Monday - May 11, 2020

the usual virus crap

Norway, oh Norway !! Norway takes a staged approach to reopening the country. Why not? There aren’t even half as many cases in the whole nation as there are in little Bergen County NJ.

Oh just bloody wonderful. Now COVID can be an STD as well??

File this one under “No Kidding”: The Wu Flu may have been around in October.

Totally related: October? How about October 6th or 7th, when something seems to have happened at a certain bio lab in some place called Wuhan.

Yeah but China says ... : First official case dates to November 17, 2019.

Putin ain’t gonna like this! Russia now #3 in cases as numbers spike.
Are more Russian doctors going to fall out of windows because of this?

Oh joy, it’s dark as heck outside and pouring rain. We had our 2 hours of sun this week, so we now return to the usual dark wet and gloomy.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/11/2020 at 12:51 PM   
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   Sunday - May 10, 2020

chewing the numbers, again

As time goes by, more and more data about the COVID virus becomes available.

And more and more, it looks to me like we’ve been conned.

Pray for the people at nursing homes, veterans retirement homes, mental hospitals, and development centers. They are the ones who are sick and dying, far more than their small part of the population.

My little country of Hunterdon is now the 3rd least infected county in the state. 1st and 2nd place are two counties down at the south end of the state that are pretty much empty. Big areas, almost no population. And thus almost no cases.

Hunterdon County has around 125,000 residents, and 710 cases. My little piece of it, Union Twonship, has 5500 residents and 147 cases. But the New Truth is that we also have a rather large county developmental center for the special needs folks. 600 residents live there. They report 109 active cases. That’s 18%, which is catastrophic. But it also means that they’re 74% of the cases in our township, and 15% of the cases in the county. This holds basically true around the county, with the cases at LTC making up 40% of all cases in the county, and 60% of the deaths. Up north in hard hit Bergen County, while the LTC cases are only 24%, they are 59% of the deaths.

I know I’ve said the same thing several times already, but it isn’t sinking in to our leaders’ heads. These are people who generally do not go out in public, and sadly aren’t visited all that much by outsiders. They are part of the population, but not really part of the equation. Without a doubt the pandemic in their little world is epidemic and endemic. They’re being hammered and there isn’t anything that can be done about it. The staff there is also significantly infected, and those people DO go out in the world. Are they an infectious vector for the rest of us? Are they the ones bringing it in to these places and spreading it around and around? Maybe both. Or neither. I really don’t know.

But I do know that without the cases in the HDC, the numbers for my township are 4900 residents and 38 cases. 3/4 of 1 percent. Which is pretty damn small overall. And these are total numbers after almost 4 1/2 months of infection. January 1 to May 10. It doesn’t amount to much.

So why on earth is the lockdown continuing? Especially with our governor’s impossible standards of 2+ weeks of declining numbers, alongside ramping up testing to amazing 20,000 tests per day, but not providing any additional testing sites. It’s an impossibility. Is it designed to fail??

The Governor has to set more reasonable goals and requirements for opening the state up, so that Hunterdon County and New Jersey can get back to business, Freeholder Matt Holt announced at the Board’s May 5thmeeting. 

Holt, the Freeholder Board’s Economic Development liaison, stated, “Businesses that are still open have adapted to protecting people’s health with directional signage, social distance marks on the floors, handing out sanitary wipes, mandatory face coverings, and plexiguard shields. Let’s give closed businesses a chance toopen andimplement the same safety precautions to get our economy moving again.”

The veteran Hunterdon Freeholder, who has served on the Board for thirteen years, said, “Governor Murphy has put forth parameters for re-starting the economythat, in my opinion, sets the bar too high –it sets up roadblocks and nearly unobtainable goals.Instead of creating roadblocks, the state should be looking to clear them, to get New Jersey back to work.”Holt stated, “We recognize COVID-19 is contagious and can be dangerous.  That is why precautions must be taken with any business re-opening. But the Governor’s plan is out of sync.

Called Restoring Economic Health Through Public Health, the plan requires 14 consecutive days of reductions in COVID-19 positive cases in the state. Yet the plan also calls for 20,000 tests per day statewide by the end of the month.  But more testing will result in more positive tests, and with the increased testing we may not hit 14 straight daysof decline in positive casesuntil sometime late in the summeror later.”Holt added, “And while the Governor’s plan calls for increased testing, right now the Governor has not set up even one state test site –thetest sitesare all either county run or the two federal sites.Quite frankly the entire plan is frustrating as proposed.”

