Tag Archives: Virus

Current Events

Moving the Goalposts

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The doctors make a good case for opening America sooner better than later, but are they right? I wonder what the docs on the task force think of of this? If I was waiting for a life saving operation right now, I would be concerned. Would you?

Four Reasons it is Safe to Open America

Jonathan Geach, M.D.

Apr 16 · 9 min read
Original Goal: Flatten the curve

The curve of new infections is declining and we do not need to wait for additional testing or a surveillance apparatus to be in place to reopen America.

In response to warnings that millions of Americans could die and the carnage COVID-19 created in Italy, state and local governments instituted drastic social distancing in America. In the meantime, the epidemiological curve in the US has followed the trend seen in Europe and is well past its peak.

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) model estimates that the peak of deaths in the U.S. occurred on April 13, 2020. This would seem to indicate the time to loosen social distancing and allow a return-to-work has arrived.

Despite this new information, several public health officials have said that May 1 may be too soon to reopen. They claim that we don’t know enough about the virus, and it won’t be safe to reopen America until we have improved testing and surveillance.

Original Goal: Prevent Healthcare System Saturation

The healthcare system is not overwhelmed, it is underwhelmed and being damaged.

The purpose of “Flatten the Curve” was to prevent the healthcare system from being overwhelmed with patients suffering from COVID-19. The reality is that the healthcare system is now underwhelmed and healthcare workers are being laid off and furloughed in droves as a result of healthcare centers having neglected patient care not related to COVID-19 in fear of a COVID-19 surge that failed to materialize on a nationwide basis. This means tens of millions of patients are failing to receive the medical care they need in a timely manner. Almost every hospital outside of the hot spots is empty.

The dramatic reduction in healthcare utilization and capacity is by no means limited to small, country hospitals. Mayo Clinic is empty: 65% of the hospital beds at Mayo Clinic are empty, as are 75% of the operating rooms. This is the world’s premier medical center. If Mayo Clinic is empty, imagine how dire the situation is at smaller, community-based healthcare centers. Given the complexity of the patients referred to Mayo Clinic, its emptiness alone will have a significant negative impact on healthcare outcomes.

Healthcare under utilization leads not only to patient care being delayed, which will likely result in deaths from delayed cancer diagnoses; it also leads to the loss of countless jobs in the healthcare industry, many of which will never return. Even if the patients that are not being seen at this time are seen several months in the future, many will still suffer negative health outcomes. In Medicine, timing is of the essence and diagnosing and treating a patient today is more beneficial than diagnosing and treating the same patient for the same condition in the future.

If the goal of the shutdown was to flatten the curve and prevent healthcare system utilization, why are we still under a shutdown when the healthcare system is significantly underutilized and tens of thousands of healthcare workers are being terminated or furloughed? Why are we still denying non-COVID-19 patients the care they need when hospitals are sitting idle and laying off staff in droves? The only surge we’ve seen thus far is with respect to initial weekly jobless claims; tragically, there’s a good chance we will see a surge in suicides later this year as well.

Original Goal: Determine the true mortality

The evidence that the true mortality is much lower than early estimates continues to mount.

In order to calculate the true risk of dying of COVID-19, we have to separate case fatality rate (CFR) from infection fatality rate (IFR). Case fatality rate is the chance someone will die after testing positive for a disease. In many studies, the case fatality rate has fallen from 3–4% to around 1%. However, the CFR is not what we think of intuitively as the true mortality of the disease. The true mortality rate, or infection fatality rate (IFR), is the proportion of those who died of the disease among those who were infected, whether or not they were tested.

For example, the CDC states that 247,785 people tested positive for the flu this winter and about 24,000 died. This makes the CFR for the flu 10%; nine in ten people who get the flu don’t die of it! While only 247,785 people tested positive, the CDC estimates that 39 million people were actually infected with influenza this winter. Hence, the IFR for the flu is around 0.1%.

