folk (I'm almost 75 and with a bunch of metal tubes in my heart but with a strong immune system, so wish me luck).

I think you're overreacting somewhat.

Is it because it's only the so-called developed nations that have a high preponderance of older people that we're seeing this panic, or is because capitalism was on the verge of meltdown anyway?

My feeling is that the barbarians have no compunction in sacrificing the old and sick. Social Darwinism Rules OK! And don't forget, the wealthy are mostly old too!!

I'm not trying to minimise the impact, but my feeling is that it has more to do with the falling rate of profit than the number of sick people.

Bruce Aylward, Deputy DG of WHO, who is interviewed in this article makes eminent sense but his views have been universally ignored in the West (he spent time in China in February), I more than suspect because of the West's racist anti-Chinese attitudes, else why ignore virtually all of his recommendations?

[Mar 12, 2020] Korean measures: the USA should follow the trail, not to try reinvent the bicycle

Mar 12, 2020 | www.unz.com

eugyppius , says: Show Comment March 12, 2020 at 1:07 pm GMT

... Massive testing in south Korea, 20k people a day, yields a lot of people in the denominator who would count as healthy everywhere else. We don't get to have a "South Korean" death rate unless we have south korean testing. With Euro testing we have to live with a different Euro death rate. Another question would how many "European" or "American" cases (i.e., cases in that are symptomatic enough to get officially recorded in Europe or America) does south korea have? Then we could productively compare death rates.

Also, south korea is doing a lot compared to the west outside Italy:

In south korea right now, mobile testing centers are dispatched to places with new positive results and widespread testing occurs, followed by isolation of positive cases.

They have closed schools. Universities throughout the country postponed the start of the semester when only 31 official cases existed. Major buildings have thermal imaging at their entrances. As many people as possible in public are wearing masks.

To all of that comes the fact that the South Korea outbreak was idiosyncratic, over half of all cases emerging from Patient 31 associated with the Shincheonji church in a single city, Daegu, which made containment easier.

Let's keep an eye on Germany since they're essentially doing nothing

Aside from testing, and it is unclear how widespread this is though we are told it is very awesome and comprehensive and the absolute best. 2,120 cases right now in the earliest stages of the pandemic.

[Mar 11, 2020] Neoliberal USA in some respect looks like Nigeria with nukes

Truth be told this is a pretty complex test that requires extraction of RNA
Mar 11, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

allan , March 11, 2020 at 7:50 am

U.S. coronavirus testing threatened by shortage of critical lab materials [Politico]

A looming shortage in lab materials is threatening to delay coronavirus test results and cause officials to undercount the number of Americans with the virus.

CDC Director Robert Redfield told POLITICO on Tuesday that he is not confident that U.S. labs have an adequate stock of the supplies used to extract genetic material from any virus in a patient's sample -- a critical step in coronavirus testing.

"The availability of those reagents is obviously being looked at," he said, referring to the chemicals used for preparing samples. "I'm confident of the actual test that we have, but as people begin to operationalize the test, they realize there's other things they need to do the test."

The growing scarcity of these "RNA extraction" kits is the latest trouble for U.S. labs, which have struggled to implement widespread coronavirus testing in the seven weeks since the country diagnosed its first case.

Nigeria with nukes.

[Mar 11, 2020] Italy take drastic measures to slow down the spread of the virus

Mar 11, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Mina , Mar 11 2020 21:44 utc | 105

From the cnn live

"Italy will close all restaurants, bars and shops across the country in an effort to curb the spread of coronavirus, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced on Wednesday.

Only pharmacies and supermarkets will be allowed to remain open, Conte added.

Restaurants will be allowed to be operational for food deliveries, but companies will be required to implement remote working for all jobs, except those that require physical presence, Conte added."

This sounds that they are getting advice from the Chinese and stopped waiting for the EU 'recommendations'. Next step is that the Italian gov need to offer some help to these restaurants so that the people working there and those doing the deliveries get correctly paid and that they and what they carry is clean.

[Mar 11, 2020] Joe Rogan interview today with Michael Osterholm is an internationally recognized expert in infectious disease epidemiology

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... One notable prediction: Osterholm lauds the Chinese for successfully working to control the outbreak -- but warns another wave of infection will follow upon workplaces and schools and shops reopening as the society begins returning to normal. ..."
Mar 11, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Emily Dickinson , Mar 11 2020 20:52 utc | 74

james , Mar 11 2020 3:16 utc | 71

joe rogan interview today with Michael Osterholm is an internationally recognized expert in infectious disease epidemiology from today...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3URhJx0NSw

Joe Rogan had an interesting interview with epidemiologist Michael Osterholm yesterday. Lots of information about COVID-19.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3URhJx0NSw

One notable prediction: Osterholm lauds the Chinese for successfully working to control the outbreak -- but warns another wave of infection will follow upon workplaces and schools and shops reopening as the society begins returning to normal.

[Mar 11, 2020] In Rochester, NY the national guard will help cleaning efforts and deliver food in the designated "containment area" in a one-mile (1.6 km) radius around the area where the contagion appears to have originated, until the lockdown is lifted on March 25

This is odd, the John Hopkin's Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases dashboard no longer shows cases at the U.S. city level, only state level summaries. Are they no longer capable of collecting data at the city level?
Mar 11, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Likklemore , Mar 11 2020 0:34 utc | 56
Adding to his woes, Erdo will now turn his focus to COVID-19 as Turkey reported its first case.

Cases listed by countries at interactive LINK

In US, national guards to enforce the coronavirus quarantine in New Rochelle, NY

"The troops will help clean and deliver food in the designated "containment area" in a one-mile (1.6 km) radius around the area where the contagion appears to have originated, until the lockdown is lifted on March 25."

[Mar 11, 2020] Friday prayers as a factor in Italian virus outbreak. The same can happen in the USA

Mar 11, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

JB , Mar 10 2020 20:39 utc | 21

I find it puzzling that the new virus has spread all over Iran very quickly, whereas in other countries it is more localised, including in China. It is also curious that it has infected by far more of its lawmakers and government officials than elsewhere. Is there a reasonable, rational explanation?

karlof1 , Mar 10 2020 21:00 utc | 29

JB @21--

Friday prayers that are attended by the vast majority of the populous combined with lack of aggressiveness at containment are my guesses.

... ... ...

[Mar 11, 2020] WHO has officially declared COVID 19 a pandemic.

Notable quotes:
"... As I said on Monday, just looking at the number of COVID19 cases and the number of countries affected does not tell the full story. Of the 118,000 COVID19 cases reported globally in 114 countries, more than 90 percent of cases are in just four countries, and two of those have significantly declining epidemics. 81 countries have not reported any COVID19 cases, and 57 countries have reported 10 cases or less. ..."
"... "We’re in this together, to do the right things with calm and protect the citizens of the world. It’s doable" ..."
Mar 11, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

JJackson , 11 March 2020 at 02:52 PM

Today's WHO press briefing was excellent (link below). The questions being asked by journalists have improved significantly over the last few weeks which has given the WHO team an opportunity to explain important points.

