COVID-19 and propaganda

"Stay At Home. Save Lives."

At the American Thinker, Dex Bahr reminds us all that the propaganda never stops:

As we go through yet another week of Wuhan virus restriction in the United States, do you find yourself becoming annoyed at the daily sloganeering?  We see these messages on television, hear them on radio and flashed before us while driving.  I, for one, am beginning to tire of this "we're all in this together" claptrap, along with "flattening (or bending) the curve"; social distancing; and "stay safe, stay strong."  However, the one slogan that is most irritating is "stay at home...save lives."

Let's not forget that original reason for sheltering at home was to prevent hospital emergency rooms from becoming overrun by slowing the spread of the virus.  The mandate was never to save lives, but to slow the spread and by default prolong the extent of the virus.  Again, staying at home was for the purpose of lessening the burden on hospitals, not saving lives.

Read the rest here.

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The COVID-19 Crisis Un-masked

image credit: michiganradio.org

Today’s Must Read: “Well, That Unraveled Fast” by Jeffrey A. Tucker at the American Institute for Economic Research, which begins:

Thinking back to February 28, 2020, and the New England Journal of Medicine. It published an article called “Covid-19 — Navigating the Uncharted” signed by Anthony S. Fauci (THE Fauci), Clifford Lane, and Robert R. Redfield.  

It reported an existing COVID-19 case fatality rate of 2% but further pointed out that infections show “a wide spectrum of disease severity.” “If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%” or perhaps as high as the flu seasons of 1957 and 1968, but is nowhere near “a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.” To be sure, they said, mitigating the disease could require “isolating ill persons (including voluntary isolation at home), school closures, and telecommuting where possible.”

Now, what precisely happened between February 28 and two weeks later? This will be studied for many years to find out precisely how governors and mayors, through a series of unscientific, panicked, unjustified, and morally egregious actions, crushed under foot the world’s strongest economy while the media cheered. We’ll be discussing the whys and whats for a generation. 

The point is that it is all unraveling as fast as it came. 

. . .

In this case, it made the U.S Constitution and human rights generally null and void for a full thirty days. And we had no choice but to comply. It was a grotesque experiment in totalitarianism. Families ripped apart, people’s businesses and jobs destroyed, essential surgeries delayed, despair spread throughout society. 

Now we know. Never again. 

Mr. Tucker’s full article is here. 

# # #

The Coronavirus Scream

Matson cartoon credit: www.truthdig.com

Here are the official Coronavirus guidelines as seen on Facebook (satire, or is it?):

1. Basically, you can't leave the house for any reason, but if you have to, then you can.

2. Masks are useless, but maybe you have to wear one, it can save you, it is useless, but maybe it is mandatory as well.

3. Stores are closed, except those that are open.

4. You should not go to hospitals unless you have to go there. Same applies to doctors, you should only go there in case of emergency, provided you are not too sick.

5. This virus is deadly but still not too scary, except that sometimes it actually leads to a global disaster.

6. Gloves won't help, but they can still help.

7. Everyone needs to stay HOME, but it's important to GO OUT.

8. There is no shortage of groceries in the supermarket, but there are many things missing when you go there in the evening, but not in the morning. Sometimes.

9. The virus has no effect on children except those it affects.

10. Animals are not affected, but there is still a cat that tested positive in Belgium in February when no one had been tested, plus a few tigers here and there…

11. You will have many symptoms when you are sick, but you can also get sick without symptoms, have symptoms without being sick, or be contagious without having symptoms. Oh, my...

12. In order not to get sick, you have to eat well and exercise, but eat whatever you have on hand and it's better not to go out, well, but no…

13. It's better to get some fresh air, but you get looked at very wrong when you get some fresh air, and most importantly, you don't go to parks or walk. But don’t sit down, except that you can do that now if you are old, but not for too long or if you are pregnant (but not too old).

14. You can't go to retirement homes, but you have to take care of the elderly and bring food and medication.

15. If you are sick, you can't go out, but you can go to the pharmacy.

16. You can get restaurant food delivered to the house, which may have been prepared by people who didn't wear masks or gloves. But you have to have your groceries decontaminated outside for 3 hours. Pizza too?

