RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/04/08/how_the_wuhan_virus_will_change_the_world_order_142886.html

The horrific spread of COVID-19 has filled hospitals and graveyards, shut down the global economy, and exposed deep fissures among nations. The international problems, such China’s rising threat and reliance on foreign sources for critical supplies, are not new. But the contagion puts them in sharp relief and will surely affect relationships going forward.

Most changes won’t come until the crisis passes. Right now, policymakers are preoccupied with life-and-death decisions. They don’t want to challenge Beijing while they need its medical supplies and data. They also want to see if it will fulfill its promises in the Phase I trade deal or cheat, again. But make no mistake, changes are coming.

The biggest will involve China. The pandemic not only originated there, it spread because of how China is governed. The Chinese Communist Party, like all dictatorships, maintains tight control over information. It gives out only what helps the regime, hides whatever hurts it, spews propaganda, and cracks down on anyone who speaks out of turn. The Wuhan doctors who first sounded the alarm bells were immediately silenced. Science labs, which decoded the viral structure, were shut down and their data destroyed. China still won’t share vital information about how the virus works and how it affects different populations. Reporters, both professional and amateur, who mentioned the pandemic were suppressed. Some international reporters were expelled. Some locals have not been seen again.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/04/coming-war-between-generations-bruce-thornton/

Short-term thinking has been the bane of democracies since ancient Athens. Regularly scheduled elections and term-limits make it politically expedient, if not mandatory, for politicians to gratify the people’s desires, or assuage their present fears, even if the action or policy creates greater risks later. As Tocqueville wrote, “A clear perception of the future founded on judgment and experience” is “frequently wanting in democracies.” The dangers and discomforts of the present will trump the greater ones of the future.

The current pandemic crisis illustrates this perennial flaw, which hasn’t been mitigated by our greater knowledge of diseases and remedies for them. In the case of the Wuhan virus, we don’t have the requisite data to establish its mortality rate among the infected, or even the number of infected. The various models that project a mortality rate have exaggerated the toll: At this point the number of dead is a few hundred more than the 7400 of Americans who die every day, and much less than the 24,000 to 64,000 who died of the flu this season. Yet most states, seconded by the president’s recommendations, have imposed a radical social-distancing policy, which the president has extended to the end of April.

As a consequence, our economy has taken a historic hit, with 10 million employees laid off and thousands of businesses both big and small (the latter comprise nearly half the private workforce) shuttered. Goldman-Sachs projects GDP to shrink 35% this summer, and others estimate unemployment may reach the 25% recorded during the Great Depression. A booming economy has been stalled as a matter of policy, with consequences such as a significant recession or even a depression, the malign effects of which––depression, divorce, addiction, suicide–– will continue to seriously damage the lives of millions for the foreseeable future.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2020/04/medicines-mitigation-and-money/

This is a “viral” post in three parts: Treatment, mitigation and the economic aftermath. First to treatments for the virus – not a vaccine, which will take too long (if it is ever produced).

Treatment: While other anti-viral treatments are being tested, there is increasing anecdotal evidence from epidemiologists and doctors treating patients that hydroxychloroquine (the safe anti-malaria drug) is effective both as a prophylactic and, combined with the antibiotic azithromycin, as a treatment for those with the disease. Many doctors in numbers of countries are apparently using it on themselves and for treating their patients. Among the states in America, I understand that only New York State has been restricting its use to tackle the virus to within hospitals.

Clinical trials are underway, but as Dr Fauci — one of the two principal public-health officials advising Trump — said, they would take months to complete. Months is too long if people are unnecessarily suffering and dying. In the meantime, the economy goes on tanking. As is commonly said, you have to go to war with what you have not with what you would like to have.

No, I am not a medical doctor. All I am saying is that if I were to catch a serious dose of the disease, I will be asking for the above treatment ahead of Dr Fauci’s clinical trials. And loudly, if I am able.

https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2020/04/62065/

Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.

Nicholas A. Christakis, MD, PhD, MPH, is a sociologist and physician who conducts research in the areas of social networks and biosocial science. He directs the Human Nature Lab.

This is a fundamental human experience that we’re having. Plagues have been described for a very long time. It’s just that we ourselves are not used to having it. I would happily stay at home for three months if it meant that my neighbors are not going to die. 

This interview is adapted from the Webinar conversation “Pandemic! What Do and Don’t We Know? Robert P. George in Conversation with Nicholas A. Christakis.”

Robert George: Could you begin by giving us a summary of what we know from the past about pandemics?

Nicholas Christakis: We’re experiencing something that’s very unusual in the history and life of our species: the introduction of a new pathogen that has entered our species and will circulate widely among us. As near as we can tell, this coronavirus bears a strong similarity to viruses that had been circulating in bats. It’s a bit odd that bat viruses so often cause us problems. There’s been some speculation that their immune system is very similar to ours. The virus first adapted to being transmissible in bats, and by some time in November in the Wuhan region of China was pre-adapted to the human immune system. By December, there were many people getting sick and dying in Wuhan by means we still don’t fully understand.

https://worldisraelnews.com/us-group-offers-the-unapologetic-zionists-haggadah/

“Our fervent hope is that through this unique compilation readers will be provided a respite from worries about coronavirus,” said the group’s director.

By World Israel News Staff

Herut, a leading American Zionist organization, is offering “The Unapologetic Zionist’s Haggadah” for Passover. The new anthology includes classic, hard-to-find essays by founding fathers of Zionism, including Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky and Dr. Israel Eldad.