Posted by Drew458     on 05/10/2020 at 05:55 PM   
Filed Under: • New Jersey • pandemic and epidemic diseases • Pandemic Pandemonium •  
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   Wednesday - May 06, 2020

Another 30 days in NJ

Gov. Murphy extends New Jersey coronavirus public health emergency another 30 days

New Jersey is extending its public health emergency over the coronavirus pandemic for another 30 days, Gov. Phil Murphy announced Wednesday.

Murphy signed an executive order that will keep the declaration in place through at least June 6.

“I want to make it absolutely clear that this action does not mean that we are seeing anything in the data which would pause our path forward and it should not be interpreted by anyone to mean we are going to be tightening any of the restrictions currently in place,” Murphy said at a daily briefing.

No, what it means is that his edict continues his tyranny, and that of his chronies, for another month. Until he renews it again.

The order extends all executive orders issued under the governor’s authority through the Emergency Health Powers Act, Murphy’s office said. It also extends all actions taken by any executive branch departments in response to the virus. It expires after 30 days unless renewed.

NJ has been under a state of emergency since March 9.

By whatever metrics are used, New Jersey claims to have 131,890 cases and 8,549 deaths. And 23,345 of those cases are in long term care “LTC” facilities, with 4,261 deaths. Which means 1 case in 5, and half the deaths, are people who are NOT out in public. NJ has a population of about 9 million.

39% of all deaths have been people at least 80 years old; 28% are those 65 - 79. So 67% are NOT people of working age. The pre-retirement bracket, age 50-65, accounts for 13.5%. All told, older folks account for more than 80% of all the COVID fatalities in New Jersey. It is almost a guarantee that those older people who have died have also had at least one, if not several, comorbidities such as diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic ailments. Not to mention obesity and high blood pressure. Or being living black.

My little rural county of Hunterdon isn’t all that much different statistically. 45.5% of all the COVID cases are in LTC facilities, as are 64.1% of the deaths.

Conclusion? Outside of nursing homes, this plague is a lot less prevalent and deadly than the media leads me to believe.

Second conlusion: the global lockdown may have been the biggest mistake in human history.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/06/2020 at 05:16 PM   
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   Sunday - April 19, 2020

Some kind of groundhog day?

If Winnie Xi Pu sees his shadow, does that means 6 more weeks of lockdown?

There are still not enough tests. That’s the message Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other states leaders are reiterating as discussions of reopening economies and loosening social distancing orders collide with public safety.

The urgency paid to reopening states has seemingly grown in recent days as New York State - the epicenter of coronavirus in the U.S. - continues to see positive trends. Hospitalizations are declining, as are intensive care admissions and net intubations, says Gov. Cuomo says.

The University of Washington and Gates Foundation-backed IHME, has released its own predictions of when individual states could begin easing restrictions. According to the IHME, an ease on restrictions could be possible if there are strategies in place “that include testing, contact tracing, isolation, and limiting gathering size.”

The model suggests New York, New Jersey and Connecticut might all be able to loosen stay-at-home orders and reopen non-essential businesses after June 1. Other states, the IHME says, could start as soon as May 4 while others are dated toward the end of June.