New data supports the idea that SARS-CoV-2 is much more widespread than previously believed. Researchers have tried an indirect approach to approximate the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 by comparing the incidence of excess influenza-like infections that are correlated to areas of COVID-19 infection. “This corresponds to at least 28 million presumed symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 patients across the U.S. during the three weeks from March 8 to March 28.” They go on to note, “[T]hese results suggest a conceptual model for the COVID-19 epidemic in the U.S. in which rapid spread across the U.S. is combined with a large population of infected patients with presumably mild-to-moderate clinical symptoms.” This is a dramatic change from earlier projections and drops the projected IFR down to around 0.1% — or basically the same as this year’s flu.

Now, I know many people will say, “But look at New York. Look at how the hospitals were full and we almost ran out of ICU beds and ventilators. COVID-19 is nothing like the flu.” To these objections I must point out that COVID-19 kills people through a prolonged process that generally keeps people in an ICU on a ventilator for two weeks before they die. Most people who die of the flu have a much faster disease process.

A new study in The New England Journal of Medicine supports the claim that COVID-19 is much more common and mild than first believed. Researchers from Columbia University in Manhattan tested every woman who presented in labor for COVID-19 from March 22 until April 4. Fifteen percent of the women tested positive for COVID-19, but, of these, eighty eight percent were totally asymptomatic. Also interesting, none of the women who tested positive were even sick enough to seek COVID-19 care; they simply came to the hospital to have a baby.

Eighty-eight percent of positive women were asymptomatic

Given the age of child-bearing women, these results provide further evidence of COVID-19’s generally mild course in young people with limited co-morbidities.

The USS Theodore Roosevelt has been in the news for an outbreak aboard the ship. The US Navy is testing every sailor on board. Of the 4,800 sailors, 600 tested positive and 60 percent of those were entirely asymptomatic. Much like the diamond princess, as time passes the fates of those onboard should give us a much better knowledge of the true risk of hospitalization, intensive care and death from the disease. However, unlike the Diamond Princess, this is a much younger group.

Edit:4/18/20: The first prevalence antibody study from Stanford was released on 4/17/20. After sampling the blood from 3,300 people, researchers found that 48,000 to 81,000 people in Santa Clara county had been previously infected. Only 1000 people tested positive in the county. They estimated the IFR from 0.12 to 0.2.

Many people are actually claiming that the large number of asymptomatic people with the disease requires prolongation of the shutdowns. The large asymptomatic group does quite the opposite. It demonstrates that the number of people who have already had the disease is very high and the actual infection mortality rate is much lower than we previously believed.

Original Goal: Prevent a catastrophic second wave

If there is a second wave, it will most likely be this fall which will give us plenty of time to prepare

The biggest concern voiced by public officials is that opening the economy is unsafe because it could, “Pour gasoline on the fire.” These officials don’t understand that most people who recovered from the infection are now immune and, thus, contribute to the development of “herd immunity”. If the next wave comes, the peak will be lower or, like in South Korea, where social distancing was only voluntary, it may be just a period of a low rate of new cases until herd immunity is build.

If the current level of herd immunity is so low that a second wave builds, it will take at least several months. The CDC estimated that it will likely be at least 150 days before a possible second wave. This would push it back to the fall at the earliest. A study published in The Lancet also states it would be several months before a possible second wave.

Personal protection equipment (PPE), testing, and surveillance may not be optimized today, but all should be in place by this fall. At that time, politicians and scientists can determine how the elderly and vulnerable can be protected without needing to interrupt the economy.

In addition, the shutdowns are slowing if not preventing the development of herd immunity. This increases the chance and possible severity of a second wave of COVID-19 several months after the shutdowns are lifted.

A recent study from South Korea states that about 100 people who previously had COVID-19 and tested negative have now tested positive again. This has led to rampant media speculation that there may not be lasting immunity from COVID-19.