Today they looked at the situation in Iran, Korea, Italy and the sub Saharan Africa region. They also have officially declared a Pandemic.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/11/watch-live-who-holds-press-conference-on-the-coronavirus-outbreak.html?&qsearchterm=Watch:%20World%20Health%20Organization

Full Tedros Transcript:

In the past two weeks, the number of cases of #COVID19 outside 🇨🇳 has increased 13-fold & the number of affected countries has tripled.

There are now more than 118,000 cases in 114 countries, & 4,291 people have lost their lives.

Thousands more are fighting for their lives in hospitals.

In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of #COVID19 cases, the number of deaths, and the number of affected countries climb even higher

WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and we are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction

We have therefore made the assessment that #COVID19 can be characterized as a pandemic

Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly. It is a word that, if misused, can cause unreasonable fear, or unjustified acceptance that the fight is over, leading to unnecessary suffering and death

Describing the situation as a pandemic does not change WHO’s assessment of the threat posed by this coronavirus. It doesn’t change what WHO is doing, and it doesn’t change what countries should do"

We have never before seen a pandemic sparked by a coronavirus. And we have never before seen a pandemic that can be controlled at the same time.

WHO has been in full response mode since we were notified of the first cases.

We have called every day for countries to take urgent and aggressive action.

We have rung the alarm bell loud and clear

As I said on Monday, just looking at the number of COVID19 cases and the number of countries affected does not tell the full story. Of the 118,000 COVID19 cases reported globally in 114 countries, more than 90 percent of cases are in just four countries, and two of those have significantly declining epidemics. 81 countries have not reported any COVID19 cases, and 57 countries have reported 10 cases or less.

We cannot say this loudly enough, or clearly enough, or often enough: all countries can still change the course of this pandemic"

If countries detect, test, treat, isolate, trace, and mobilize their people in the response, those with a handful of COVID19 cases can prevent those cases becoming clusters, and those clusters becoming community transmission

Even those countries with community transmission or large clusters can turn the tide on this coronavirus.

Several countries have demonstrated that this virus can be suppressed and controlled.

The challenge for many countries who are now dealing with large COVID19 clusters or community transmission is not whether they can do the same – it’s whether they will.

Some countries are struggling with a lack of capacity. Some countries are struggling with a lack of resources. Some countries are struggling with a lack of resolve.

We are grateful for the measures being taken in Iran, Italy and South Korea to slow the virus and control their COVID19 epidemics.

We know that these measures are taking a heavy toll on societies and economies, just as they did in China.

All countries must strike a fine balance between protecting health, minimizing economic & social disruption & respecting human rights

WHO’s mandate is public health. But we’re working with many partners across all sectors to mitigate the social and economic consequences of this COVID19 pandemic

This is not just a public health crisis, it is a crisis that will touch every sector – so every sector and every individual must be involved in the fight

I have said from the beginning that countries must take a whole-of-government, whole-of-society approach, built around a comprehensive strategy to prevent infections, save lives and minimize impact

Let me summarize it in 4 key areas.

  1. Prepare and be ready.
  2. Detect, protect and treat.
  3. Reduce transmission.
  4. Innovate and learn"

I remind all countries that we are calling on you to (1):

  • activate & scale up your emergency response mechanisms
  • communicate with your people about the risks & how they can protect themselves
  • find, isolate, test & treat every #COVID19 case & trace every contact"

I remind all countries that we are calling on you to (2):

  • ready your hospitals
  • protect and train your #healthworkers
  • let’s all look out for each other"

There’s been so much attention on one word.

Let me give you some other words that matter much more, & that are much more actionable:

Prevention. Preparedness. Public health. Political leadership.

And most of all, People"

"We’re in this together, to do the right things with calm and protect the citizens of the world. It’s doable"

And just like that - $425 million dollars worth of pandemic bonds all got trggered.

[Mar 11, 2020] USA is tracking Italy infection growth curve pretty well so far

Mar 11, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

steve , 11 March 2020 at 02:58 PM

There have been a number of graphs out today looking at the rate of Covid infections. It is exponential so far and appears to be tracking Italy's experience pretty well. If we continue at this same rate we would reach the level at which other countries closed schools and had mass transportation shutdowns in one or two weeks. Shutting down schools in particular will be a tough decision. Kids seem to mostly be spared, but they may be disease vectors. OTOH if they are shutdown a lot of health care workers will need to stay home. Near as I can tell I would lose 10% or so of my staff and more on an intermittent basis.

http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/2020/03/covid-19-update.html

[Mar 11, 2020] Korean government decided to designate call centers, clubs, gyms and other establishments frequented by large numbers of people as high-risk areas and mobilize more resources to quarantine them

Mar 11, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , Mar 11 2020 11:35 utc | 93

More circumstancial evidence South Korea is failing to contain the virus:

Gov't scrambles to contain spread of virus at 'crowded' places

As part of such efforts, the government decided to designate call centers, clubs, gyms and other establishments frequented by large numbers of people as high-risk areas and mobilize more resources to quarantine them.

The move comes after an alarming new mass infection of the novel coronavirus was reported at the call center in Guro, at a time when reports of new cases in Daegu, the southeastern city at the center of the nation's COVID-19 outbreak, have been decreasing in recent days.

My bet is that, since the South Korean government can't do preventive quarantine of private business (because of the obvious fact it is a capitalist society), they are chasing the virus where it bursts, quarantining the place where it is already given is a cluster. That will make the South Korean map look like Swiss cheese - at best.

[Mar 11, 2020] Coronavirus Epidemic Update 34 US Cases Surge, Chloroquine Zinc Treatment Combo, Italy Lockdown

Mar 10, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update 34 with pulmonologist & critical care specialist Roger Seheult, MD of https://www.MedCram.com

[Mar 10, 2020] How US counts the sick when CDC test kits are unreliable amd by-and-large unavailble?

Mar 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Tom_LX , Mar 9 2020 19:35 utc | 23

Posted by: charliechan | Mar 9 2020 19:30 utc | 20

Charli Chan ask right question.

charlie cha wonders how US counts the sick when CDC test kits are unreliable.

and unavailable in quantities necessary !!!!

