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April 2020

Correcting Recent U.S. Weekly Death Statistics for Incomplete Reporting by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2020/04/correcting-recent-u-s-weekly-death-statistics-for-incomplete-reporting/

I am seeing an increasing number of people on social media pointing to the weekly CDC death statistics which show a unusually low number of total deaths for this time of year, when one would expect the number to be increasing from COVID-19. But what most people don’t realize is that this is an artifact of the late arrival of death certificate data as gathered by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

This first came to my attention as a tweet by some researchers who were using the CDC weekly death data in a research paper pointing out the downturn in deaths in early 2020 and had to retract the paper because of the incomplete data problem. A disclaimer at the CDC website points out the incomplete nature of recent data. While they say that the new totals could be adjusted either upward or downward, it appears that the adjustments are almost always upward (i.e. recent data have a low bias in reported deaths).

As a first attempt to possibly correct for this under-reporting problem, I downloaded the data two weeks in a row (approximately March 30 and April 5, 2020) to examine how the recent data changes as new death certificate data are obtained. I realize this is only one week’s worth of changes, and each week would provide additional statistics. But the basic methodology could be applied with additional weeks of data added.

We Should Have Funded Research On Coronaviruses Instead Of Climate Change Musicals Henry I. Miller

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/04/07/we-should-have-funded-research-on-coronaviruses-instead-of-climate-change-musicals/

The COVID-19 pandemic, which is caused by a coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2, has killed more than 60,000 worldwide and completely disrupted normal life on most of the planet. Politicians would have us believe that it is an unprecedented, unanticipated, unpredictable bolt from the blue. Not true. The warning signs were ignored, and we were ill-prepared.

A review article in the American Society for Microbiology’s publication, Clinical Microbiology Reviews, entitled, “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus as an Agent of Emerging and Reemerging Infection,” concluded:

Coronaviruses are well known to undergo genetic recombination, which may lead to new genotypes and outbreaks. The presence of a large reservoir of SARS-CoV-like viruses in horseshoe bats, together with the culture of eating exotic mammals in southern China, is a time bomb. The possibility of the reemergence of SARS and other novel viruses from animals or laboratories and therefore the need for preparedness should not be ignored.

That review was published in 2007. (Yes – 13 years ago.)

Stop Comparing U.S. To South Korea On Coronavirus

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/04/07/stop-comparing-u-s-to-south-korea-on-coronavirus/

Democrats looking to blame President Donald Trump for every single coronavirus death in the U.S. — as well as the economic wreckage caused by the shutdown — keep pointing to South Korea as proof of his guilt. 

In his statement on the coronavirus, Joe Biden had this to say: “South Korea detected their first case of coronavirus on the same day we did, but they had tests and sophisticated tracing programs to stop the spread of the virus, so they didn’t have to put the entire country on lockdown.”

At a press conference last week, PBS White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor hit Trump with a question about testing rates in the U.S. versus South Korea.

“You’ve said several times that the United States has ramped up testing. But the United States is still not testing per capita as many people as other countries like South Korea. Why is that and when do you think that that number will be on par with other countries?”

The media eagerly jumped on Trump’s goof about there being 38 million people living in the capital of Seoul, which has a population of 10 million.

But they’ve all missed the bigger problem with this fixation on South Korea. The comparisons are utterly pointless. 

Yes, South Korea has had just over 10,000 confirmed cases and only 186 deaths. Whereas the U.S. has more than 363,000 cases and nearly 11,000 deaths.

But South Korea could hardly be more unlike the United States in almost every way. Its population is 16% of the U.S. population to start with. There are 16 million more people living in California and Texas alone than all of South Korea.

Cuomo suggests coronavirus deaths in New York could be hitting apex By Bernadette Hogan and Aaron Feis

https://nypost.com/2020/04/06/coronavirus-in-new-york-cuomo-suggests-deaths-may-be-at-apex/

Just under 600 more New Yorkers have died of the coronavirus, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday — a grim tally, but one that further suggests that contagion may have reached its apex in the state.

The contagion has now claimed 4,758 state residents, with 599 additional fatalities reported Monday, after 594 losses were logged Sunday and a record-high 630 on Saturday.

“The flattening — possible flattening — of the curve is better than the increases that we have seen,” said Cuomo in his daily Albany press briefing.

A total of 130,689 diagnoses have now been made in the state, a nearly five-digit rise from the 122,031 reported Sunday.

The governor first suggested on Sunday that the dreaded apex may be upon New York, as daily deaths dropped, though it remains to be seen just how long the rate will plateau before entering a sustained decline.