Yadda yadda, SSDD.

~~~

And yet, at the same time, those same states have let people back on their boats. But how do you maintain social distancing on a little boat? And all boats that aren’t ships are little. How many people can stay 6 feet apart and still move around even on a 50 foot yacht? Less than 10 I’d guess.

Marinas and boatyards are now allowed to open for personal use in the tri-state area as long as strict social distancing and sanitation protocols are followed.

Conn. Governor Ned Lamont, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy announced the decision Saturday.

Chartered watercraft services or rentals will not be allowed, and restaurant activity at these sites must be limited to take-out or delivery only.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/19/2020 at 09:09 AM   
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   Thursday - April 16, 2020

Gazing Into My Crystal Ball

COVID will change the way we shop, forever.

Even after the government allows society to re-open, you know you’re going to have to wear your mask everywhere. Maybe gloves too. Googles? We’ve already figured out that shaking hands may never happen again. But that’s just the start. Reusable shopping bags were really pushed by the greenies last year, but are now utterly verboten. Plastic straws are also back in vogue, but you will never see an unwrapped straw again, or the old glass container with dozens inside, pick your own. Gone forever, with good reason. 

I read an article yesterday talking about the effectiveness of UV-C as a sanitizing process for protective masks, to allow their re-use. It probably works, but why not use boiling water or an autoclave if your masks are made of the right materials? But for your phone, your keys, and so on it may be an answer.

I’ve known about UV-C used in HVAC ducts for a long time now. I expect this use to grow exponentially. I also expect a lot more use of electrostatic air filtration, which is many times better at catching dust and dirt (and germs?) as your typical $1 fiberglass furnace filter. I’d push it a small step further, using a disposable standard air filter as a pre-filter. How long until both of these become mandated for all office buildings and stores? And homes?? Cars???

But it was a trip to the grocery store that really made this idea bloom. Even with all the shopping restrictions currently in place, people have not yet really changed their shopping habits. They still seem to touch, smell, and pick through every piece of produce in the store. Are you nucking futz?? This behavior needs to be GONE. The open food areas in the store are already shut down - the hot prepared pick-your-own trays over by the deli, the salad bar, the trays of pickled mushrooms and peppers, fresh cheese, etc - gone. Probably forever. Even with sneeze guards. It simply is not enough at this point. We are going to shift to a “you touch it you buy it” philosophy. Expect all produce to be behind a plexiglass barrier, with PPE wearing clerks bagging your selections. The old days of Mrs. Grundy picking up every cantaloupe, squeezing them, bringing them up to her face to sniff them. Never again, ever. But as long as the economy recovers, we won’t be reduced to the Soviet style “This is your issued turnip comrade. You can buy another one Thursday” thing.

The “shop from home” service provided by our local grocery store is booming. Text in your list, and your credit card. Pick up your order at the sidewalk, or pay extra and they’ll drive the van right to your house. Will that become mandatory? Or will this all just blow over and we’ll go back the same old ways?

I can also see that a balance point will be necessary. We can not expect, demand, or even survive in an absolutely germ free environment. Not only is the cost of implementing that insanely expensive, but we become weaker people from it, with lowered immunity to an infinite number of illnesses.

But I can see a day when the guys in the butcher shop are fully gowned, gloved, and full face masked. And I can see that same day where every piece of raw meat is sent down the UV-C sanitizing tunnel before and after it gets wrapped. And I can see a similar thing with all produce. I don’t think this will extend to boxed products, but it might be needed at the Post Office or at bulk shippers or at Amazon.

Already people are spraying down the boxes of stuff that they order, or putting them off to the side for a number of days before even touching them. Because COVID. Is this extreme behavior? I can’t say. But the last box that got dropped off here stayed out on the porch for 3 days before we even brought it in the house. Lucky us that we live in a crime free area, and our front patio is not visible to anyone from any angle.

I don’t know if NJ’s law against pumping your own gas will extend to other states. But if I was getting gas in Kansas, I’d wear gloves while doing so, and hold the gas pump nozzle with a wipe. Just to be sure.

Will we become a “plexiglass city” society, not just to reduce crime, but to reduce the spread of germs? I want that to be a laughably excessive solution, but we already live in a world of extremes. Where is the balance point between freedom of choice (at least in terms of shopping) and public safety?

Get back to me in a year or two and we’ll see if my predictions become reality. If you want, put your own predictions in the comments. How else will “raised viral awareness” change our lives?



~~~~



Somewhat Related:

Over at Townhall, a look at other things they are a changing. Like college. Like the office. Like everyday people’s awareness of the media BS and the one-world BS. Nothing you don’t already know, but a nice 5 minute read.

Work: Working at home was already getting to be sort of a thing. Now, it’s pretty obvious that a lot of people can work at home. In fact, they should. Sure, there’s the management challenge of making sure employees don’t confuse working at home with a vacation, but for a lot of us, the office is going to be a thing of the past. This is especially good news if you tend to dislike other people.

I’ve thought about that one too, but from a different angle. If you have a job at an office in NYC, and live in NJ and are now a permanent work from home employee, do you still owe income tax to NYC or NY? I used to work for a multi-national IT company based in Plano TX. I worked in NJ. I did not pay income taxes to Texas. Why should these people? We need some sensible nationwide legal clarification. As in: no, they don’t get to tax you, period. Just the state you work in. Extending this idea into the future could create a massive remote corporate workforce in states with no or very low income tax. Sweeet. OTOH, do you get to keep that inflated NYC salary? Which goes 3 times further in Tumbleweed Wyoming? Orgasmic, but don’t bet on it. OTTH, low cost of living area employees could totally boost a corporation’s profit margin via salary reductions.]