[Mar 10, 2020] The USA is particularly poorly set up to cope with COVID-19 epidemics, thanks to our fragmented public health system and overpriced, privatized and less than comprehensive health care. That bad situation is made worse by the CDC being short on resources and hamstrung further by the Trump Administration's PR imperatives

Mar 10, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

New Wafer Army , March 9, 2020 at 5:29 am

The glue appears at the start of the article:

"the US is particularly poorly set up to cope, thanks to our fragmented public health system and overpriced, privatized and less than comprehensive health care. That bad situation is made worse by the CDC being short on resources and hamstrung further by the Trump Administration's PR imperatives."

Basically, it is expected that Europe manages the crisis less badly.

Eustache de Saint Pierre , March 9, 2020 at 12:18 pm

It has been interesting watching Dr. John Campbell's growing realisation & some shock that everything is not well with the US healthcare system & he has received some abuse but also support from Americans for his growing criticism.

His listing as requested of his 2 degrees & Phd, never mind his long front line experience & his books I think shut some up for perhaps thinking that he was only a nurse, but perhaps he shouda gone to NakedCapitalism.

[Mar 10, 2020] It is the overwhelming of ICUs and the whole health care system that makes the new virus much more deadly

Mar 10, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

b , 09 March 2020 at 06:18 PM

...It is the overwhelming of ICUs and the whole health care system that makes the new virus much more deadly than it would be without overwhelmed ICUs.

That is because it is a NEW virus and we do not have a basic immunity against it in our societies like we do have against common flu viruses.

For your age Pat, the death rate may be 5% with functional ICUs available. With overwhelmed ICUs the death rate for your age will be above 50%.

Consider that Lombardy, which is now overwhelmed, has now a death rate over all cases of 6% while South Korea, which effectively limited the spread through early testing and is not overwhelmed, limited the death rate to below 1%.

Stephanie , 09 March 2020 at 06:38 PM
...Read this article.

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/03/is-the-coronavirus-really-more-dangerous-than-the-flu.html#more

Whatever you may think of the blogger, he is absolutely 100% correct here. Executive summary: if you extend the time period over which the epidemic occurs by testing and quarantining, you reduce the risk that your health care system will collapse, like it has in Italy. South Korea is the case where testing has prevented their health care system collapsing. Their health care system has not collapsed. Italy's has.

And now we will wait and see what happens in the U.S. Trump is betting his re-election on your being right.

[Mar 09, 2020] A Tale of Two Cities How Hong Kong Has Controlled its Coronavirus Outbreak, While New York City Scrambles

Notable quotes:
"... people who appear healthy can be asymptomatic so are therefore spreading the disease, which I believe that masks would help prevent. ..."
"... The problem is that there are no masks for everybody so these should be available for those who need them the most . This is a F*c*n*gly problematic issue and that is why there must be a campaign against massive mask usage. ..."
"... A healthy mucosal epithelium contains non-specific barriers to virus and other pathogens including our normal microbiota, enzymes and various types of fibers acting as a physico-chemical barrier for virus entry. In winter, these barriers are less efficient. ..."
"... The tide has now gone out, and has revealed that the US is swimming naked. ..."
Mar 09, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

By Jerri-Lynn Scofield, who has worked as a securities lawyer and a derivatives trader. She is currently writing a book about textile artisans.

I was chatting on Facebook the other day about the topic de jour – protecting friends, family, and myself from coronavirus – with Dr. Sarah Borwein, an old friend and travel buddy from my Oxford days. Sarah's a Canadian- trained doctor who has practiced family medicine for more than 15 years in Hong Kong. She co-founded the Central Health Group.

I recently attended Sarah's wedding in that city in early January – and got out just in time to avoid some of the more draconian travel restrictions that have since been imposed as a result of the outbreak of the #COVID-19 coronavirus.. At least for now. And just before Hong Kong imposed drastic restrictions that have allowed it to weather the coronavirus crisis while recording only three deaths, so far.

She has an extensive professional history of dealing with infectious diseases in Asia. Prior to commencing her practice in Hong Kong, she successfully ran the Infection Control program for the only expatriate hospital in Beijing during the SARS period, also serving as liaison with the World Health Organization. For a fuller account of her career and her thoughts on the current crisis, see this interview in AD MediLink, Exclusive Interview on COVID-19 with SARS Veteran Dr. Sarah Borwein .

I thought readers might be interested in some of the things Hong Kong is doing to combat the virus.

Partial Lockdown

The city has been in partial lockdown from the middle of January, with schools and universities, shut, employees encouraged to work from home, sports facilities and museums closed down, and people told to avoid crowds according to the Financial Times, Hong Kong's coronavirus response leads to sharp drop in flu cases . Hong Kong residents have accepted these restrictions, since:

Hongkongers are particularly compliant with public health measures because the 2002-2003 Sars outbreak, which claimed almost 300 lives in the territory, is still fresh in many people's minds.

The partial lockdown is neither easy nor cost-free, but it largely seems to have controlled incidence of the disease, without paralysing Hong Kong. The city is close to mainland China and has extensive economic and other ties. But so far, it has recorded only three deaths, according to the South China Morning Post, Coronavirus: Hong Kong records third death as five more cases confirmed, bringing total to 114 . And this for a city with population of roughly 7.5 million people.

Testing

There has been extensive texting for the coronavirus in Hong Kong – which is free. This allows public health austhories to track the spread of the disease, and see that victims get treated properly and promptly.

This record stands in contrast to the US, which has not yet managed to distribute tests widely – let alone, as far as I can see, determine who will pay for testing.

The disease seems to have taken hold in In U.S., with cases exceeding 500 and deaths so far recorded of 22, with 19 in Washington state, according to the New York Times, Cases of Coronavirus Cross 500, and Deaths Rise to 22 .

New York declared a state of emergency on Saturday. Governor Andrew Cuomo has complained about the lack of testing kits (see Coronavirus in N.Y.: Cuomo Attacks C.D.C. Over Delays in Testing ).

The inability to test means that it's not possible to track the progress of the disease properly, is as to determine from where a patient may have caught it. Nationwide in the US, a fraction of people who are symptomatic or who may have been exposed to the virus have been tested. Even India, which has so far managed to limit exposure of its population to foreign sources of infection, has tested many more people – and is doing comprehensive screening at its airports.

Which makes a lot of sense, as foreigners – tourists – are principal source of the infection, Others are Indians returning from foreign climes, carrying with them the disease. So far, India has reported 39 cases, a large cluster of which is an Italian tour group that visited Rajasthan. Five other recent cases are non-resident Indians (NRIs), who returned to India from Venice. We can only help as the temperature slowly rises as we approach the Indian summer, that increase in temperature slows spread of the virus (see Coronavirus cases rise to 39 as 5 found infected in Kerala ). Whether this will prove to be the case is as yet unknown, but as Sarah discussed in her MediLink interview:

It is true that some viruses that are spread by respiratory droplets, as COVID-19 is believed to, spread more easily when the air is cold and dry. In warm, humid conditions, they fall to the ground more easily and that makes transmission harder.

