Displaying posts published in

April 2020

The Ventilator Shortage That Wasn’t By Kyle Smith

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-crisis-ventilator-shortages-have-not-come-to-pass/

The ventilator shortages of which we were all gravely warned have not yet come to pass.

In March, one of the most feared aspects of the pandemic was the widely reported coming shortage of ventilators. One well-publicized estimate, repeated by the New York Times, the New Yorker and CNN, was that the U.S. would need roughly one million ventilators, or more than five times as many as we had. Gulp. Ventilators are expensive, they’re complex machines, and they can’t be churned out in the thousands overnight.

In the state that (as of today) has one-third of the country’s confirmed COVID-19 cases, New York governor Andrew Cuomo sounded the alarm for ventilators repeatedly. On March 27, he acknowledged “I don’t have a crystal ball” but said his state desperately needed 30,000 ventilators, maybe 40,000, but had only 12,000. When President Trump noted that Cuomo’s state had thousands of unused ventilators it hadn’t even placed yet, Cuomo admitted this was true but said he still needed more: “Yes, they’re in a stockpile because that’s where they’re supposed to be because we don’t need them yet. We need them for the apex,” Cuomo said at the time. On April 2, Cuomo predicted the state would run out of ventilators in six days “at the current burn rate.” But on April 6, Cuomo noted, “We’re ok, and we have some in reserve.”

Now New York appears to have passed the apex. Deaths, a lagging indicator, crested at 799 on April 9 and hit 606 on April 16, the lowest figure since April 6. Hospitalizations are also declining, and on April 16 also hit their lowest level since April 6. Cuomo today has so many ventilators he is giving them away:

Coronavirus: WHO Director Has a Long History of Cover-Ups by Soeren Kern

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15901/world-health-organization-cover-ups

“WHO officials have complained privately that Ethiopian officials are not telling the truth about these outbreaks. Testing for Vibrio cholerae bacteria, which cause cholera, is simple and takes less than two days…. United Nations officials said more aid could have been delivered to Ethiopia had the truth been told.” — The New York Times, May 13, 2017.

Tedros dismissed the accusations against him by playing the race card. He said that criticism of him stemmed from a “typical colonial mind-set aimed at… discrediting a candidate from a developing country.” — The New York Times, May 13, 2017.

“By yielding to the Khartoum’s regime’s threat, you are complicit in the failure to respond to a disease that currently threatens many hundreds of thousands of Sudanese civilians — and is currently active in twelve Sudanese states.” — Open letter to Tedros from a group of American physicians accusing him of failing to investigate outbreaks of cholera in Sudan, September 11, 2017.

A day after U.S. President Donald Trump accused the WHO of being “very China-centric,” and threatened to cut funding to WHO, Tedros responded: “Please quarantine politicizing COVID. We will have many body bags in front of us if we don’t behave.” Tedros also said that criticism of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic was motivated by racism.

The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, is facing increased scrutiny over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than two million people around the world and killed at least 150,000.

Adhanom, who goes by the name Tedros, is an Ethiopian microbiologist who, with the help of China, began a five-year term as head of the WHO in July 2017. He has been accused of misrepresenting the severity and spread of the coronavirus in an attempt to pander to China.

“Fascist Lit and Hungary’s Future” Who is József Nyírő? David Goldman

The old book arrived in a white envelope with the blue stamp of a Berlin antiquariat, like a leftover from hell’s rummage sale. I half expected its acidic paper and flimsy cardboard cover to reek of brimstone; they recalled the privation of 1942, when the Berlin publishing house of Hans von Hugo published a German translation of a novel by the minor Hungarian writer József Nyírő. Originally titled, Az en népem,” or My People, the German translator rendered it as Denn niemand trägt das Leben allein, a line from the 19th-century poet Friedrich Hölderlin: “For no-one bears life alone.” Hungary was Germany’s wartime ally, and its Second Army that year had suffered 84% casualties at the Battle of Stalingrad. And because my name has come up in l’affaire Nyírő, I consider it necessary to respond, but wanted some acquaintance with the man’s writing first.