Posted by Drew458     on 04/16/2020 at 11:54 AM   
Filed Under: • Health and Safety • Pandemic Pandemonium •  
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   Tuesday - April 14, 2020

Just another Tuesday in lockdown: Running the numbers

Yes, I’m still here. And we’re both fine, thanks, as the coronavirus “rages” around us.

I’ve been tracking the numbers for my county for a week now, and I can’t really draw any conclusions. I’m not seeing any real correlation between population density and the number of COVID cases. But I know that the data I have has holes in it; missing pieces. Large ones.

Hunterdon County NJ is on the very outer edge of the NY Metro suburban area. More than half this county is farms, forests, and lakes. It’s not a very big county, 427 square miles, but we do have 1/8 million people living here. 292 people per square mile on average. Compared to most of the rest of New Jersey, this county is empty.

Hunterdon does have pocket populations though. Several tiny little areas with relatively large numbers of folks. I’m living in one of the “large” pockets, with probably 900 neighbors on this 20 acre parcel. And we have “regular” suburbia in the neighborhood around us. And the COVID numbers in our township are the highest in the county, with a “frightening” 0.724% infection rate, compared to the county average of 0.271%. That 0.724% means nearly 7 1/4 cases per 1000 people. PANIC !!! LOCKDOWN !!! Quiver in place !!!!

OTOH, I’m seeing a 35% growth rate in a 4 day window for the whole county, which is quite below what I’d call a pandemic infection rate. So maybe this social isolation stuff is working. Or maybe the whole concept falls apart when the overall numbers are small; we’re certainly below the 3 day doubling rate I’ve read about in other places, and we’re probably also below the percentages for those areas.

OTTH, I do not know the testing rate for my county or for any of the areas within it. I’m sure that such data exists, but the best I can locate are the numbers for the entire state. Sure, I think it’s great that our bi-county area is setting up a drive-thru testing center at the community college, but you can’t just go. You have to have a prescription, which means you have to be sick enough that you’ve contacted your doctor, and “passed” your virtual office visit with enough of the COVID symptoms boxes checked off.

There is no routine public testing going on here, nor anywhere else in the whole country. So we’ll never know how many of us are asymptomatic carriers, or have had the bug, not even noticed it, and already recovered. And with overwhelmed health workers giving people but a single test (type unknown!) we’ll never have hard good numbers with a low rate of false positives.

And certainly nobody at Big Brother is going to hand out the HCQ like Halloween candy to the general population as a preventative or as a cure for those only lightly symptomatic. We’d need a huge number of pills for that. 350 million people, 2 pills a day for 5 weeks (to cover the incubation period and the average recovery period) ... that’s 3.5 billion pills, minimum. But that would stop the virus dead in it’s tracks. And also cut our malaria rate down to nothing.

So about the only thing I can pull from my numbers is that the infection rate isn’t all that much, and the odds of me even seeing an infected person in public are way less than 1 in 100. And I don’t think I’ve seen 100 people total in the past 2 weeks.

So I’m going to mask up and get some Chinese take out for lunch.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/14/2020 at 11:15 AM   
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   Friday - April 10, 2020

Chafing At The Bit

So while the shrimps thawed for what will be our Good Friday dinner, I drove downtown to the local Krauser’s, which is our version of a 7-11.

Sign on the door, with the badge logo of the local police department: Do Not Enter This Business Without A Mask. Violators of NJ Executive Order 122 will be subject to fine or citation.

Less than two weeks ago, our pinko Governor “Red” Murphy was telling us common people that masks were not necessary, possibly made things worse, were no substitute for mandatory social distancing, and should not be purchased so that the health workers would have enough.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) ordered all residents to wear masks in grocery stores as coronavirus cases and deaths continue to climb.

Murphy announced Wednesday that he was signing an executive order enforcing restrictions to try to decrease the spread of coronavirus in some of the only businesses that remain open in the state.

To lessen overcrowding, all “essential retail” stores will only be permitted to allow up to 50 percent of their approved capacity inside. All customers and employees will be required to wear face coverings while inside the store, and businesses must supply employees with masks, coverings and gloves.

We’re also aiming to mitigate overcrowding at essential retail stores – particularly in our grocery stores.