But there is still a lot we don't know about exactly how COVID-19 is spread and the effects climate may have on it. We do see it spreading in Singapore, which is warm and humid, so who knows?

I should mention that there have been dark musing about the NRIs returning to the state of Kerala from Venice – as they concealed their travel history and exposure. Kerala Health Minister K.K. Shailaja has said these victims will be treated, but that this type of behavior -- the deception – should be considered to be a crime.

Hong Kong has made it a criminal offence to lie to a health care provider about one's travel or exposure history, according to Sarah; I wonder whether the US will attempt to do the same?

There have been numerous complaints about the lack screening at US airports, including JFK, for people coming from Italy, which has locked down 16 million people in Lombardy and the north (see ' Absolutely Chilling': Reports From Frontlines of Coronavirus Outbreak Reveal Roadblocks to Testing, Lack of Safety Protocols .)

How to Protect Yourself From Infection

Most of us have heard the advice for avoiding infection. I'm going to repeat this advice. Those who know it all already, feel free to skip ahead. Those who've not seen such advice, pay attention.

Wash your hands, with soap, properly and frequently. I posted this video last week, but some readers may not have seen it:

WHO handwashing technique. Notice the attention to between the fingers, back of fingers, and nails:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/IisgnbMfKvI

Hand sanitiser can be used as a stopgap until you can wash your hands, but the World Health Organization says that only those that are 60% alcohol killl the virus. And hand washing is an absolute must for hands that are visibly dirty.

Maintain social distance. Avoid crowds.

Cough or sneeze into a tissue, and dispose of it promptly and properly (I'm tossing mine into my toilet, and flushing them away.).

Pay attention to your overall health. Eat well. Including plenty of fruits and vegetables. Stay properly hydrated.

Get a 'flu shot if you haven't already. Although this won't protect you from coronavirus, 'flu can be a nasty disease in its own right, and catching it can land you in hospital or quarantine. Not to mention getting sick with the 'flu overburdens health systems when resources are needed elsewhere.

The procedures Hong Kong has put in place to control coronavirus have also led to a drastic decline in 'flu cases,. In fact, its winter influenza season has ended more than a month earlier than usual. 'Flu cases also dropped during the ARS crisis, according to the FT:

Data provided by the government's Centre for Health Protection show the incidence of infection with influenza had fallen to less than 1 per cent by the end of February, marking an end to the winter flu season, which normally extends to the end of March or into April.

"A similar pattern happened in 2003 during Sars. All respiratory infection diseases were down between March to September compared to 2002," said David Hui, a respiratory disease expert from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

"Influenza spread is one of the markers [of the coronavirus containment] as the same principles of avoiding droplets and social contacts apply."

Ho Pak-leung, a leading microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong, said data showed the flu season had shortened from an average of 98.7 days to 34 days this year.

Use of Masks?

Masks are not very useful, and many places are out of stock anyway, but Sarah says these can prevent you from passing along any infection you might have to others. She says the advice to avoid masks outright is wrong. There is a place for them, they're just not a panacea, and in any case, if used improperly, they may actually increase your risk.

From her Medilink interview:

The shortage of masks has many people feeling quite anxious and unprotected. But masks are NOT very effective at preventing transmission of viral infections, particularly when worn by healthy people. They are by no means the most important measure you can take to protect your health. In fact, if you wear a mask incorrectly, touch or adjust it frequently, re-use it, or fail to wash your hands before putting it on and after taking it off, you may actually increase your risk.

Who should wear a mask:

– People who are sick, to prevent them spreading their viral droplets when they cough or sneeze.

– People caring for sick people at close quarters.

– In a health-care setting.

– People whose occupation requires them to have close contact with clients.

As it has become socially unacceptable in Hong Kong to NOT wear a mask, there may be situations in which you might choose to wear a mask simply to make other people feel comfortable. But in general, healthy people do not need to wear masks, except when they need to be in crowded places, or with possibly sick people.

Infection Control Protocol?

This to me was the most striking thing I learned from our conversation. I don't think anything like this infection control protocol is yet in place – certainly not throughout the US, nor even in high-risk areas. And it it should be.

From a text from Sarah:

We have triage at the door. People with high-risk travel history can't be seen, have to go directly to government hospital if symptomatic; or if just for routine care, wait 14 days after return (all of which must be healthy). Low risk people with symptoms we isolate immediately; they never enter the main clinic. And we wear PPE [i.e., personal protective equipment] to see them.

In Hong Kong, people are being told to get tested if you think you have been exposed, and/or are symptomatic. Anyone with a fever or respiratory symptoms is tested as a matter of course, upon recommendation of a doctor.

To be fair, I should mention that Hong Kong did not initially test so extensively. Sarah texted me:

Testing has been ramped up gradually. Initially they just added testing of all pneumonia patients, regarless of epidemiological link. The testing of all mildly symptomatic patients with no epidemiologic link is relatively new. A few weeks ago they started offering it in the public hospital A&E's and public outpatient clinics. Then last week they extended that to private sentinel clinics (of which we are one) and this week have extended it to all private clinics

But in the US, even if your doctor wants to test you, no testing kit may be available to conduct the test. This is simply insane, so many weeks, after the disease has taken root in so many places, and after the World Health Organization made accurate tests available months ago.

Hong Kong has also made it easier for patients to test themselves, without involving a health care provider. From a message from Sarah:

They also pioneered a test that patients could do themselves – ie they self-collect a "deep throat saliva" sample at home. That reduces risk of exposure to healthcare workers, as taking nasopharyngeal swabs is "aerosol generating"

So there is considerable scope for United States to learn from Hong Kong's experience and ramp up its testing – without appreciably increasing risk to its health care providers.

One thing talking to Sarah has driven home to me is how poor the comparative US infrastructure for dealing with such a disease is – although she didn't say so in so many words. These are my words, but I don't think she would dispute the conclusion.

Contrast that to Hong Kong. From her MediLink interview:

The situation is much less serious in Hong Kong than in mainland China, especially Wuhan and Hubei. We are quite exposed here, because of our close ties with the mainland, but we have a very strong public health system, good resources, and deep experience in managing epidemics. After SARS, Hong Kong set up the Centre for Health Protection (CHP) , which is our version of the CDC in the United States . When COVID-19 emerged, there was already an epidemic management plan in place that just had to be activated. The four best prepared places in Asia are probably Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and South Korea.

Her MediLink interview is upbeat in some ways. Perhaps a better description would be measured. She points out that COVID-19 is less lethal than SARS. But because of that fact, it's much easier to spread:

COVID-19 and SARS do share some common features: they belong to the same family of viruses, they both seem to have jumped from animals to humans, they both originated in China and both can cause severe pneumonia.