If you’re new to the controversy currently surrounding Nyírő, here’s a very short summary: Along with Ferenc Herczeg and Albert Wass, Nyírő now appears on the required reading list for Hungarian high school students. His inclusion occasioned outrage among some Jewish observers, including professor Susan Rubin Suleiman, a longtime critic of Hungarian President Viktor Órban, who argued that Nyírő’s support of the fascist Arrow Cross party during the Second World War should disqualify him from ever appearing on the state curriculum. Hungarian State Secretary Zoltán Kovács responded to professor Suleiman, citing, among other things, my 2018 report from Budapest that named Hungary “the safest country for European Jew.” Secretary Kovács is entirely correct, and I stand by my article. For a better understanding of how Órban’s decision to refuse to accept a quota of Middle Eastern immigrants made life much safer for Hungarian Jews, just read Marc Weitzmann’s reports from France and see what price the Jewish community there paid for their nation’s decision to welcome in a torrent of Muslim migrants. Unlike Paris, Budapest is a fun and sometimes inspiring city for Jews. Órban meets weekly with his nation’s Orthodox rabbis, who hold him in high esteem.

What Is The Proof That This Covid-19 Thing Really Is A “Crisis,” Or That Economic Suppression Is The Solution? Francis Menton

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2020-4-15-what-is-the-proof-that-this-covid-19-thing-really-is-a-crisis

We are in the midst of an event that is completely unique in the history of our country, and as far as I can tell, in the history of the world: namely, the intentional suppression by governments (in the U.S., both federal and states) of a very large percentage of economic activity, in an effort to control a dangerous disease. There are estimates that the U.S. economy could decline by as much as 38% from its recent peak as a consequence of this great economic suppression. In a matter of just a few weeks, tens of millions of people, many of low to moderate income, have been suddenly thrown out of work; hundreds of thousands of businesses have closed, of which an unknown number may never be able to reopen; and trillions of dollars of value have been lost in the stock market.

Surely this kind of devastating government response would not be undertaken unless this disease represented a true crisis, and unless there was also solid evidence that the economic suppression would quickly end the crisis. But how do you distinguish what constitutes a “crisis” that warrants such a drastic response, versus something that is part of the normal and ongoing pain of human existence? And even if this is a bona fide crisis, why do we think that suppression of economic activity will improve the situation?

“What is a Person to Believe” Sydney Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

We are told we live in an era of science. Neil deGrasse Tyson wrote, “the good thing about science is that it’s true, whether or not you believe in it.” But is that really so? Does not science change as new evidence is gathered? Statisticians use models to justify their findings. Yet models are only as good as their inputs. The epidemiologists’ models we have seen regarding COVID-19 have changed markedly over the past few weeks. In mid-March, Imperial College in London predicted 2.2 million deaths in the U.S., with no mitigation. By the first of April, modelers at Oxford saw that number drop to a range of 100,000 to 240,000, with some mitigation. Now the estimate is 60,000. A University of Virginia model shows COVID-19 will peak this summer, while Health Metrics Evaluation at the University of Washington suggests the virus will “peter out” in May. Models make assumptions about, among other factors, human behavior, the measurement of which is an art? What is a person to believe?

If we are to base our beliefs about COVID-19 on the basis of “evidence,” it is unsurprising that confusion abounds. We presume, with strong reason, that it came from the city of Wuhan in Hubei Province, China, but whether from a live bat sold for human consumption at a wet market or the Wuhan Center for Disease Control has never been made clear. We are told coronavirus is highly contagious. Ten days ago, the Los Alamos National Laboratory published an article in which they claimed that the transmission rate for COVID-19 is between 4.7 and 6.6. For comparison purposes, the seasonal flu, the transmission rate is 1.3. (The transmission rate is also referred to as the regeneration rate, or the R0.) At the midpoint, 5.7, over ten rounds, one person could infect 36 million people. The chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centers for Disease Control in Beijing puts the transmission rate at between 1.0 and 5.0. At the midpoint of 2.5, and after ten rounds, one individual could infect 9,538 people.  Which are we to believe?