“This Passover booklet is titled M’Avdut L’Herut, From Slavery to Freedom and we created it at this time because Jabotinsky’s brand of Zionist optimism is needed precisely in these dark days of pandemic,” said Karma Feinstein Cohen, the Executive Director of Herut North America.

“Our fervent hope is that through this unique compilation readers will be provided a respite from worries about coronavirus by the Passover thoughts we have included from the world of Revisionist Zionism, old and new.”

The 20-page PDF booklet also contains recent articles that are included with the intention of increasing understanding of the Seder and the overall holiday.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/06/trump-campaign-donates-meals-to-hospitals/

The Trump campaign has been anonymously donating thousands of meals to hospitals to thank frontline staff during the coronavirus outbreak, according to Fox News. 

Since last week, the president’s reelection campaign “has been calling local restaurants and ordering large amounts of food to be sent to hospitals across the country, including in the pandemic hot spots of New York, New Jersey, Washington state, and Michigan.” The campaign has been placing these orders anonymously, Fox News learned.

“They’re doing it as a donor who cares,” one source told Fox News. “So nothing politically is tied to it. … We’re just trying to, you know, show a thank you.”

Another source said, “They’re trying to send things that are like, local restaurants that may need support [and] cool restaurant icons of the area that may need the business.”

The source told Fox News that the campaign has spent tens of thousands of dollars and they plan to expand in the coming days and weeks.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/04/tocquevilles-lessons-in-a-time-of-pandemic/

As the crisis continues, and in the aftermath, the activity of the citizens that Alexis de Tocqueville described so well in his book must always include assessing how well their local and state governments have prepared for ordinary and extraordinary events.

The immediate challenge of COVID-19 has been cast as an examination of how individual Americans will fare should they be exposed to the virus. The effort to arrest the spread of the virus has brought unprecedented changes in the daily routines of all Americans. The limitation of activity is apparent when one walks outside. There is a marked silence, regardless of the time of day, almost eerie, that gives one pause.

The check on movement is accompanied by images of field hospitals and graphs showing curves and spreads displayed across news sites. While many are changing their daily routines to comply with the requirements of staying at home and practicing social distancing, a broader concern is the effect on our American democratic foundation.

Alexis de Tocqueville devotes a chapter of his great work, Democracy in America, to discussing the advantages of American democracy. Each of the five parts in the chapter “What Are the Real Advantages That American Society Gains from the Government of Democracy?” encourages thoughtful reflection. The last part, “Activity That Reigns in All Parts of the Political Body in the United States; Influence That It Exercises on Society,” prompts us to think about both the negative and positive effects that the country is facing with respect to halting the exchange between people and their movement.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/04/what-a-year-the-coronavirus-crisis-in-retrospect/

December 31, 2020. What a roller-coaster of a year it has been.

In January, congressional Democrats were busy trying to impeach the president of the United States. That same month, news of a new, highly contagious virus leaked out of China and began to circulate in the West. The stock market stumbled, then recovered and went on to new heights, flirting with the magic number 30,000. Unemployment was at historic lows.

Then more worrying news about the virus emerged from China. It was difficult to wrest the facts from the secretive Communist Party. At the end of January, President Trump suspended all flights from China, a decision for which he was roundly condemned as “racist” and “xenophobic.”

It was not until March that the narrative shifted. In January, Trump had overreacted. By mid-March, he was accused of under-reacting. For weeks on end, there was only one subject: coronavirus, the “Wuhan virus,” the CCP flu.

It seems long ago now, but the dual onslaught of the new coronavirus and the resulting economic meltdown turned the world upside down.

For a brief period, hysteria reigned. The stock market plunged by thousands of points, erasing trillions of dollars of wealth. Whole states went into virtual lockdown. People started parading about—to the extent that they went out at all—in latex gloves and medical masks. All businesses deemed “non-essential” were shuttered for weeks. Many schools and colleges closed, first for weeks, then for the rest of the semester.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/04/covid19_has_seen_america_develop_a_dangerous_expertocracy.html

People are beginning to realize that the experts have been wrong about a lot of things when it comes to COVID-19. This is due in part to the ever-changing knowledge we’re acquiring about the disease. It’s a good thing that the experts can adjust their ideas as they acquire new evidence. The problem, though, is that we are allowing medicine and science experts to make vast, unquestioned policy decisions, and that’s a perilous thing to do.

Ever since the early Progressives, back at the turn of the 20th century, Americans, especially Democrats, have had a reverence for expertise. Woodrow Wilson, who was the leader of American Progressivism, was already dreaming of rule by experts when he was still a Bryn Mawr College professor.

In 1887, Wilson wrote a far-reaching paper dismissing the Constitution as defective (too much power for the people) and, instead, called for a bureaucracy of experts to run the country. America’s rising middle-class fell in love with the idea and has been in love with it ever since. Nowadays, we look to experts in everything, including raising our own children — and we do this despite the conflicting information they give and the daily proof that, the more theoretical the subject, the more often they are wrong (and wrong in ways that run profoundly contrary to common sense).

https://www.breitbart.com/border/2020/04/04/common-anti-parasite-drug-may-kill-coronavirus-in-under-48-hours-say-researchers/

Researchers in Australia report that Ivermectin, an FDA-approved drug commonly used to treat parasites, appears to be effective in treating the SARS-COV-2 coronavirus (COVID-19). The drug is widely available and can be “repurposed” for this application, doctors said.

The ScienceDirect journal, Antiviral Research, published an article by a group of Australian researchers from Monash University in Melbourne reporting that Ivermectin appears to be effective at inhibiting the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

The article states:

Ivermectin is an inhibitor of the COVID-19 causative virus (SARS-CoV-2) in vitro.