Under this Executive Order, all essential retail must indefinitely limit the number of customers allowed in their stores to NO MORE than 50% of their approved capacity.
— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) April 8, 2020

The executive order also mandates stores provide certain shopping hours for high-risk populations such as seniors, place physical barriers between customers and employees “where practicable” and regularly sanitize employee areas.

He said during a press briefing Wednesday that those not wearing face coverings would “get asked to leave,” except for those who are under age 2 or with medical reasons to not wear a mask.

The store is a little bit bigger than our living room. And now all 3 short aisles have one way arrows taped to the floor, and those ubiquitous “stand here” tape boxes 6 feet apart. There is a heavy clear plastic sheet in front of the checkout; the guy behind the counter is wearing long sleeves, gloves, and a mask. A stack of milk crates in front of the counter keeps customers from getting too close. Hot coffee is no longer for sale. The grill is shut down. No bagels, premade sandwiches, or pastries are allowed either. On the other hand, the place is spotless. I’ve never seen it so clean.

I groused to the fellow working there by himself, asking if he was getting tired of constraints on his freedom. This ain’t America I told him (naturally he’s an immigrant; Joe Biden was right), and I was getting pretty sick of it. Another week, maybe to the end of the month. And then I’m going to blow. Hey, at least that guy still has a job.

Out here in the “sticks” of “rural” NJ, our county numbers have grown to around 292, with 7 dead. Until earlier this week we had no deaths, and our numbers were half this. So the wave has reached us, either the disease wave or the testing wave. Both I guess. We have food here for at least a week, maybe two if we eat hot dogs day after day.  The county has a population of about a 125,000 people, so we’re looking at bit over 1 in 425. 0.23%. And life ground to a halt here 3 weeks ago.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/10/2020 at 07:09 PM   
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What Pat Said, But Worse

Pat Buchanan: Trump’s Decision Point Is All That Matters

Upon this question now, the Trump presidency appears to hang:

Will Trump’s actions flatten the curve and put the pandemic on an irreversible downward course in daily cases and deaths, as he produces a U-turn, if not a V-turn, dramatically driving the economy upward from depression and toward national prosperity?

Can he revive the economy without reviving the virus?  Or will the coronavirus so severely cripple the economy that the depression it produces will kill the Trump presidency?

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie framed the issue thus: “Politically, nothing else matters. … I have never seen a time when an opponent is more irrelevant. And that’s not an insult to Vice President Biden.

“But in the end, the American people are going to decide, has the president of the United States stood up to this crisis, and done right by them and protected their lives and their property, or hasn’t he?”

Trump’s true adversary in this election is not Joe Biden, the hermit candidate sheltering in place. Biden is but a name on the November ballot you mark if you want to remove and replace Donald Trump.

Trump’s real antagonists are the media who detest him and are determined, having failed to impeach and remove him, to drive him from office by portraying him as a foolish, failed president in the worst crisis to hit the country since Pearl Harbor.

The crucial decision Trump will make is to choose the exact moment to reopen the country and the economy, without igniting a new spike in the pandemic that induces despair and causes a panic.

The president’s aides in charge of the medical crisis want the longest delay possible. His economic and political advisers, fearing Trump could be forced to run as Herbert Hoover did, at the nadir of a new depression, want an earlier decision to start opening up the country.

Action cannot long be delayed if we are to survive the medical crisis only to endure a longer and more costly economic crisis.

Thursday morning, jobless claims revealed that another 6.6 million Americans had lost their jobs, bringing to 16.7 million the number who have filed for unemployment in just three weeks.

One in 10 Americans is now out of work.

Six weeks ago, Trump was boasting, and justifiably so, of having the greatest economy of any president in recent memory. Now, the possibility exists that he could go into the fall election with the worst economy since Hoover and the Great Depression of 1932.

Trump’s decision, which will determine the fate of his presidency, is likely close at hand.

And this is why the CDC is directing coroners to fudge the death stats to make the COVID numbers higher. That’s extra ammo to the “Trump didn’t protect us” mantra.

And while I don’t deny Buchanan’s numbers, he is leaving out a significant skewing factor: an awful lot of people work in government. And NOT ONE of them has been fired, laid off, furloughed, or reduced to minimal hours. Not one. This extends all the way down to the guys who mow the grass in the town parks you aren’t allowed to use right now. From the federal government to the state government to the county government to the town government to the hamlet leadership to the managers of the HOAs and condo parks. As a very rough guess, I’ll say that’s 20% of the overall workforce, 2 in 10, and I’m probably very low. So if we have 10% unemployment, that means actual unemployment for everyone else is 12.5%. And if we hit 20% by Pat’s overall standard, that’s 25% for everybody else.