The Coronavirus Threat South of the Border Latin America isn’t ready for Covid-19. Infected migrants could flee to the U.S. By Walter Russell Mead

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-coronavirus-threat-south-of-the-border-11586214286?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

The Covid-19 pandemic has yet to strike Latin America and the Caribbean at full force, but the region’s fragile societies are already groaning under the stress. In Guayaquil, Ecuador, with hospitals and morgues overwhelmed, relatives have been storing the bodies of the deceased in their homes; some bodies lay unattended in the streets. That could be a sign of things to come; Latin America is almost completely unprepared for the multifaceted catastrophe now headed its way.

After decades of underinvestment in health systems, most of Latin America and the Caribbean are nowhere near ready for a pandemic. The region’s average annual health-care spending per capita is $949: less than one-fourth of average spending across the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and only two-thirds of the level in the Middle East and North Africa. The region’s health systems are already stretched beyond capacity to meet the needs of a “normal” year; going into the crisis, Mexico had fewer than 6,000 ventilators for a population of almost 130 million, and even relatively well-developed Costa Rica has less than half as many hospital beds per 1,000 people as the U.S.

Australia’s High Court Overturns Cardinal George Pell’s Convictions For Child Sexual Abuse By Mimi Nguyen Ly *****

https://www.theepochtimes.com/australias-high-court-overturns-cardinal-george-pells-convictions-for-child-sexual-abuse_3301141.html

Cardinal George Pell is to be released from prison after he won his appeal, and Australia’s highest court on Tuesday overturned his convictions for child sexual abuse.

A full bench of seven judges ruled that Pell’s conviction for child sex abuse should be overturned and he should walk free immediately. They unanimously determined that the jury should have had reasonable doubts as to Pell’s guilt and that the jury had not properly considered all the evidence at his trial.

Pell, 78, became the highest-ranking Catholic clergyman worldwide to be imprisoned for child sex offenses after he was arrested in 2018 for five counts of sexual assault.

Pell, who has always maintained his innocence, went to the High Court after having lost in the lower Court of Appeal in Victoria in August 2019, when a two to one majority dismissed his appeal.

Over two days in March, Pell’s latest and final appeal to the High Court was heard by seven justices. Many questions about the prosecution’s case were raised during the hearing.

Pell will leave Barwon Prison, near Victoria’s city of Geelong, after having spent more than 400 days there as part of a six-year prison sentence.

Dramatic Reduction in COVID-19 Disaster Projections By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/dramatic-reduction-in-covid-19-disaster-projections/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium

Readers who’ve been following along with me know I’ve been frustrated by the fuzziness of the coronavirus statistics. In particular, it is hard to nail down such crucial numbers as what a “confirmed case” is (e.g., is it a case of the virus or the potentially lethal disease caused by the virus?), and what counts as a “coronavirus death” (does it mean the virus or disease was merely present in the patient, that it played some contributory role in death, or that it was the proximate cause of death?).

I hope to have more on that soon. In the meantime, though, let me draw attention to a report by our Tobias Hoonhout that an influential model, on which the White House Coronavirus Task Force relies to project COVID-19 deaths and related statistics, has just been dramatically revised to lower its estimates. The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation now projects 12 percent fewer deaths (81,766, down from 93,531). While estimates about daily deaths in the peak period have actually increased, it is believed the peak may come somewhat earlier and be shorter in duration.

What is truly gripping is the sudden reduction, from a projection made just three days earlier, of the estimate of how many hospital beds that will be needed at peak. On April 2, IHME predicted 262,092; on April 5, that was reduced to 140,823. The estimated needs for ICU beds and invasive ventilators were also slashed.

Freeze Travel to and from Cuba By Jason I. Poblete

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/freeze-travel-to-and-from-cuba/

There are reasons to think that the coronavirus there is rampant. The Communist regime has a record of downplaying its public-health crises.

The actions of China’s Communist leaders concerning the coronavirus pandemic have, yet again, made abundantly clear that totalitarian regimes do not behave like responsible nations. Rather than share information promptly to avert a global health emergency, the “revolution,” or regime, puts itself before all else, regardless of how many human beings are infected or die.

Only when the ghastly reality of the Wuhan coronavirus could no longer be contained did Beijing’s leadership stop some of the censorship, shifting to propaganda, lies, and baseless attacks to deflect responsibility for the crisis. The Iranian regime has followed a similar pattern. So will Communist Cuba, as history has shown that it cannot be relied on for accurate and complete health data on pandemics or other urgent global health challenges.