But there are some important differences. SARS was more lethal than COVID-19, but less easily transmitted. It went straight for the lungs, and caused severe pneumonia which became transmissible only when patients were quite severely ill and usually by then in hospital. About 10% died .

COVID-19, on the other hand, seems to be more likely to replicate in the upper respiratory tract and it seems like individuals might produce a lot of virus when they are only mildly symptomatic. It's not known how many people with COVID-19 develop pneumonia, but of the ones who do, about 20% get severely ill and fewer than 2% die. Overall death rates are still not known for sure, but are probably less than 1%.

So COVID-19 is a lot less lethal than SARS, but harder to control because it spreads more easily and by people with milder symptoms. That's why, despite being considerably less likely to kill you than SARS was, COVID-19 has still in total killed more people in 6 weeks than SARS did in eight months.

We should recognise considerable advances in infection control have been made since that time. Alas, many countries seem not to have absorbed these lessons – including the United States. Or if they did, that knowledge has failed to translate into effective responses. From MediLink:

Another important difference is that medical science has advanced considerably in the 17 years since SARS. In 2003, it took months to identify the virus and develop a test. For COVID-19 that happened within a couple of weeks. That has made identifying patients a great deal easier. In addition, there are newer treatments and some vaccine prospects already in the works.

Epidemic control is something that has confounded the US political system. The relevant public health officials may know what needs to be done, they're not doing it. That may simply be, at least in part, because resources are simply not available. It's also due to the way we divide authority for such problems, with responsibility largelylodged at the state and local level. And the reflexive reliance on neoliberal, market-based solutions is also at fault. There are some things government is uniquely positioned to provide, but many are no longer capable of recognising that simple fact.

Over to Sarah's MediLink interview again:

The most important thing we learned from SARS was that infectious diseases do not respect borders or government edicts, and cannot be hidden. It requires international cooperation, transparency and sharing of information to control an epidemic.

We also learned the importance of providing good, balanced, reliable information to the public. In any epidemic, there is the outbreak of disease and then there is the epidemic of panic. And nowadays, there is also what the WHO has termed the Infodemic , the explosion of information about the epidemic. Some of it is good information, but some of it is rumour, myth, speculation and conspiracy theory, and those things feed the anxiety. It can be hard to sort out which information to believe, so it is important to choose trustworthy sources. Panic and misinformation make controlling the outbreak more difficult.

On a day when markets are melting down, and people are succumbing to panic,I can only say, keep calm. And to remind everyone: wash your hands!


Eustache de Saint Pierre , March 9, 2020 at 12:07 pm

The only query I would have with that is in reference to masks, is that people who appear healthy can be asymptomatic so are therefore spreading the disease, which I believe that masks would help prevent.

Ignacio , March 9, 2020 at 1:02 pm

The problem is that there are no masks for everybody so these should be available for those who need them the most . This is a F*c*n*gly problematic issue and that is why there must be a campaign against massive mask usage.

It has to be repeated 100 1000 1000000s times but we f*c**gl* avoid to understand this necessity.

Ignacio , March 9, 2020 at 12:56 pm

Today has been a day of overreaction indeed. I would point as an addition to Sarah remarks on disease spreading that regarding weather, temperature and humidity as important or even more important than virus air transmission or fomites-led transmission is our susceptibility to infection.

A healthy mucosal epithelium contains non-specific barriers to virus and other pathogens including our normal microbiota, enzymes and various types of fibers acting as a physico-chemical barrier for virus entry. In winter, these barriers are less efficient.

The same virus load will not have the same effect in winter or in summer in the nasopharyngeal tract. In this sense HK and NY are not comparable. Regarding the lessons of SARS epidemics, if one of them is to keep calm that is a goos lesson. If another lessons is to identify the sites that need stronger protection, that is another good lesson. A third good lesson would be awareness on precautions to be taken personally. Anyway given differences between SARS1 and 2 in virulence and epidemiology there are not many more lessons to learn. Again comparing Singapore or HK with NY in terms of potential fatalities is not spot on for weather reasons.

The main failure in Italy first, or in Spain now, has IMO been on lack of awareness. No overreaction is needed but good reaction would have made things better if the objective is to reduce fatalities and avoid HC services being overwhelmed. Focus on safety in hospitals is a must. Focusing on safety in residences for the elder is a second must (this has been noticed too late for many).

This evening I will have a discussion with my son that wants to go to a concert next saturday in a closed ambient. I think that the government will come to my rescue and forbid this class of events.

carl , March 9, 2020 at 1:09 pm

The tide has now gone out, and has revealed that the US is swimming naked.

[Mar 09, 2020] The Coronavirus Debacle by Daniel Larison

Right the major fiasco was with CDC testing kits. I do not see any other. Exaggerating the threat would only make hoarding panic that engult the USA worse. Of source Trump desire to protect stock market at any human or other cost was cruel and silly, but Trump is cruel and silly in many other areas as well.
Quarantine for retired persons might really help in areas with high number of infections.
Notable quotes:
"... For the last several weeks, we have seen the president and top administration officials presenting the public with misleading and outright false information in an effort to conceal the magnitude of the problem and the extent of their initial failures. The president has been unwilling to tell the public the truth about the situation because he evidently cares more about the short-term political implications than he does about protecting the public: ..."
Mar 07, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The AP reports on more of the Trump White House's bungling of the coronavirus response:

The White House overruled health officials who wanted to recommend that elderly and physically fragile Americans be advised not to fly on commercial airlines because of the new coronavirus, a federal official told The Associated Press.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention submitted the plan this week as a way of trying to control the virus, but White House officials ordered the air travel recommendation be removed, said the official who had direct knowledge of the plan. Trump administration officials have since suggested certain people should consider not traveling, but they have stopped short of the stronger guidance sought by the CDC.

There is no good reason for the White House to prevent this recommendation from being made public. This is another example of how the president and his top officials are trying to keep up the pretense that the outbreak is much less dangerous than it actually is, and in doing so they are helping to make the outbreak worse than it has to be.

For the last several weeks, we have seen the president and top administration officials presenting the public with misleading and outright false information in an effort to conceal the magnitude of the problem and the extent of their initial failures. The president has been unwilling to tell the public the truth about the situation because he evidently cares more about the short-term political implications than he does about protecting the public:

Even as the government's scientists and leading health experts raised the alarm early and pushed for aggressive action, they faced resistance and doubt at the White House -- especially from the president -- about spooking financial markets and inciting panic.

"It's going to all work out," Mr. Trump said as recently as Thursday night. "Everybody has to be calm. It's going to work out."

Justin Fox comments on the president's terrible messaging:

The biggest problem, though, is simply the way that the president talks about the disease. His instinct at every turn is to downplay its danger and significance.