17. Every disturbing article or disturbing interview starts with "I don't want to trigger panic, but…"

18. You can't see your older mother or grandmother, but you can take a taxi and meet an older taxi driver.

19. You can walk around with a friend but not with your family if they don't live under the same roof.

20. You are safe if you maintain the appropriate social distance, but you can’t go out with friends or strangers at the safe social distance.

21. The virus remains active on different surfaces for two hours, no, four, no, six, no, we didn't say hours, maybe days? But it takes a damp environment. Oh no, not necessarily.

22. The virus stays in the air - well no, or yes, maybe, especially in a closed room, in one hour a sick person can infect ten, so if it falls, all our children were already infected at school before it was closed. But remember, if you stay at the recommended social distance, however in certain circumstances you should maintain a greater distance, which, studies show, the virus can travel further, maybe.

23. We count the number of deaths but we don't know how many people are infected as we have only tested so far those who were "almost dead" to find out if that's what they will die of…

24. We have no treatment, except that there may be one that apparently is not dangerous unless you take too much (which is the case with all medications).

25. We should stay locked up until the virus disappears, but it will only disappear if we achieve collective immunity, so when it circulates… but we must no longer be locked up for that?

# # #

Sen. John Kennedy: open the US economy soon or it will collapse.

Sen. John Kennedy made such good sense on Tucker Carlson last night. Via FoxNews:

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told "Tucker Carlson Tonight" Wednesday that deciding when to reopen the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic is like choosing between "cancer and a heart attack."

"The American people are not morons. They understand what I'm about to say," Kennedy said Wednesday. "We've got to open this economy. If we don't, it's gonna collapse. And if the U.S. economy collapses, the world economy collapses. And trying to burn down the village to save it is foolish. That's our cold, hard truth."

Kennedy went on to say that most Americans know the virus is still spreading and understand it will spread faster whenever states and cities loosen their restrictions. As a result, he said, officials will have to be smart about the situation.

"Don't open up in the middle of a hot spot," Kennedy said. "Encourage your elderly and those with preexisting conditions to stay quarantined and provide them financial support. Wear masks, try to socially distance.

"Use technology without violating privacy to try to track the hot spots and track people who have been exposed," Kennedy said. "Test as much as we can. Make sure that we got health care capacity."

Kennedy also reacted to reports that Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is eyeing July as the target for an economic opening.

"He's talking about leaving the economy closed until July. Do you really believe the American people are going to stand for that? They're not," Kennedy said. "This economy is going to collapse."

It was important for Sen. Kennedy to point out that when the economy re-opens for business, new cases of the virus will increase. The supposed purpose of the shut-down was to postpone some of the infections so as to not overwhelm the healthcare system. Plenty of debate going on as to whether that was ever a viable strategy, or even whether that purpose is behind all this.  (Sundance has a good analysis of the ideological aspects in his coverage of the New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy's interview on Tucker Carlson here.  UPDATE: Here's another at Issues and Insights.)

And if you or someone you know contracts COVID-19 / Wuhan virus, you know to ask your doctor if you are a candidate for a hydroxychloroquine cocktail.  Here's a quick look at the risks of taking hydroxychloroquine. 

# # #

Who Will Get Blamed?

image credit: poynter.org

Who Will Get Blamed 

If Coronavirus Shutdown Turns Out To Be 

A Massive Overreaction?

The editorial at Issues and Insights asks the big questions:

As the Trump administration tries to figure out when to reopen the economy, and Democrats try to blame President Donald Trump for every coronavirus death, there’s another question lurking in the background. What if we learn that trillions of dollars in economic costs from the coronavirus shutdown bought us little or nothing in terms of public health?

As the disease progresses and our understanding of it increases, that possibility grows.

The editorial then expands on the following topics:

• Death projections were wildly exaggerated. 
• Reports of overwhelmed health care were exaggerated. 
• Death counts are likely inflated.
• The death rate is magnitudes lower than it appears.
• There are clear at-risk groups. 
• It’s not entirely clear how well isolation works.
• Ventilators might be causing deaths.

The editorial concludes:

We are the first to admit that, because this coronavirus is new and early signs about its lethality were worrisome, extra precaution was warranted as coronavirus spread. But not everyone was hitting the panic button, it’s just that voices of calm were ignored. If it turns out that the risks were far less dire, and the disease far more manageable without draconian restrictions, how will the public react? Who will they blame for needlessly crashing the economy?