Unlike China or Iran, however, Cuba is just a 45-minute flight away from the U.S. mainland. To safeguard the American people, it was essential for the U.S. to suspend all travel to and from Cuba. It appears from a tweet Thursday by the U.S. mission in Havana that the administration has implemented such a measure. It should also consider blocking entry to the U.S. for all foreign travelers who have visited the island within the previous 120 days. This suggested timeframe is based on estimates of the spread of the novel coronavirus and on statutory limitations concerning access to American ports by vessels that have been in Cuba. Once the health crisis subsides, the U.S. can reassess travel protocols based on verifiable measures, not Cuban-government rhetoric.

How to Make China Pay By John Yoo & Ivana Stradner

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/how-to-make-china-pay/

The WHO sells out to China, but we don’t have to.

One of the big questions facing the international community today is how to hold China legally and politically accountable for all its dishonesty and harm to people around the world. According to reports, U.S. intelligence agencies have confirmed to the White House that China has deliberately understated the number of its people who have contracted and died from the coronavirus epidemic. Such deceit follows Beijing’s recklessness in suppressing news of the origins, rapid spread, and lethality of COVID-19 in December and January. Chinese officials punished doctors who tried to warn of the outbreak in Wuhan, slowed identification and research on the virus, and allowed thousands to leave the region for the rest of the world.

If China were an individual, a company, or a law-abiding nation, it would be required to provide compensation for the harm it has inflicted globally. The United States alone may well suffer 200,000 or more deaths, billions in health-care costs, trillions in lost economic activity, and trillions more in new government spending. China’s failures render it legally liable under international law, but the COVID-19 crisis has exposed the crisis of ineffectiveness and corruption of international institutions. Instead of focusing on international law, the U.S. should thus protect its national interests by opting for the self-help mechanism.

International institutions provide no meaningful way to force China to remedy the harm it has caused. The United Nations Security Council, allegedly the supreme lawmaking and executive body in international law, cannot hold China to account because China and Russia exercise their permanent right to veto any Security Council resolution. China has rendered the U.N. impotent, even though U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has declared the COVID-19 pandemic the world’s most challenging crisis since World War II, as it has become a threat to international peace and security by shutting down swaths of the global economy and killing thousands, if not millions.

Coronavirus: The Looming Collapse of Europe’s Single Currency by Soeren Kern

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15856/coronavirus-euro-collapse

In Spain, which recently overtook Italy as the epicenter of the coronavirus in Europe, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez committed €200 billion — 20% of the country’s GDP — to alleviate the economic and social consequences of the pandemic. When asked how he would pay for that amount of spending, Sánchez replied that he was counting on financial help from “Europe.”

“The worst growth figure in France since 1945 was in 2009, after the great financial crisis of 2008: -2.2%. We will probably be far beyond -2.2% this year,” Le Maire told the Senate Economic Affairs Committee. “This shows the extent of the economic shock we are facing.” — French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, April 6, 2020

“Today, not a single European country is doing well, which means there is limited willingness for European countries to come to each other’s aid. They are busy dealing with their own crises. Just witness how Italy has been left alone with its crisis by Europe and now rather gets its medical support from China….” — Oliver Hartwich, Executive Director, The New Zealand Initiative, March 23, 2020

“An almighty economic earthquake is in the making. In a few weeks or months, several large European economies will require bailout and assistance packages. These will be several times larger than anything Europe has seen. Yet no country, central bank or institution will be eager or even able to provide them. Even the gargantuan sums on the table now will not be enough.” — Oliver Hartwich, Executive Director of The New Zealand Initiative, March 23, 2020

As the coronavirus unleashes economic shockwaves across Europe, the European single currency, the most visible symbol of European unification, is facing collapse.

The eurozone — a monetary union of 19 of the 27 Member States of the European Union that have adopted the euro as their common currency — is being buffeted not only by the prospect of a deep and long-lasting recession. Northern and Southern European countries are also feuding over possible financial support for Italy and Spain, the EU’s third- and fourth-largest economies, which have been especially hard hit by the coronavirus.

On March 13, European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde dismissed calls by Italy for financial assistance to help it cope with the pandemic. After her comments rattled financial markets, Lagarde quickly reversed course and said that the ECB was “fully committed to avoid any fragmentation in a difficult moment for the euro area.” Italian President Sergio Mattarella replied that Italy had a right to expect solidarity from beyond its borders rather than obstacles.