Minimizing the danger and significance of the outbreak ensured that the government's response was less urgent and focused than it could have been. It encouraged people to take it less seriously and thus made it more likely that the virus would spread. Then when the severity of the problem became undeniable, the earlier discredited happy talk makes it easier for people to disbelieve what the government tells them in the future.

The administration had time to prepare a more effective response, but as I said last week the administration frittered away the time they had. They were still preoccupied with keeping the virus out rather than trying to manage its spread once it arrived here, as it was inevitably going to do:

"We have contained this. I won't say airtight but pretty close to airtight," White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said in a television interview on Feb. 25, echoing Trump's tweeted declaration that the virus was "very much under control" in the United States.

But it wasn't, and the administration's rosy messaging was fundamentally at odds with a growing cacophony of alarm bells inside and outside the U.S. government. Since January, epidemiologists, former U.S. public health officials and experts have been warning, publicly and privately, that the administration's insistence that containment was -- and should remain -- the primary way to confront an emerging infectious disease was a grave mistake.

The initial response and the stubborn refusal to adapt to new developments have meant that the U.S. is in a much worse position in handling this outbreak than many other countries. Max Nisen comments on the lack of testing in the U.S.:

Don't cheer just yet. The lower case count doesn't mean Americans are doing a better job of containing the virus; rather, it reflects the fact that the U.S. is badly behind in its ability to test people. The Centers for Disease Control stopped disclosing how many people it has tested as of Monday, but an analysis by The Atlantic could only confirm 1,895 tests. Switzerland, a country with fewer residents than New Jersey, has tested nearly twice as many people. The U.K., which has far fewer cases, has tested over 20,000. This gap is particularly worrisome given evidence of community spread in a number of different states and a high death count, both of which suggest the number of cases will jump as more tests are conducted.

Capacity is finally ramping up, but only after weeks of delays prompted by unforced errors and botched early test kits from the CDC. The continuing inability to test broadly is leading to missed cases, more infections, and an outbreak that will be bigger than it needed to be.

The administration not only bungled their initial response, but they have also been extremely resistant to admitting error. Trump's appointees are reluctant to contradict the president when he spouts nonsense about the outbreak, and that in turn makes it more difficult for them to communicate clearly and consistently with the public. All of this serves to undermine public trust in the government's response, and it prevents health officials from being able to do their jobs without political interference. The federal government's response has been hampered by a president who wants to make people think that the problem isn't that bad and is already being dealt with successfully:

At the White House, Trump and many of his aides were initially skeptical of just how serious the coronavirus threat was, while the president often seemed uninterested as long as the virus was abroad. At first, when he began to engage, he downplayed the threat -- "The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA," he tweeted in late February -- and became a font of misinformation and confusion, further muddling his administration's response.

On Friday, visiting the CDC in Atlanta, the president spewed more falsehoods when he claimed, incorrectly: "Anybody that needs a test, gets a test. They're there. They have the tests. And the tests are beautiful."

When the president lies about such a serious matter, he is causing unnecessary confusion and he is sending exactly the wrong message that remedying earlier failures is not an urgent priority. Because Trump's primary concern is making himself look good in the short term, he is willing to risk a worse outbreak. During his visit to the CDC, the president went on in an even more bizarre vein to praise the tests by comparing them to his "perfect call" with the Ukrainian president last summer that led to his impeachment:

In an attempt to express confidence in the CDC's coronavirus test (the agency's second attempt after the first one it developed failed), Trump offered an unorthodox comparison from the last enormous crisis to swamp his presidency. The tests are just like his impeachment-causing attempt to pressure a foreign government to help him get reelected. "The tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good," Trump told reporters after falsely stating, again, that anyone who needed a test right now could get one.

This morning the president was back at it this morning with more self-serving misinformation:

We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus. We moved VERY early to close borders to certain areas, which was a Godsend. V.P. is doing a great job. The Fake News Media is doing everything possible to make us look bad. Sad!

-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 8, 2020

The president needs people to think that everything he does is perfect, so he is incapable of acknowledging his failures and prefers to vilify accurate reporting about those failures. He cannot help but mismanage the government response because he cannot put the national interest ahead of his own selfishness. An untold number of Americans will be paying a steep price for the president's unfitness for office in the weeks and months to come.

− +

Englewood12 hours ago

"An untold number of Americans will be paying a steep price for the president's unfitness for office in the weeks and months to come."

We've been paying it for a while. It's just more obvious now. I wish I never voted for him.

SFBay1949 Englewood6 hours ago • edited
I wish you had thought a bit into the future before you voted him. Did you really think things wouldn't turn out EXACTLY the way they have? Honestly, it's to rime tell the truth here.
Englewood SFBay19495 hours ago
It's the Democrats who should have thought a bit into the future. It was the identity and known character and policies of Trump's opponent that tipped my vote to Trump. And no, obviously I didn't think things would turn out "exactly" this way. I thought if I put up with his repulsive manner I'd get maybe a third of his main campaign promises and that the GOP establishment would get the hiding it deserves. Boy, was I wrong.
SFBay1949 Englewood3 hours ago
I take you believe Hillary Clinton was worse than Trump. Fair enough, but do you still think our country would be in the state it is now? In what way could she possibly be worse than what we have now with Trump?
Brandon Falusi SFBay19494 hours ago
It's better for Trumpism to have burst like a zit onto the mirror, no matter how disgusting, because it was all there anyway under Bush and Cheney, it was there alongside "Barack the magic... birth certificate!" You can fairly easily wash off the stain of Bush and Rumsfeld, you can sort of start to forget their sublime horror, the exact same level of lies and utter mismanagement, but you can't wash off a man like Trump, ever. His portrait will be in the White House so future Americans can see what we're capable of, and hopefully be more vigilant about the subtle and polished lies and civilized outrages. We needed this barbaric display to get some clarity.
King George12 hours ago
"The president has been about the situation because he evidently cares more about the
short-term political implications than he does about protecting the public"

It's no different from the first two years of his presidency. He already betrayed those of us who voted for the America First promises on immigration and ending the wars. He spent most of his doing favors for Wall Street, Israel, and Saudi Arabia instead. Now he's going to betray the many vulnerable elders who voted for him, risking their illness and even death by his selfish evasions and lies. He's a con artist. A fake.

[Mar 09, 2020] How Coronavirus Spread From Patient Zero in Seattle

Mar 09, 2020 | www.bloomberg.com

Testing around the U.S. was hampered when local officials reported flaws in the kits the CDC sent. Replacements didn't come until weeks later, which left most hospitals and clinics short of tests. Shifting guidelines for who should get the few tests available also confused hospitals, Diaz said.