We know who Democrats will blame, of course. But if the evidence shows that massive shutdowns weren’t needed, there must be a reckoning. And it should start with the public health “experts” who brought them about.

The full editorial is here.

RELATED:  At PJ Media, Dennis Prager came to the same conclusion (“Has The Lockdown Worked?).

# # #

Vote-by-mail and voter fraud

Glenn Reynolds posted this at Instapundit:

“Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.” That quote isn’t from President Trump, who criticized mail-in voting this week after Wisconsin Democrats tried and failed to change an election at the last minute into an exclusively mail-in affair. It’s the conclusion of the bipartisan 2005 report of the Commission on Federal Election Reform, chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker III.

Concerns about vote-buying have a long history in the U.S. They helped drive the move to the secret ballot, which U.S. states adopted between 1888 and 1950. Secret ballots made it harder for vote buyers to monitor which candidates sellers actually voted for. Vote-buying had been pervasive; my research with Larry Kenny at the University of Florida has found that voter turnout fell by about 8% to 12% after states adopted the secret ballot.

You wouldn’t know any of this listening to the media outcry over Mr. Trump’s remarks. “There is a lot of dishonesty going on with mail-in voting,” the president said Tuesday. In response, a CNN “fact check” declares that Mr. Trump “opened a new front in his campaign of lies about voter fraud.” A New York Times headline asserts: “Trump Is Pushing a False Argument on Vote-by-Mail Fraud.” Both claim that voter fraud is essentially nonexistent. The Carter-Baker report found otherwise.

Intimidation and vote buying were key concerns of the commission: “Citizens who vote at home, at nursing homes, at the workplace, or in church are more susceptible to pressure, overt and subtle, or to intimidation. Vote buying schemes are far more difficult to detect when citizens vote by mail.” The report provides examples, such as the 1997 Miami mayoral election that resulted in 36 arrests for absentee-ballot fraud. The election had to be rerun, and the result was reversed.

There are more recent cases, too. In 2017 an investigation of a Dallas City Council election found some 700 fraudulent mail-in ballots signed by the same witness using a fake name. The discovery left two council races in limbo, and the fraud was much larger than the vote differential in one of those races. The case resulted in a criminal conviction. . . .

It is often claimed that impossibly large numbers of people live at the same address. In 2016, 83 registered voters in San Pedro, Calif., received absentee ballots at the same small two-bedroom apartment. Prosecutors rarely pursue this type of case.

Mail-in voting is a throwback to the dark old days of vote-buying and fraud. Because of this, many countries don’t allow absentee ballots for citizens living in their country, including Norway and Mexico. Americans deserve a more trustworthy system.

The above extract is via Instapundit; the original article in the WSJ is behind a paywall.

And here’s an article by a reporter who demonstrated how easy it is to game the system: “Mail-in Ballots Make Voter Fraud Easy. I Know Because I Did It”.

Ohio voters had their Election Day cancelled, and voters had nothing to say about it. The most recent Cleveland Tea Party blog on this is here.

# # #

Happy Easter

# # #

Malkin: Social distancing: effective or futile?

As usual, Michelle Malkin hits the nail on the head:

Mandatory mass isolation (or at least the illusion of it) is an efficient way to instill hysteria and disrupt lives but a poor means of actually protecting the most vulnerable. Selective social distancing is a futile exercise in virus virtue signaling. 

Either we’re all in or we’re all out. You can’t attribute curve-flattening to “social distancing” if huge swaths of people never practiced it or opted out when convenient.

How long must we carry on the charade? Public health autocrat Anthony Fauci insists we must continue living like this until there are “no new cases” and “no new deaths” — and until a vaccine (which his control-freak pal Bill Gates is working overtime to foist on the world) is in place. This is nuts. The zero-cases/zero-deaths standard doesn’t exist for any other pandemic. We’re strangling ourselves in CAUTION tape, riddled with holes, for show. Pretense is a pointless cure worse than any infectious disease.

Read the entire column here. (Note: Link is to a new web address for Ms. Malkin).