Dr. Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist and infectious disease specialist from Harvard University, wrote an editorial on this subject in the NY Times. He shows how similar viruses in the past have given long-term immunity. The SARS virus in 2002 gave two years of immunity on average. The MERS virus from 2012 gave approximately three years. He believes that COVID-19 will confer at least a year of immunity.

Regarding the South Korean concern about a lack of immunity. Dr. Lipsitch states that likely “these patients had a false negative test in the middle of an ongoing infection, or that the infection had temporarily subsided and then re-emerged.” One small study should not keep us from opening the economy over a mostly theoretical concern.

The idea of herd immunity is simple: Once enough people in society are immune to a disease, if one person becomes infected, the chance they give it to someone else is less than one. It is estimated that 80% of the population would need to be immune to have true herd immunity. However, if we have even half that, we would slow the increase of the virus dramatically. This would make surveillance easier and decrease the chance that a second wave could overwhelm our health care system this fall.

In summary

Continued shutdowns threaten our economy, our health and even our healthcare system.

The state of our economy is not just a monetary risk, it is a health risk. When people lose their jobs, they typically lose their health insurance. The British Journal of Psychiatry found that there were more than 10,000 “economic suicides” as a result of the 2008 recession. Similarly, a 2016 study from The Lancet found that there were an excess 260,000 cancer deaths as a result of the recession. These statistics also fail to mention the increased domestic violence, increased child abuse and home loss when schools and businesses are closed.

In spite of the changing goalposts: The number of new cases is declining. The mortality is likely much lower than early estimates. Those who have been infected by the disease will most likely be immune for at least a year. Finally, the lives saved by starting the economy sooner vastly outnumber those that could be saved by extended shutdowns.

Jonathan Geach, M.D.

Ankur J. Patel, M.D.
Knut M. Wittkowski, PhD, ScD
Lacy Windham, M.D.
Ashkan Attaran, M.D.
Jason Friday, M.D.

Originally posted 2020-04-19 11:05:01.

Current Events, Recent Posts

Caveat America

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This is the third post I have made concerning what may be a cruel yet ingenious plot to advance itself in the global order by China. Call it a conspiracy theory if you choose. However, the more I research and learn, the more I honestly believe it not to be a theory at all. But then, that’s for you to decide. However, I would appreciate your comments, and if you like the post please click on the like symbol. Thank you and please be safe, be strong.

ITALY’S  RECIPE FOR DISASTER

Published March 24, 2020 | By Giacomino Nicolazzo

Giacomino Nicolazzo is one of Italy’s most beloved writers.  Born and raised in Central Pennsylvania USA, he lives in a small village in Lombardy where he writes his books.

commie-recipe-for-disaster

Montecalvo, Lombardy, Italy. As I sit here in my involuntary isolation, it was just reported that overnight 743 more people died and 5.249 new cases have been reported. This brings the total cases of infection to 69,176 and the body count to 6,820. We take relief in knowing that 8,326 people have recovered so far. (Numbers as of 3/24, 8:30 pm in Italy.)

Most towns here in Italy, from the upper reaches of the Alps to the ancient shores of Sicilia (sic) and Sardinia, while not deserted, are closer to being ghost towns than the bustling centers of tourism, business and daily life they were just a few weeks ago.

Stores and shops have been shuttered. Restaurants and coffee shops no longer serve customers. Schools, universities, sporting arenas…even our museums and theaters…all closed. Even the Vatican City has closed its gates and armed patrols monitor the 20 foot tall walls that protect it!

Streets and roads are now empty for as far as the eye can see. Normally they would be filled with crazed Italian drivers in tiny cars and scooters (the ones that sound like demonic insects) darting here and there, reaching the limits of centrifugal force on our roundabouts. In the piazze (sic) of our towns and cities, there are now officially more pigeons than people.

Many of us know someone who has been infected and recovered. Some of us know someone who did not recover…now they are dead. But everyone knows someone who has been affected by this microscopic monster in one way or another.