Pray for our President.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/10/2020 at 10:25 AM   
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   Wednesday - April 08, 2020

In search of the WHY

https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/

Here is a link to a long essay that I think is important that you read. Grab a coffee and a sandwich; it took me over an hour to work through it. There are probably 100 links in it that you can follow. The author is making the case against the global shut down, and references data and statements from top doctors, virologists, and statisticians from all over the world.

“Excess mortality” is a term new to me, but it makes a lot of sense. Life goes on. People die all the time. People die from all kinds of illnesses all the time. If COVID-19 is killing people left and right, as the DemPanic media tells us, fanning the flames 24-7, then the numbers should show a spike in deaths. But they aren’t.

It also appears that the vast majority of the people in the daily global COVID death count are not just old, but already suffering from one or more chronic, pre-fatal conditions. Damn near all of them.

Now add in lousy testing, lousy tests (imported from China?), poor record keeping, and a sensationalist media with nearly no medical or scientific knowledge. And you get panic. Global panic, with all kinds of extreme government reactions based on that panic, almost all of them tyrannical in nature. Let no crisis go to waste.

This is not tin foil hat conspiracy nonsense. This is a long essay, put together day by day, tracing the spread of the COVID virus, government and media reactions, and countless buried news stories from confused boots on the ground in the thick of things who aren’t seeing much going on. Every assertion is verifiable; although you may need to translate some of the articles linked to.

Without a doubt, COVID-19 is dangerous. And people are dying. But in so many cases, the COVID is the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back, not the giant Acme safe spontaneously falling from the sky and squashing Wile. E. Coyote. Yet the governments of the world are acting as if it is.

[ Vilmar made a post the other day that the FDA has changed the rules so that deaths even suspected (but not tested) to be COVID related are now to be listed as COVID caused. This is fraudulent, creating fake numbers. Fake numbers that then become headline news, keeping the panic going. ]

The author, a Swiss doctor, gives us the Who, What, When, and Were. But it’s up to you to figure out the Why. Or you could just look at this cartoon, and expand that globally.

https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/

Northern Italy has one of the oldest populations and the worst air quality in Europe, which had already led to an increased number of respiratory diseases and deaths in the past and is likely an additional risk factor in the current epidemic.

South Korea, for instance, has experienced a much milder course than Italy and has already passed the peak of the epidemic. In South Korea, only about 70 deaths with a positive test result have been reported so far. As in Italy, those affected were mostly high-risk patients.

The few dozen test-positive Swiss deaths so far were also high-risk patients with chronic diseases, an average age of more than 80 years and a maximum age of 97 years, whose exact cause of death, i.e. from the virus or from their pre-existing diseases, is not yet known.

Furthermore, studies have shown that the internationally used virus test kits may give a false positive result in some cases. In these cases, the persons may not have contracted the new coronavirus, but presumably one of the many existing human coronaviruses that are part of the annual (and currently ongoing) common cold and flu epidemics.

Thus the most important indicator for judging the danger of the disease is not the frequently reported number of positively-tested persons and deaths, but the number of persons actually and unexpectedly developing or dying from pneumonia (so-called excess mortality).

Dr. Richard Capek and other researchers have already shown that the number of test-positive individuals in relation to the number of tests performed remains constant in all countries studied so far, which speaks against an exponential spread („epidemic“) of the virus and merely indicates an exponential increase in the number of tests.

Depending on the country, the proportion of test-positive individuals is between 5 and 15%, which corresponds to the usual spread of corona viruses. Interestingly, these constant numerical values are not actively communicated (or even removed) by authorities and the media. Instead, exponential but irrelevant and misleading curves are shown without context.

And it goes on and on, page after page after page, reporting every day from all over the world.

•  Sweden, which has so far managed without radical measures and has not reported increased mortality (similar to Asian countries such as Japan or South Korea), is remarkably put under pressure from the international media to change its strategy.

•  Data from New York State show that the hospitalization rate of test-positive individuals could be more than twenty times lower than originally assumed.