# # #

Ohio cases of COVID-19: Amy Acton guessed wrong

Jeffrey C. Barefoot at the American Thinker blogsite reports:

On March 12, Amy Acton, director of the Ohio Department of Health, and Governor Mike DeWine told Ohioans that there were already 100,000 of us infected with the virus.  The next day, Amy clarified that this number was her "guesstimate." 

. . .

Yes, people in Ohio are getting infected.  Does infection mean automatic admission to the hospital?  Hardly, and numbers don't have to be guesstimated.  Of the 4,043 confirmed Ohio cases, only 27% (1,104) have required hospitalization.  So what percentage of Ohio's population have gotten the virus and required hospital admission?  Less than 1/100 of 1%.  Yes, but what if we haven't peaked?  Even if the hospitalization rate triples in two weeks, the percentage would be less than 3/100 of 1%.  For this, the lockdown has pushed 468,414 Ohioans on to welfare, slammed shut our small businesses and closed our churches for the highest Holy Week of the year.

Amy Acton guessed wrong.  The guess has damaged many lives.  Reason and prudence require an immediate adjustment to Ohio's lockdown. 

Full article is here.  

Contact Gov. Mike DeWine: (614) 644-4357 or by email here

https://governor.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/governor/contact

# # #

Power grab

Cartoon by Pat Cross at Townhall:

# # #

Doctors and Doctored Numbers

image credit: powertaylor.com

At American Greatness, Conrad Black zeroes in on why this lock-down is due to both misdiagnoses (e.g., on the projected fatality rate of COVID-19) and bureaucratic over-reach:

the number of “confirmed cases”—meaning cases that have come to the attention of the medical profession—tells us nothing about the number of people infected. Nor does that number tell us what happens to the gamut of those infected. Nor is the number of deaths “hard,” because it does not distinguish between those who die of the virus and those who die merely with it (that is, they might have died even without it).

. . .

The most important fact about COVID-19, its true mortality rate, is the number who die of the virus divided by the number infected by it. No algorithms. Simple arithmetic.

In short, [Dr. Anthony] Fauci, et al., are showing themselves to be typical of our bureaucracy: over-credentialed, entrusted with too much power, and dangerously incompetent.

Learning the true figures about precisely what danger the virus poses to whom must begin by taking into account one thing we know for sure about COVID-19: that many, if not most, of those infected by this unusually contagious virus show few or no symptoms. This suggests eventual near-universal contagion.

. . .

Fauci showed how thoroughly he and his cohorts have subordinated common sense to bureaucratic authority. Having strenuously campaigned to deny the usefulness of hydroxychloroquine, having been confronted by the fact that physicians on the front lines of the battle against the virus are using it themselves, and having been asked whether he—were he to come down with illness from the virus—would use it, he weakly conceded that he would but only as part of an approved study. He cared less about describing what the drug can do and cannot do than about affirming his agency’s and the FDA’s prerogatives.

Backed by the media, Fauci and company have contended that actions by anybody, ordinary citizens, elected officials, or physicians that do not follow proper bureaucratic procedures are illegitimate. Who the hell do they think they are? We belong to ourselves. Not to them.

Black's article is here.

But maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  Headline at Breitbart:  

Donald Trump Thinking of 2nd Coronavirus Task Force 

Focused on Reopening Country

# # #

No in-person primary voting for you

Unless you are homeless or disabled, there will be no in-person primary voting for you. (See our previous blogpost here.)  Cleveland.com reports that a judge has upheld the changes to the election timetable and method of voting – mostly by mail.  Not good news, but here it:

A federal judge on Friday declined to step in and change a plan Ohio lawmakers unanimously approved to alter the state’s primary election, which will now be held almost solely by mail through April 28 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

U.S. District Judge Michael Watson ruled that a coalition of voting-rights groups that filed suit Monday over the Ohio legislature’s plan did not show that the rights of residents would be disenfranchised enough to override the law.

Even if the plan, named House Bill 197, isn’t perfect, that’s not enough to intervene, the judge wrote in his 27-page opinion.

“The Constitution does not require the best plan, just a lawful one,” wrote Watson, whose courtroom is in Columbus. “. . .

. . .

. . . He said the state is not in violation of the National Voting Rights Act.