Sixty million of us are in lock down…it is like a war zone here. We are being held prisoner in our own homes by an unseen enemy that sneaked in unnoticed…by most of us. As you will read in just a few more minutes, there were those who knew something like this was coming…or at least they should have.

So who is to blame? With all this craziness swirling like a whirlpool at our feet, I just had to find the blame answer. And so I have spent my free time (of which I have a lot in these days) digging and researching. I was literally shocked to discover how this has come to be.

I am not going to bore you with talk of Patient ‘0’ who spread it to Patient ‘1’ and how mathematics efficiently explains the rapid expansion of infection. No…I am going to tell you how (as I see it) the virus came to Italy.

It has everything to do with communism. Allow me to explain.

Beginning in about 2014, Matteo Renzi, the imbecile ex-mayor of Firenze (Florence) acting as the leader of the Partito Democratico (synonymous with the Italian Communist party), somehow managed to get himself elected as Italy’s Prime Minister. To give you a proper frame of reference, Matteo Renzi was so far left, he would make Barack Obama look like Barry Goldwater!

At the same time that Renzi was leading Italy into oblivion, strange things were happening in Italy’s economy. Banks were failing…but not closing. Retirement ages were being extended…for some reason the pension funds were dwindling or disappearing. The national sales tax we call IVA (Value Added Tax) rose from 18% to 20%, then to 21% and again to 22%.

And in the midst of all this financial chicanery, the Chinese began furiously buying up Italian real estate and businesses in the North.

Now the reason I mention Renzi and the Chinese together is that strange things were also going on between the governments of Italy and China. A blind eye was being turned to the way the Chinese were buying businesses in the financial, telecommunication, industrial and fashion sectors of Italy’s economy, all of which take place in Milano (sic)

To be brief…China was getting away with purchases and acquisitions in violation of Italian law and EU Trade Agreements with the US and the UK…and no one in either of those countries (not Obama in the US or Cameron in the UK) said a thing in their country’s defense. As a matter of fact, much of it was hidden from the public in all three countries.

In 2014, China infused the Italian economy with €5 billion through purchases of companies costing less than €100 million each. By the time Renzi left office (in disgrace) in 2016, Chinese acquisitions had exceeded €52 billion. When the dust settled, China owned more than 300 companies…representing 27% of the major Italian corporations.  WOW!

The Bank of China now owns five major banks in Italy…all of which had been secretly (and illegally) propped up by Renzi using pilfered pension funds! Soon after, the China Milano Equity Exchange was opened and much of Italy’s wealth was being funneled back to the Chinese mainland.

Chinese state entities own Italy’s major telecommunication corporation (Telecom) as well as its major utilities (ENI and ENEL). Upon entry into the telecommunication market, Huawei established a facility in Segrate, a suburb of Milano. It launched is first research center there and worked on the study of microwaves which has resulted in the possibly-dangerous technology we call 5G.

China also now owns controlling interest in Fiat-Chrysler, Prysmian and Terna. You will be surprised to know that when you put a set of Pirelli tires on your car, the profits are going to China. Yep…the Chinese colossus of ChemChina, a chemical industry titan, bought that company too! I did not know any of this, did you? I just bought new tires for me Mini Cooper and it called for Pirelli — damn it!

Last but not least is Ferretti yachts…the most prestigious yacht builder in Europe. Incredibly, it is no longer owned by the Ferretti family.

But the sector in which Chinese companies invested most was Italy’s profitable fashion industry. The Pinco Pallino, Miss Sixty, Sergio Tacchini, Roberta di Camerino and Mariella Burani brands have been acquired by 100%.

Designer Salvatore Ferragamo sold 16% and Caruso sold 35%. The most famous case is Krizia, purchased in 2014 by Shenzhen Marisfrolg Fashion Company, one of the leaders of high-priced, ready-to-wear fashions in Asia.