At the time, there had still been just the single case reported in Seattle. Trevor Bedford, a Harvard-trained researcher and viral genome expert at the city's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, wondered why. He had spent weeks analyzing genomes of patients from around the world, tracing minor mutations to deduce how Covid-19 emerged and spread.

The early work found that infections were doubling roughly every six days, and that for every three to four rounds of transmission -- or once every 20 to 30 days -- one minor mutation was occurring, Bedford said in a Feb. 13 interview. "We are watching very carefully for more local transmission," he said at the time.

They soon found it: a teenager with mild symptoms who attended a high school about 15 miles from where the first case was identified -- someone who wouldn't have been tested because he or she didn't meet the criteria. But the results showed up in the Seattle Flu Study, a project on which Bedford is a lead scientist.

The new case, announced Feb. 28, was genetically identical to the original except for three minor mutations in the virus. And it contained a key genetic variant that was present only in two of 59 viral samples from China. This type of circumstantial evidence stops just short of proving a chain of transmission. It's possible the Washington cluster didn't derive from the known Patient Zero, but another case that came into Washington the same time and went undetected. Still, Bedford calculated a 97 percent probability the new case was a direct descendant -- one that hadn't been spotted because of the narrow testing at that time, Bedford wrote in a March 2 post.

"This lack of testing was a critical error and allowed an outbreak in Snohomish County and surroundings to grow to a sizable problem before it was even detected," he wrote.

... ... ...

All told, 31 Kirkland firefighters -- almost a third of the department -- in addition to 10 from other communities as well as some relatives have been quarantined, adding to the stress on emergency teams.

Bedford, the genome expert, is working with University of Washington researchers to understand the extent of the spread. Last week, the university started using its own virus test, a modified version of one created by the World Health Organization. When a positive result is found in a sample, the researchers perform a second round of tests to sequence the viral genome.

Pavitra Roychoudhury, a university researcher in charge of sequencing, said technicians have been working late into the night to complete as many samples and sequences as possible. She puts her toddler to bed and then logs back into her computer.

On a call with reporters on Monday, Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, called Bedford's theory "an interesting hypothesis" but said other possibilities have not been ruled out. "There are alternate explanations of the same findings," she said. There may have been a "secondary seeding" in the community, she said, as more recent cases in Washington match viral sequences posted in China.

So far, Bedford has reported, sequencing still suggests the transmission is related to the original patient -- and the number of active infections could reach 1,100 by March 10 and 2,000 by March 15.

What's more, the state's early cases may have seeded infections now exploding on the cruise ship Grand Princess off California's coast, he tweeted this week. Researchers from the University of California at San Francisco have said the viral strain from a patient infected on the ship is similar to the cluster circulating in Washington state. -- With assistance by Emma Court and Michelle Fay Cortez

[Mar 09, 2020] How many new coronarvirus cases have been confirmed in the U.S.?

Mar 09, 2020 | www.thecut.com

As of March 6, there were at least 228 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus -- the WHO has officially named the disease that this virus causes COVID-19 -- across the U.S, the majority of which have been in Washington state. Most of the initial cases were people recently traveled to China or were released from quarantine aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship , which experienced an outbreak last month. Increasingly, though, new cases have cropped up in people who have no known association with outbreak epicenters, suggesting that the virus is spreading undetected through person-to-person contact and has been for weeks.

COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in 14 states, including Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Illinois, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York , New Hampshire, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, New Jersey, Maryland, and Indiana . In Washington State, where most coronavirus fatalities in the U.S. so far has occurred, it's possible that as many as 1,500 people may have been infected . There's also an outbreak at a long-term care facility, the Life Care Center, in Kirkland, Washington, where 50 residents and employees reportedly have COVID-19 symptoms.

On Thursday, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in New York reached 22, and 2,773 others in the state are under quarantines, the New York Times reports. The same day, Maryland and New Jersey also reported new confirmed cases; in total, the former state now has three cases while the latter has two . Most recently, Indiana reported its first confirmed case.

[Mar 08, 2020] Glaring bureaucratic incompetence

Notable quotes:
"... During the 2019-2020 influenza season, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 15 million people came down with flu, of whom 140,000 required hospitalisation. 8,200 deaths were recorded. Over a 4-month period, that averages to 2,050 deaths per month. This is in a country with 1/4 of the population of China's. ..."
"... If the White House failed to recognise a major health crisis already simmering on its own doorstep, what hope can be held for when the coronavirus epidemic starts sweeping through the inland US, taking out the elderly, the poor and the homeless? ..."
Mar 08, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jen , Mar 6 2020 20:01 utc | 13

Likklemore @ 6:

The White House should not have needed to look very far to China to prepare for a coronavirus epidemic within the US.

During the 2019-2020 influenza season, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 15 million people came down with flu, of whom 140,000 required hospitalisation. 8,200 deaths were recorded. Over a 4-month period, that averages to 2,050 deaths per month. This is in a country with 1/4 of the population of China's.

If the White House failed to recognise a major health crisis already simmering on its own doorstep, what hope can be held for when the coronavirus epidemic starts sweeping through the inland US, taking out the elderly, the poor and the homeless?

[Mar 08, 2020] Washington State could see explosion in coronavirus cases, study says

Mar 08, 2020 | www.statnews.com

The genetic sequences of patients in the Seattle-King County region suggest the virus has been circulating there since about mid-January, when the first U.S. patient -- a man who returned from Wuhan -- was diagnosed, Bedford wrote in the analysis, published online 6 .

The spread of the virus has gone undetected in part because many infected people experience only mild infections that could be confused for a cold or the flu, and in part because of stumbles in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's effort to develop test kits for state and local public health laboratories, which has meant very little testing has been done in the country until the past few days.

... ... ...

"January 1 in Wuhan was March 1 in Seattle," Bedford told STAT. "Now would be the time to start these interventions rather than waiting three weeks."

... ... ...

The stringent actions China took drove down new infections in Hubei province -- where Wuhan is located -- to low levels, though transmission continues there. Other cities in the country that started to see cases were able, with the same measures, to avoid the explosive transmission Wuhan had experienced. Flattening the epidemic curve, as that phenomenon is called, helps health care systems continue to function. An eruption of cases overtaxes hospitals, leading to deaths that otherwise could have been avoided.

"China saw not much of an epidemic outside of Hubei because they acted early," Bedford said.