Here’s one part I find particularly objectionable:

[Watson] said voters had many chances to vote either at boards of elections or by mail prior to the original primary date.

Voters who planned to vote on Election Day at their polling place are penalized for not voting early.

Read the rest of the report here.

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Ramirez: Rosie the Registered Nurse

Michael P. Ramirez, political cartoonist extraordinaire, published this one at Issues and Insights:

Following up on Mr. Ramirez’s theme: One of our neighborhood bistros, Lago East Bank, just announced a community support program to show appreciation for those on the front lines: e.g., healthcare providers & support medical personnel, law enforcement and safety personnel, sanitation workers, and so on.  The restaurant seeks contributions from its patrons, and then directs those contributions to underwrite meals for “essential employees” on the front lines.  So the employees receive free meals and our thanks, and the restaurant gets some much-needed business during the shut-down.  If there’s a favorite restaurant in your neighborhood that is offering take-away and carry-out during the Wuhan Virus crisis, consider sharing this idea with them.

# # #

Alert: You can vote only by mail now

art credit: cedarhills.org

Yesterday, I went to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections website; I wanted to double-check the rescheduled date when voters could go to their respective polling places to mark their ballots.  The date I marked on my calendar was June 2.  That date was not on the website, so I planned to phone the BoE today.  No need.  Susan Daniels at American Thinker is a few steps ahead of me:

The residents of Ohio are getting screwed.  They have not been informed that voting day has been moved up from June 2 to April 28.  No notice from the county to anyone and nothing in the media.

The primary election in Ohio was set for March 10, 2020.  Then someone in Columbus, without explanation, changed the date to March 17, St. Patrick's Day.  [Note: some of the comments at the link at Lucianne raise questions about the accuracy of this sequence. -D]  The cynical among us believe that the hope was that fewer voters would turn out that day, with the Cleveland parade and all, which of course was canceled for the first time in 178 years.

Except that lifelong politician and governor Mike DeWine canceled elections at 3:30 A.M. on the 17th itself.  He had gone to court earlier that day to try to stop the primary.  DeWine said he would go along with the judge's decision.  The judge said "no," and all of a sudden, the judge's decision was unimportant.

It took DeWine's cronies until 3:30 A.M. to get four Ohio Supreme Court judges to agree by phone to call off voting.  (Was that even legal?)  DeWine set the new date as June 2.  Then on March 25, the General Assembly passed H.B. 197, resetting the date to April 28, 2020.

If you have not voted early, residents are no longer allowed to go to the Geauga Board of Elections (BOE), where I live, but instead have to follow a complicated procedure, which I learned about by accident.  The county has not informed the voters; the media have never mentioned it.

You can vote only by mail now.  But before you can vote, you first have to get an application (mailed or faxed to you) to apply for a ballot.  You then fill out that application, and it must be mailed to the BOE.  Then they will mail you a ballot.  After you fill out your ballot, it then must be mailed back to the BOE.  And all this has to be done in less than a month.  What could possibly go wrong?

And where are all the votes that were already cast being securely kept?

Ms. Daniels is right to ask if any of this is even legal.  In essence, Ohio voters have been deprived of their right to vote at their polling place on Election Day. The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections website confirms:  “No in-person voting at polling locations.” 

To request your ballot by mail, go to your Board of Election website; click here for the Ohio directory.  

UPDATE 1:55pm:  Cleveland.com headline

Ohio Secretary of State preparing to mail 

vote-by-mail instructions for state’s delayed primary

# # #

Time for a Second Opinion

William J. Bennett and Seth Leibsohn at Real Clear Politics have a better prescription (h/t Instapundit):

We are trying to stave off and arrest a pandemic. Given what is being recommended, we think we need some second or third opinions. This pandemic, now that it has reached America, has taken 3,173 lives here.  This, from a tested population of 164,359 cases. That’s a mortality rate of 1.9%.  But immediately, questions must be asked. We record every case of death from the coronavirus, but we have no idea how many people have had the coronavirus. Clearly, there are more than 164,359 cases because not everyone has been tested. That would put the mortality rate at less than 1.9%. That rate could be far, far less. 

. . .