Throughout all of these purchases and acquisitions, Renzi’s government afforded the Chinese unrestricted and unfettered access to Italy and its financial markets, many coming through without customs inspections. Quite literally, tens of thousands of Chinese came in through Milano (illegally) and went back out carrying money, technology and corporate secrets.

Thousands more were allowed to enter and disappeared into shadows of Milano and other manufacturing cities of Lombardy, only to surface in illegal sewing shops, producing knock-off designer clothes and slapping ‘Made In Italy’ labels on them. All with the tacit approval of the Renzi government. How many things are made in the USA by companies owned or majority owned by the Chinese so it carries the label “Made in the USA”? What about all the medicines and prescription drugs are made by the Chinese’s. How stupid we must be.

It was not until there was a change in the governing party in Italy that the sweatshops and the illegal entry and departure of Chinese nationals was stopped. Matteo Salvini, representing the Lega Nord party, closed Italy’s ports to immigrants and systematically began disassembling the sweatshops and deporting those in Italy illegally.

But his rise to power was short-lived. Italy is a communist country…socialism is in the national DNA. Ways were found to remove Salvini, after which the communist party, under the direction of Giuseppe Conte, reopened the ports. Immediately, thousands of unvetted, undocumented refugees from the Middle East and East Africa began pouring in again.

Access was again provided to the Chinese, under the old terms, and as a consequence thousands of Chinese, the majority from Wuhan, began arriving in Milano.

In December of last year, the first inklings of a coronavirus were noticed in Lombardy…in the Chinese neighborhoods. There is no doubt amongst senior medical officials that the virus was brought here from China. By the end of January 2020 cases were being reported left and right. By mid-February the virus was beginning to seriously overload the Lombardy hospitals and medical clinics. They are now in a state of collapse.

The Far-Left politicians sold out and betrayed the Italian people with open border policies and social justice programs. One of the reasons the health care system collapsed so quickly is because the Renzi government (and now continued under the Conte government) redirected funds meant to sustain the medical system, to pay for the tens of thousands of immigrants brought in to Italy against the will of the Italian people.

If you remember the horrible earthquake that decimated the villages around Amatricia, in the mountains east of Rome in 2015, you would also remember how the world responded by sending millions of dollars to help those affected. But there is a law in Italy that prevents private donations to charitable Italian organizations. All money and donations received must be turned over to a government agency, who in turn is to appropriate the funds as needed. But that agency is corrupt just as are all the others.

Most of the money never reached a single victim in the mountains. The Renzi government redirected the vast majority of those funds to pay for the growing immigrant and refugee costs.

As the economy worsened under the burden of illegal immigration, compounded by gross government spending and incompetence, unemployment rose quickly…especially among young people. The unemployment rate for men and women under age 35 is close to 40%. So more money was diverted from the health care system and used to pay what is known here as guaranteed income. Whether you work or not you are paid here, especially if you belong to the PD! The government simply raises taxes on those who do work.

Let me give you a quick example of the height of insanity to which Italian taxation has risen. If you live in a building that has a balcony or balconies…and any of those balconies cast a shadow on the ground, you must pay a public shadow tax! I will say no more!

The point I am trying to make here is that not only did the Chinese bring the virus to Italy (and the rest of the world) it was far-Left politics and policies that facilitated it.

This should hopefully be a warning to Americans that while they work to rid themselves of the China Virus, they should just as vehemently endeavor to rid their government of any politician that circumvents the Constitution and ignores the laws of the land…plain and simple. Amen!!!

The question is will be take heed and bring back our rule of law and the constitution? Are we strong enough to fight this? Are we strong enough to take back our country from the democrats and their millennial crowd, which includes the MSM?

 

 

Originally posted 2020-04-12 10:11:13.

Recent Posts

Something is Fishy Redux

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This video clip from the Italian’s is quite interesting based on my post yesterday on the possible China conspiracy theory — jeez I hate that phrase.  Anyway, it sort of backs up and adds more to the idea that this was all a planned event by the communist bastards. Watch it and you decide.