More Shoddy Hydroxychloroquine Journalism By David Harsanyi

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/more-shoddy-hydroxychloroquine-journalism/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=top-bar-latest&utm_term=first

Last week, I wrote about the stupidity of rooting against hydroxychloroquine simply because Donald Trump has mentioned that it holds some therapeutic promise in the fight against coronavirus. This NBC News piece by Heidi Przybyla is the kind of shoddy journalism to which I was referring:

A New York woman with coronavirus symptoms died last week after being prescribed a drug cocktail with known cardiac side effects, and family members say she was not tested for COVID-19 or for heart problems before receiving the medication.

The piece goes on to mention — twice — that Trump touted the drug, and notes that Media Matters says that Fox News touts the drug. But it offers no evidence that the woman’s death had anything to do with hydroxychloroquine.

Despite strongly suggesting that Trump had a hand in death of a defenseless 65-year-old woman, the reporter failed to speak to the physician who prescribed the drugs, or even to obtain additional confirmation about the cause of death.

Stanford study suggests coronavirus is more widespread than realized If SARS-Cov-2 is already endemic in the population, there is nothing we can do to stop it — but no great reason to try to stop it, either Ross Clark

https://spectator.us/stanford-study-suggests-coronavirus-more-widespread-realized/

Another day, and yet more evidence has appeared that could indicate the number of people who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19, might be vastly higher than official figures suggest. This time a Californian study suggests the figure in one county could be more than 50 times the number who knew they had had the virus.

A team from Stanford University and other colleges recruited volunteers in Santa Clara County via Facebook adverts and produced a sample of 3,000 representatives of the county as a whole. They were then invited for blood tests to detect the presence of antibodies to the virus. The result was positive in 1.5 percent of cases. Adjusting for age, gender and ethnicity the results suggest that 2.8 percent of people in the county had already had the virus. That might not seem many, but at the time of the study — on April 4 and 5 — only 1,094 people in the county were recorded as having the virus. The study suggests the real figure is between 48,000 and 81,000.

Like many studies which have been pre-published in order to aid understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic, the paper produced by the Stanford-led team has not yet been peer-reviewed. Moreover, it took place in a part of the United States where very few people have so far tested positive with the virus. It would be interesting to see the experiment repeated in New York City, where recorded infections are far higher.

Coronavirus Update: Encouraging Results for Treatment By Daniel Tenreiro

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/coronavirus-update-encouraging-results-for-treatment/

Yesterday, STAT News reported positive results for the antiviral medicine remdesivir. A clinical trial at the University of Chicago treated 125 patients with the drug, developed by pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences.  Of the 113 patients in severe condition, most were discharged, and only two died.

While the complete results of the trial have yet to be released, and the drug will still have to go through further studies, these results are an encouraging sign as policymakers plan to reopen the economy. Stocks rallied on the news.

The medical data from the U.S. has been mixed. While the number of new cases increased yesterday, the number of new deaths fell.

There is variation across states. In New York, daily deaths have been falling of late, whereas deaths in the rest of the country have increased. This heterogeneity accentuates the difficulty of coordinating a federal pandemic policy. The White House has published guidelines for states to reopen, including a sustained reduction in cases and robust testing and contact tracing. The reopening of the economy will be staggered as states assess their capacity to prevent further waves of infection.

While almost all the hardest-hit states have seen case growth fall to around 5 percent a day, the number is considerably higher in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Louisiana and Florida, which both appeared slated for massive outbreaks, seem to have avoided the worst.