We truly are shutting down America and harming a great many Americans, based on the worst fears that have not been true and are not on the horizon.  We are scaring the hell out of the citizenry.  A few additional statistics help counsel a lowering of our national temperature:  The vast majority of deaths from the virus are of people over the age of 70 with underlying frailties.  The focus on New York where, of course, most of the media is based, is also flooding and distorting the picture for the rest of the country. Of course we need to pay attention to ground zero, which is New York.  But what happens there is not what is happening everywhere. 

Read the rest here.

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A chuckle from BookwormRoom:

A chuckle from BookwormRoom: 

# # #

Encouraging updates on COVID-19

From William Noel at American Thinker (“The Wuhan Virus is Turning Into a Wimp”):

As we learn more about the COVID-19 Wuhan virus each day, it is becoming increasingly obvious that it isn’t the great threat to our health and survival we were initially led to believe. . . .

This isn’t to say the Wuhan virus cannot kill, because it is the nature of viruses to attack where they find weakness, multiply to overwhelm bodily defenses and ultimately kill the host. While that is happening in some cases, evidence is growing that it isn’t nearly as deadly as we were made to fear. Along with much lower death rates, there is growing anecdotal evidence that the people who tested positive and then died were victims of multiple conditions and it wasn’t the COVID-19 virus but a synergy of the multiple attackers that killed them.

Daniel Horowitz at the Conservative Review has more reasons for optimism:

If some of the pneumonia cases and deaths earlier this year were from coronavirus, that would mean that the death rate is much lower than predicted. Even the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was the ultimate petri dish of recycled air circulating an infection, with an elderly population, experienced a 1.25% fatality rate. New York, which seems to be, by far, the worst hot spot now, has a mortality rate hovering between 0.75% and 0.80%, and it is going down as they test more cases. That compares to 1.2% nationwide, which helps show that wherever we test and identify the virus, the numbers go way up, but the mortality goes down.

And Clarice Feldman at American Thinker (after quoting Mr. Horowitz) concludes:

There seems little sound basis for a countrywide lockdown as better data becomes available. Yes, special protection must still be in place for the elderly and immune suppressed, and we must continue to practice good hygiene, and yes, all available personnel and supplies must go to those areas hardest hit, . . . I firmly believe we need to get back to more normal commercial activity in most of the country as soon as possible, and no later than Easter, or the consequences to the nation’s health and well-being will be worse than that of the virus.

So, the Wuhan virus is highly contagious but not as lethal as the scaremongers have proposed.  And treatments including the hard-to-pronounce drugs hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin are proving effective. All good news.

# # #

coronavirus: treatment options

Ruth Papazian is “a Bronx-based health and medical writer, and a political junkie.”    She reports on the medical options available to those diagnosed with COVID-19, a/k/a  Wuhan virus, in a report at American Greatness titled “Fauci’s Folly.” Here’s a brief extract:

. . . a clinician’s job is to save lives. And in the midst of a burgeoning global pandemic when speed is of the essence, field experience with two drugs whose safety profiles are well understood suffices to treat patients who are likely to die. For this reason, the FDA-approved chloroquine and remdesivir, an Ebola treatment, for “compassionate use.” Both drugs can be administered immediately to patients who have serious or life-threatening cases of coronavirus.

The combination of HCQ+AZ could cause abnormal heart rhythms and would not be given to patients with known atrial flutter or atrial fibrillation. Research suggests one alternative for these patients: The combination of chloroquine and zinc, which can stop the virus from replicating.

Read the entire article here. If you or someone you know tests positive for COVID-19, this information would be extremely useful to take to the doctor’s office or hospital.  Ms. Papazian does not have a high opinion of Dr. Anthony Fauci.

# # #

Is Gov. Mike DeWine a pessimist?

photo credit: businessinsider.com

President Trump has been suggesting that the various restrictions recommended to slow the spread of the coronavirus could be lifted as early as Easter (April 12).  He has referenced the economic health of the US, and the other day I quoted Mike Rowe:

. . .we’re treating a virus that MIGHT have devastating consequences, in a way that will GUARANTEE devastating consequences.

. . .

. . . I also know that Safety First is no way to live indefinitely. We are at base, a Safety Third nation. We can’t remain in the air raid shelter indefinitely – if we do, they’ll be no country left, when we finally emerge.