Originally posted 2020-04-10 10:16:42.

Current Events

Something is Fishy

9 Comments

I received this from a fellow Marine. A great friend with whom I had the pleasure of serving over the years. We spent some rough months together with a dozen other Marines developing the Corps’ Riverine Ops and testing some boats back in the late 80’s. Thus the nicknames, which were our call signs.

Popeye, this is an interesting read!  Can you imagine if it’s true? I bet our Intel guys know just what has happened!

Lambo

Received from a friend.  Interesting AND concerning.  Share if you choose

When Tom Cotton, early on, through up a red flag, anyone with any wherewithal should have taken note. I’m not saying this because he is my state Senator, but because he has for a long time had China, Russia, and Iran in his sites. Being the chairman of the Senate Intel Committee, he probably gets info early and more routinely and is pragmatic in applying the implication.  It was noted early on that the two Chi com bio-chem labs are located in Wuhan. Lest we forget that China is not a signatory to the UN (treaty?) that outlaws development of Bio-chem weapons, and it should be noted that these weapons are not delivered in the classic sense. 

*SOMETHING IS FISHY!!*

Wuhan to Shanghai = 839 km

Wuhan to Beijing = 1,152 km

Wuhan to Milan = 8,684 km

Wuhan to NY = 12,033 km

The Coronavirus started in Wuhan yet there is no effect of Coronavirus in nearby Beijing or Shanghai but many deaths in Italy, Iran, European countries and USA.  All business areas of China are now safe.

*Something is fishy.*

America is not just blaming China without a reason. Even today, India is locked down but all the cities of China are open. China has also announced the opening of Wuhan from April 08. Not a single leader in China has tested positive for the deadly Coronavirus.

*Something is fishy.*

The virus has ruined many economies around the world. Many have had to close their borders in an attempt to contain and control the spread of the Coronavirus. Thousands have lost their lives, millions have now got this disease, countless people have been locked in their homes and many countries have placed their citizens on lock down.

*Something is fishy.*

The Coronavirus originated from the city of Wuhan in China and has now reached every corner of the world, but the virus did not reach China’s capital Beijing and China’s Economic Capital Shanghai, located in close proximity to Wuhan itself.

*Something is fishy*

Today Paris is closed, New York is closed, Berlin is closed, Delhi is closed, Mumbai is closed, Tokyo is closed, the world’s major economic and political centers are closed, but Beijing and Shanghai are open. No Coronavirus effect is seen in either cities. There were only a few cases but the virus had no real effect on Beijing and Shanghai.

*Something is fishy.*

Beijing is the city where all the leaders of China live, including their military leaders. There is no lock down in Beijing.

*Something is fishy*

Shanghai is the city that runs China’s economy. It is the economic capital of China, where all the rich people of China live and run major industries. There is no lock down here, there is no effect of the Coronavirus there.

*Something is fishy*

Beijing and Shanghai are the areas adjoining Wuhan. The virus from Wuhan reached every corner of the world, but the virus did not affect Beijing and Shanghai.

*Something is fishy*

Another big thing is, that the worldwide share market has fallen by almost half. In India also the Nifty has gone from 12 thousand to 7 thousand, but the share market of China was at 3000 and just merely dropped to 2700.

*Something is fishy*

This leaves one to speculate that the Coronavirus is a bio-chemical weapon of China, which China used to carry out destruction in the world in order to gain economic supremacy.

China has now put this virus under control, maybe they also have the antidote/ vaccine that they are not sharing with the world ever or will do when it is in their best interest to do so.

*Something is fishy*

Hollywood stars, Australia’s Home Minister, Britain’s Prime Minister and Health Minister, Spain’s Prime Minister’s wife, Canada’s Prime Minister’s wife, and Britain’s Prince Charles, among others, have contracted the Coronavirus, but NOT A SINGLE POLITICAL LEADER IN CHINA, NOT A SINGLE MILITARY COMMANDER in China have tested positive for Coronavirus.