•  An article on the specialist portal DocCheck deals with the problem of ventilating test-positive patients. In test-positive patients, simple ventilation through a mask is officially advised against, among other things to prevent the coronavirus from spreading through aerosols. Therefore, test positive intensive care patients are often intubated directly. However, intubation has poor chances of success and often leads to additional damage to the lungs (so-called ventilator-induced lung damage). As with medication, the question arises as to whether a more gentle treatment of patients would not be medically more sensible.

So I have to wonder ... is this continuously fueled global panic a coordinated effort to bring about international Socialism and tyranny? [ what we used to call a “commie plot” back in the Duck & Cover days ] An if so, who is doing that coordinating? Remember “Journo-List” from a few years ago?

https://babylonbee.com/news/constitution-dies-of-coronavirus

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/life-and-public/2020/04/norway-says-it-has-got-coronavirus-under-control

https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2020/04/07/pakistan-scrambles-to-quarantine-100000-who-attended-muslim-event/

Posted by Drew458     on 04/08/2020 at 09:38 AM   
Filed Under: • Jack Booted Thugs • Pandemic Pandemonium •  
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   Monday - April 06, 2020

Trump Gets It Done, Again

Navy Hospital Ship In NYC Will Now Handle COVID Patients

The USNS Comfort, a hospital ship with about 1,000 beds that recently arrived in New York City, will soon be able to accept COVID-19 patients after it had originally been set up as an overflow facility for non-coronavirus patients.

President Trump said he spoke with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and that both states plan to utilize the ship.

“New Jersey is a hot spot,” Mr. Trump said at the White House. “So Gov. Murphy and Gov. Cuomo are going to be using the ship…it’s set for COVID. Hopefully that will be very helpful to both states.”

“That is a welcome relief, and the president granted the request - he did it quickly,” Mr. Cuomo said on MSNBC.

“If you help me for New York, I will call it the way it is and say you delivered, and he delivered today,” Mr. Cuomo said. “And if I don’t think the federal government is meeting its responsibility, I’ll say that.”

The president swiftly granted a similar request last week to allow the Javits Convention Center in New York City, which has been set up as a makeshift 2,500-bed hospital, to accept coronavirus patients.

Both the Comfort and the Javits Center were originally supposed to be for non-COVID patients and had been intended to free up space for coronavirus patients at other hospitals as New York strains to accommodate the increased demand.

Governor Cuomo will probably be the “emergency shoe-in” candidate to replace senile dementia patient Joe Biden. Given the “emergency” I’m expecting he won’t even primary. The primaries are cancelled anyway. Bernie who?? They’ll simply take an applause vote at the convention ... if it actually gets held ... and give him the green light. So watch Cuomo shift from Big Gov Left Wing Radical to Man Of ALL The People over the next months. OTOH, the only way he’s going to get there is to play second fiddle to President Trump.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/06/2020 at 05:48 PM   
Filed Under: • pandemic and epidemic diseases • Pandemic Pandemonium •  
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   Saturday - April 04, 2020

Is capitalism now a crime?

Where do you draw the line between profit and profiteering? Should there even be one? What really is price gouging, other than reacting to market conditions? Ever read the James Clavell novel King Rat??

We’re in this emergency situation ... or we’re being lead to believe we’re in one. One of the major changes has been a massive increase in government power. Never let a crisis go to waste, right?

Here’s another case.

Brooklyn Guy Busted For Hoarding | Price Gouging

Federal agencies confiscated tens of thousands of medical supplies from a Brooklyn man who had been selling them at illegal marked-up rates from warehouses in New York and New Jersey.

The supplies have been sent to health departments in New Jersey, New York City and New York state, which will provide them to healthcare workers treating COVID-19 patients.

Among the items seized from the home of Baruch Feldheim, 43, were 192,000 N95 respirator masks, 130,000 surgical masks, procedure masks, N100 masks, surgical gowns, disinfectant towels, particulate filters, bottles of hand sanitizer, and bottles of spray disinfectant, according to the Department of Justice.

Feldheim was arrested Monday and accused of accumulating the items in order to sell them to doctors and nurses at inflated prices, according to New Jersey U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito. Some of the supplies had been shipped from Canada, investigators said.

Feldheim was released March 30 on $50,000 bond. Feldheim will be paid fair-market value for the supplies, according to the Department of Justice.

“This is the first of many such investigations that are underway,” said Peter Navarro, DPA Policy Coordinator and Assistant to the President. “Our FBI agents and other law enforcement agencies are tracking down every tip and lead they get, and are devoting massive federal resources to this effort. All individuals and companies hoarding any of these critical supplies, or selling them at well above market prices, are hereby warned they should turn them over to local authorities or the federal government now or risk prompt seizure by the federal government.”