However, testing has plateaued, which makes it difficult to gauge the actual number of cases. Until we have widespread testing, including serology tests for immunity, we won’t know how vulnerable the population is to further waves of infection.

Can We Talk About American Media’s Connections to Chinese Interests? Larry O’Connor Larry O’Connor

https://townhall.com/columnists/larryoconnor/2020/04/14/can-we-talk-about-american-medias-connections-to-chinese-interests-n2566887?utm_campaign=inarticle

Several weeks ago, we detailed how American mainstream media outlets were intent on parroting communist propaganda talking points coming from disinformation ministers in Beijing.

At first glance, it would be easy to write this disturbing surrender of journalistic integrity to advanced stages of Trump Derangement System. It would be reasonable to suspect that reporters, producers, anchors and editors held such an intense zeal to oppose, resist and damage President Trump that they’d even stoop so low as to hand their bylines over to propagandists supporting the totalitarian murderers at the top of the Red China food chain.

However, something even more disconcerting may be at work here.

Over at National Review, Jim Geraghty has assembled a disturbing and thorough timeline of the communist Chinese government’s complicity in the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus.

The story of the coronavirus pandemic is still being written. But at this early date, we can see all kinds of moments where different decisions could have lessened the severity of the outbreak we are currently enduring. You have probably heard variations of: “Chinese authorities denied that the virus could be transferred from human to human until it was too late.” What you have probably not heard is how emphatically, loudly, and repeatedly the Chinese government insisted human transmission was impossible, long after doctors in Wuhan had concluded human transmission was ongoing — and how the World Health Organization assented to that conclusion, despite the suspicions of other outside health experts.

It’s fantastic reporting and well worth your time when you’re finished reading this.

This is fantastic work by Jim, but why is he the one who put this together? Jim’s one of the best, don’t get me wrong, but he, like so many of us, works for a scrappy media outlet with limited resources. I mean, there are huge media companies in this country covering this story who have resources and reporters all around the world at their fingertips to assemble this data.

Why didn’t NBC News do this reporting? Or ABC News? Or CNN?

Walter Russell Mead Amid the Pandemic, Anti-Semitism Flares Up ‘This virus is surely an outcome of the Jews’ concealed hatred,’ writes a Jordanian journalist.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amid-the-pandemic-anti-semitism-flares-up-11586991224

The world’s newest disease has unleashed another wave of the world’s oldest hate. Difficult as it might be for the uninstructed mind to make a connection between a global pandemic originating in China and the Elders of Zion, the world’s anti-Semites have risen to the challenge.

Coşkun Başbuğ, a retired colonel who appears frequently on Turkish state television, shared his views about the coronavirus in an appearance on the A Haber television network. Apparently, the Jews who engineered this virus were following up on their earlier work with avian flu. The goal was the usual: global domination. Also in Turkey, Fatih Erbakan, head of a small Islamist party in Turkey and son of a former prime minister, declaimed that “this virus serves Zionism’s goals to decrease the number of people in the world and prevent it from increasing. Important investigations confirm this fact.”

It is not always clear how the plot is supposed to unfold. Some think reducing the world population ranks high on the “Jewish” agenda; others focus on the opportunities for insider trading that a shock like the coronavirus develops. A Jewish member of the Brazilian delegation that accompanied President Jair Bolsonaro to visit President Trump later tested positive for Covid-19. For some conspiracy theorists, this was enough to demonstrate a Jewish plot against Messrs. Bolsonaro and Trump.

Rasem Abidat, a columnist for the East Jerusalem-based Al-Quds newspaper, has a slightly contrasting view. Mr. Abidat, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, sees the virus as a joint U.S.-Israel strategy to attack China and Iran. “Faced with these dangers—an American loss of global military and economic hegemony and a threat to Israel’s existence,” he gravely opined, “Israel and the U.S. had no choice . . . but to resort to biological weapons, for the economic solutions and military options were unable to halt China’s advance and its economic takeover of the world.”