*SOMETHING IS FISHY!!!!

 

I don’t want to sound like a nut job conspiracy theorist, but these are some interesting thoughts to consider. I only post for your perusal and for you decide. I do believe our president has no love for China and doesn’t trust them at all. During his nightly briefings he sometimes finds it difficult to speak about China in a calm tone – that’s obvious to me. There probably is some shades of truth here, but will we ever know? I doubt it, but I suspect some of our folks know the truth.

 

 

 

Originally posted 2020-04-09 15:33:58.

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Orange Man Bad

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From The American Spectator

As late as March 11, Mayor Bill de Blasio was still telling New York City residents to carry on life as normal: “If you’re not sick, you should be going about your life.” Two days earlier, Italy had announced a national lock down to prevent the spread of coronavirus, and cases were already beginning to appear in New York, but de Blasio did not close the city’s schools until March 15.

Now that New York City has become the epicenter of this pandemic — more than 32,000 cases as of Sunday, with nearly 700 deaths — Mayor de Blasio’s response to the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak appears astonishingly irresponsible. Jim Geraghty of National Review has compiled a timeline of how New York City officials dealt with the crisis, and their recklessness seems mind boggling in hindsight. Early on, their main concern was that the virus might discourage city residents from attending Chinese New Year celebrations. “I want to remind everyone to enjoy the parade and not change any plans due to misinformation spreading about #coronavirus,” the city’s health commissioner Oxiris Barbot said in a Feb. 9 tweet, promoting festivities in Chinatown.

As idiotic as such declarations seem now, we must note that hindsight is always 20/20, and very few Americans in early February believed that we faced any great danger of this disease becoming rampant here. Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) have spent recent weeks blaming President Trump for this crisis, but it is important to point out that the same people were downplaying the coronavirus threat just a few weeks ago. Trump’s critics want us to forget, for example, that when the president announced a ban on travel from China on Jan. 31, many of them condemned this measure as a racist overreaction. “This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia — hysterical xenophobia — and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science,” Joe Biden said the day after the China travel ban was announced, while falsely claiming that Trump had made “draconian cuts” to federal health agencies.

At that time, the known worldwide death toll from the Wuhan virus was still less than 200, and, because the Chinese government had sought to suppress facts about the disease, the scope of the danger was not apparent. The liberal media weren’t sounding the alarm, but quite the opposite. The headline on a Jan. 28 BuzzFeed article advised Americans, “Don’t Worry About The Coronavirus. Worry About The Flu.” On Jan. 29, Farhad Manjoo published a column in the New York Times with the headline “Beware the Pandemic Panic.” Manjoo downplayed the danger of the virus and instead cautioned, “What worries me more than the new disease is that fear of a vague and terrifying new illness might spiral into panic, and that it might be used to justify unnecessarily severe limits on movement and on civil liberties, especially of racial and religious minorities around the world.” One thing we can never expect from elite journalists is accountability. Rather than admitting his own errors, Manjoo simply pivoted to blaming Trump: “Coronavirus Is What You Get When You Ignore Science” was the headline on his March 4 column, in which he asserted that the president had “gut the United States’ pandemic-response infrastructure.”

This is the “Orange Man Bad” theory of causation, where everything bad is ultimately Trump’s fault, and the proponents of this theory evidently can’t understand why it has cost them their credibility. When journalists insist on interpreting every event from a partisan perspective — “How can we spin this to hurt Trump?” — their errors follow a predictable pattern. Thus, at one point, the danger of coronavirus was Trump’s “xenophobia,” which threatened “racial and religious minorities.” Now, we are told, the problem is that Trump is “anti-science.” Last week, one New York Times columnist blamed “the science denialism of [Trump’s] ultraconservative religious allies” for the coronavirus pandemic. The “evidence” cited in such tendentious arguments is irrelevant; what matters to liberals is the conclusion, i.e., Trump is always wrong.