Continued

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[Dec 06, 2020] Tested 'Positive' For COVID-19- Be Sure To Ask This Question Published on Dec 06, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

[Nov 30, 2020] Krystal Ball- Healthcare CRIMINALS Are Gouging Covid Patients - YouTube Published on Nov 30, 2020 | www.youtube.com

[Sep 26, 2020] Cure worse than the disease- Study says UK lockdown linked to thousands of excess deaths Published on Sep 26, 2020 | www.rt.com

[Sep 06, 2020] Inactive fragments on virus RNA trigger false positives in most common COVID test due to way too many cycles of amplification which amplifies noise along with the signal and efffectly turns noise (inactive fragments on RNA) into signal, new study finds Published on Sep 05, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

[Aug 31, 2020] We might have to wait forever for science to show the Covid threat is over, so let's use our common sense get back to normal -- RT Op-ed Published on Aug 31, 2020 | www.rt.com

[Jun 29, 2020] Gilead Will Charge More Than $3,000 For A Course Of COVID-19 Drug Remdesivir Published on Jun 29, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

[Jun 19, 2020] Medical charlatan ands sleazy politican Fauci tells us that Americans Don't Believe Science And They Don't Believe Authority by Steve Watson Published on Jun 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

[May 16, 2020] The obvious shortcomings of the USA government reaction: no distributions of free masks, no temperature checks, no oxymeter checks, no retrofitted busses and other transportation to have individual air supplies, no retrofitting air conditioners Published on May 16, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

[May 13, 2020] A Pandemic of Know-Nothings Published on May 13, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[May 02, 2020] If this Newsweek article published April 28, 2020, is credible, then Trump and cohorts should tread carefully Published on May 02, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Apr 17, 2020] The WHO provided validated working test kits on 16th of January. The USA botched the delopyment due to CDC incompetence and NIH syndrom Published on Apr 17, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Apr 06, 2020] While the sheep fight over toilet paper and hand sanitizer, banksers grab billions -- the tax payers hand over 1.5 trillion to Wall Street Published on Mar 15, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Apr 06, 2020] Coronavirus A Theory of Incompetence Published on Apr 06, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

[Apr 05, 2020] In the land of 'distinguished epidemiologists' it is useful to distinguish who is already bought and who is not yet Published on Apr 05, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Mar 28, 2020] Do not shoot at each other folk. Please leave hospital beds for coronavirus patients! Published on Mar 28, 2020 | www.rt.com

[Mar 28, 2020] Neoliberal priorities: plenty of USG resources for Pentagon and to run pandemic war games but no money to create the most basic stockpiles (thermometers, face masks, gloves) Published on Mar 21, 2020 | caucus99percent.com

[Mar 27, 2020] Not Just China U.S. Reliance on Foreign Medical Supplies is Staggering by Alan Tonelson Published on Mar 27, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[Mar 22, 2020] Mask piracy among neoliberal nations: Wonderful show of world-wide solidarity Published on Mar 21, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Mar 21, 2020] Tulsi Gabbard says insider traders should be 'investigated prosecuted,' as Left and Right team up on profiteering senator Published on Mar 21, 2020 | www.rt.com

[Mar 21, 2020] Tucker Senator Burr sold shares after virus briefing Published on Mar 21, 2020 | www.youtube.com

[Mar 21, 2020] Don't forget our congress critter Senator Kelly Loeffler Published on Mar 21, 2020 | caucus99percent.com

[Mar 11, 2020] Joe Rogan interview today with Michael Osterholm is an internationally recognized expert in infectious disease epidemiology Published on Mar 11, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Oldies But Goodies

  • [Dec 06, 2020] Tested 'Positive' For COVID-19- Be Sure To Ask This Question
  • [Nov 30, 2020] Krystal Ball- Healthcare CRIMINALS Are Gouging Covid Patients - YouTube
  • [Sep 26, 2020] Cure worse than the disease- Study says UK lockdown linked to thousands of excess deaths
  • [Sep 06, 2020] Inactive fragments on virus RNA trigger false positives in most common COVID test due to way too many cycles of amplification which amplifies noise along with the signal and efffectly turns noise (inactive fragments on RNA) into signal, new study finds
  • [Aug 31, 2020] We might have to wait forever for science to show the Covid threat is over, so let's use our common sense get back to normal -- RT Op-ed
  • [Jun 29, 2020] Gilead Will Charge More Than $3,000 For A Course Of COVID-19 Drug Remdesivir
  • [Jun 19, 2020] Medical charlatan ands sleazy politican Fauci tells us that Americans Don't Believe Science And They Don't Believe Authority by Steve Watson
  • [May 16, 2020] The obvious shortcomings of the USA government reaction: no distributions of free masks, no temperature checks, no oxymeter checks, no retrofitted busses and other transportation to have individual air supplies, no retrofitting air conditioners
  • [May 13, 2020] A Pandemic of Know-Nothings
  • [May 02, 2020] If this Newsweek article published April 28, 2020, is credible, then Trump and cohorts should tread carefully
  • [Apr 17, 2020] The WHO provided validated working test kits on 16th of January. The USA botched the delopyment due to CDC incompetence and NIH syndrom
  • [Apr 06, 2020] While the sheep fight over toilet paper and hand sanitizer, banksers grab billions -- the tax payers hand over 1.5 trillion to Wall Street
  • [Apr 06, 2020] Coronavirus A Theory of Incompetence
  • [Apr 05, 2020] In the land of 'distinguished epidemiologists' it is useful to distinguish who is already bought and who is not yet
  • [Mar 28, 2020] Do not shoot at each other folk. Please leave hospital beds for coronavirus patients!
  • [Mar 28, 2020] Neoliberal priorities: plenty of USG resources for Pentagon and to run pandemic war games but no money to create the most basic stockpiles (thermometers, face masks, gloves)
  • [Mar 27, 2020] Not Just China U.S. Reliance on Foreign Medical Supplies is Staggering by Alan Tonelson
  • [Mar 22, 2020] Mask piracy among neoliberal nations: Wonderful show of world-wide solidarity
  • [Mar 21, 2020] Tulsi Gabbard says insider traders should be 'investigated prosecuted,' as Left and Right team up on profiteering senator
  • [Mar 21, 2020] Tucker Senator Burr sold shares after virus briefing
  • [Mar 21, 2020] Don't forget our congress critter Senator Kelly Loeffler
  • [Mar 11, 2020] Joe Rogan interview today with Michael Osterholm is an internationally recognized expert in infectious disease epidemiology
  • [Apr 09, 2021] Distrust of the establishment plays a role in vaccine hesitancy, but it's probably time to back off on the prevailing commentary suggesting that those avoiding vaccines are irresponsible, uninformed or politically manipulated
  • [Apr 07, 2021] Fauci's NIAID Shielded Wuhan Bat Research Grant From Government Oversight by Anthony Fauci, didn't flag the project for review.
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    Quotes

    War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotesSomerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose BierceBernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

    Bulletin:

    Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

    History:

    Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOSProgramming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC developmentScripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

    Classic books:

    The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-MonthHow to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

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    The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D


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    Last modified: July, 30, 2021