In response to Trump’s optimism and intention to balance the health of people with the financial health (and security) of the country, the markets started to rebound. 

Cleveland.com reported yesterday:

Gov. Mike DeWine also insisted he wasn’t that far apart from President Donald Trump on their approach to the coronavirus. Trump wants America to get back to business around Easter, about two weeks from now. 

But now The Hill reports that 

Democratic and Republican governors, as well as local officials, are pushing back against President Trump’s signals that he wants to restart the economy by Easter, warning that ending strict social distancing practices could put millions of lives at risk.

Governors have ordered residents to practice those distancing procedures, to varying degrees. Many have ordered residents to stay at home, ordered nonessential businesses closed and banned gatherings of all but a few people.

And several say they will keep those orders in place even if Trump rolls back the few national restrictions he has put in place.

Among those governors is Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine:

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) said “people are dying and people don’t feel safe,” therefore the economy would not come back.

“We have to #FlattenTheCurve so that when the wave comes, it’s not as big as it would have been and we are prepared for it. We are going to get our economy back, but we have to get through it, protect as many lives as we can, and then move forward. I’m looking forward to that day, but it’s not here yet,” DeWine tweeted.

Meantime, we’ve been to the grocery store, been patronizing our local bistros by ordering take-out, comparing notes with family and friends, etc.  So far, everyone we’ve talked to is looking forward to getting back to normal.  They're concerned but not scared.  We’re optimistic.

# # #

Mike Rowe on the coronavirus quarantines

photo credit: cnn.com 

Mike Rowe of “Dirty Jobs” fame has a FB post that offers his usual commonsense take on the ongoing quarantines. Here’s an extract:

According to Dr. Ioannidis, we’re treating a virus that MIGHT have devastating consequences, in a way that will GUARANTEE devastating consequences.

Personally, as an avowed non-expert with a large Facebook following, I do think a temporary shutdown makes sense, while we gather more information and answer some pressing questions. Who exactly does this affect? How exactly is it passed? Can you develop an immunity? Does it mutate and if so, how often? And of course, it's worth repeating that the lockdown won’t work unless everyone participates, which is easier to do in Wuhan than it is during Spring Break in this country. 

Consequently, people are arguing over which is worse - hundreds of thousands of dead Americans, or another Great Depression. Unfortunately, I think that misses the point. I think the worst-case scenario, is both.

Consider this from Dr. Michael Osterholm, who’s quickly becoming one of the most respected voices in this space.

“This is not going to be like a blizzard,” he said, “this is a “coronavirus winter. It will last for months and months. A lot of people have made a decision to cancel events, large meetings, schools, etc., but what they haven't thought about is what it means if they make the decision to do this now. Tens of thousands of healthcare workers have kids in school. What will that do to their ability to care for the sick? Who will watch their kids?”

Remember, this is the man whose been telling us for years exactly what’s coming. And he’s been right at every turn. But he’s also telling us that shutting down the whole country for long periods of time is not the answer.

. . .

. . . I also know that Safety First is no way to live indefinitely. We are at base, a Safety Third nation. We can’t remain in the air raid shelter indefinitely – if we do, there’ll be no country left, when we finally emerge.

Full posting is here.

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Panic over a cold?

cartoon credit: depositphotos.com

Mike Konrad at American Thinker asks some good questions:

Is Western civilization going to collapse over a cold?

. . .

Is COVID-19 a bit worse than most coronavirus strains?  Maybe so.  But it looks to still be a variation on a cold.

The real question is, why is the world panicking so?

With the common flu killing 18,000 annually, why are we panicking over these much smaller numbers from the coronavirus?  Worse yet, why is this panic worldwide?

I may be wrong, but this global panic seems to have been engineered.  For a number of reasons:

A) To get rid of Trump

... Democrats 'hoping' to 'destroy Trump and the economy' as coronavirus spreads

B) To get rid of cash

. . . Fungible currency is one of the last arenas of personal autonomy.

. . .

C) To get people used to infringements on civil liberties

. . .

And a frightening precedent will have been set up to enforce totalitarian measures for the slightest of reasons — in this case, a common cold with an attitude.

If this is not a global conspiracy, it sure looks like a dress rehearsal for a global dictatorship. 

The complete article is here.

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