Because they imagine themselves infinitely superior to the rest of us, the journalistic elite think we don’t notice the methods by which they dishonestly manipulate the narrative. They believe we won’t notice, for example, how they ignore the bungling of Democrats like Mayor de Blasio. Nor are we expected to contrast the media’s alarmism over COVID-19 with the way they treated the swine flu (H1N1) pandemic of 2009–10. According to CDC estimates, about 60 million Americans were infected with swine flu, which caused more than a quarter-million hospitalizations and more than 12,000 deaths. Yet cable-news networks didn’t provide 24/7 coverage of the swine flu outbreak or blame President Obama for the spread of the disease, so why is the Chinese coronavirus such an emergency? Obvious answer: “Orange Man Bad!”

We might not resent this belated effort to blame this plague on Trump so much if Democrats and the media (again, I repeat myself) had spent January and February spreading the alarm about COVID-19. But for much of that period, Democrats and their media allies were consumed with impeaching the president over Ukraine, and when that anti-Trump crusade failed, their attention next turned to trying to stop Bernie Sanders from winning the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. It was not until early March — after Biden’s wins on Super Tuesday stopped the Sanders threat — that the coronavirus pandemic became the media’s obsession. It was March 6 that an MSNBC panel discussion hosted by Nicolle Wallace turned into a sort of pep rally for coronavirus, with the guests expressing the enthusiastic hope that the pandemic would become “Trump’s Katrina.”

Having made clear their intention of scapegoating the president for this virus from China, the media are now astonished that Americans aren’t buying their blame game. After polls showed Trump’s approval ratings had risen during this crisis, the networks decided to stop carrying live broadcasts of Trump’s coronavirus briefings. This is more evidence of media bias that we’re supposedly too stupid to notice, in the same way we’re not supposed to notice either (a) Joe Biden’s rapid descent into senility or (b) the media’s effort to promote New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo as a substitute presidential nominee for the Democrats.

So far, U.S. deaths from COVID-19 are still only a single-digit percentage of the more than 30,000 Americans who die annually from ordinary flu infections. As bad as the coronavirus outbreak is — and it’s likely to get much worse before it gets better — we must keep it in perspective. We must be able to distinguish between real risks from this disease and the politically motivated fear campaign being hyped by the media. Eventually, the coronavirus pandemic will end, but the media’s liberal bias is incurable. From now until November, the blame game will continue, and if Trump gets reelected, we’ll have another four years of the same shrieking journalistic hysteria: “Orange Man Bad!”

Epilogue. I have not posted anything on the virus attacking our country as I am sure you are getting enough from other areas since we are all at home doing our duty to help. But I just had to post this well written article from the American Spectator.  In doing so I  had to throw in some Bathurst thoughts. This virus has brought out the best AND THE WORST In my fellow Americans. New Orleans holds their Mardi Gras,  NYC Mayor tells everyone to go about thei business, Trump is called a racist for shutting off China flights, students defy logic and go on Spring Break,  Pelosi accuses Trump for lack of action, Sleepy Joe tells the Trump he needs to create a task force and put somone in charge of it, etc., etc., etc. It has been a lesson we didn’t need because we already knew it all. Now the MSM thinks Trump is getting too much air time so some are not covering the Daily briefings at all, while others are simply showing sound bites of their choosing. As far as I know, FOX is the only one who still covers the entire briefing.

GM had to be forced into stepping up, while 3M is (was) selling much needed medical supplies overseas – they were afraid it would hurt their reputation. WHAT? Meanwhile 100’s and 100’s of American companies have voluntarily stepped up to do their share. It’s a shame it takes something like a National Emergency to see who’s who and where their priorities lie. Some companies have been caught hoarding medical supplies, which were confiscated by the Government. Let us remember companies like GM and 3M when it comes to buying their products!

We shall prevail and get through this, but let’s not forget what it has told us about some of our so-called Americans!

Originally posted 2020-04-04 10:01:14.