“If you are amassing critical medical equipment for the purpose of selling it at exorbitant prices, you can expect a knock at your door,” said Attorney General William P. Barr. “The Department of Justice’s COVID-19 Hoarding and Price Gouging Task Force is working tirelessly around the clock with all our law enforcement partners to ensure that bad actors cannot illicitly profit from the COVID-19 pandemic facing our nation.”

Sure, the guy was making a killing. But how is it that he was able to get his hands on this much PPE in the first place? Come on, get real, you KNOW he had none of this stuff on hand before Hannukkah. And tell me, please, what’s the price point line for this stuff? Just how much was he marking them up? Where’s the line?

Back when this all first hit, I bought 2 N100 masks from Amazon. 3M brand particular respirator model 8233. They cost me $13.60. EACH. It took weeks for my order to be delivered. I don’t know what these things used to cost, back in the days of reality. Because I’d never heard of the things, and when I did a bit of mask research, I found these were the best you could get. So I bought some. Better safe than rich, right? Did they used to cost a buck each? I have no idea. Maybe our all-powerful government will publish pricing guidelines, wholesale and retail. Control the market. Freeze the prices, like Nixon did. And that worked out so well, right?

I notice that the seller, Hugo’s, no longer has the masks. But they do have toilet paper. Commercial size rolls, unknown brand, 2 ply, great big 500 sheet rolls. Carton of 96 for $123.64. So that’s 4 times as many rolls as the big 24 pack you can buy in the store, and each roll is quite a bit bigger. So figure it as equal to 5 24 packs. Do those cost $24 each? Or are they only $12? Is this price gouging too? 

Posted by Drew458     on 04/04/2020 at 11:25 AM   
Filed Under: • Finance and Investing • FREEDOM • Jack Booted Thugs • Pandemic Pandemonium •  
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AOC: COVID = RAYCIS !!!

The latest Stoopid from Little Miss Marxist.

Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Friday that long-term environmental racism and income inequality were causing coronavirus to disproportionately affect minorities.

“COVID deaths are disproportionately spiking in Black + Brown communities,” Ocasio-Cortez began, explaining that the reason for that was related to decades of racial and income inequality.

Ocasio-Cortez then argued that long-term policies had created a different kind of “underlying health condition,” adding, “Why? Because the chronic toll of redlining, environmental racism, wealth gap, etc. ARE underlying health conditions.”

“Inequality is a comorbidity,” Ocasio-Cortez concluded by calling for reparations to those hardest hit. “COVID relief should be drafted with a lens of reparations.”

“Giant asteroid hits Earth. Millions killed. Minorities disproportionately affected.”

SSDD. No matter what the issue is, it’s always minorities being hardest hit. Because raycis. So throw MORE money at them. Always. Forever.

The commie bartender then yaps about what government should do ... yeah, if we lived in a totalitarian Socialist state. It’s a miracle she didn’t call for student loan forgiveness too. This time.

What a dingbat.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/04/2020 at 09:43 AM   
Filed Under: • Commies • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Pandemic Pandemonium •  
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Hospital Ship Empty

UPDATE 4/6/20 5pm: NY Governor Cuomo Tweets that President Trump will allow the USNS Comfort to accept COVID-19 patients, adding 1000 beds to the NYC health infrastructure.
I guess you could say the ship is in “re-mission”? nyuk nyuk nyuk.

The USNS Comfort, the Navy hospital ship that docked in New York Harbor this week as part of a greater effort to relieve hospitals overrun by an influx of coronavirus patients, only had 20 patients aboard as of Thursday evening.

The ship, equipped with 1,000 beds, 12 operating rooms, and 1,200 personnel, has not come close to reaching its capacity, taking on just 20 patients as of Thursday, a Navy spokeswoman confirmed Thursday evening.

“The process continues and we are honestly looking forward to seeing a significant increase in patients being transferred to the Comfort,” Capt. Patrick Amersbach said.

The ship was never intended to take patients with coronavirus. Rather, it is expected to lessen the load on local hospitals battling the virus by taking patients with other illnesses or traumas. However, there are reportedly 49 medical conditions “that would exclude a patient from admittance to the ship.”

Some say the bureaucratic tape is preventing the ship from accepting more patients. Officials, for instance, cannot transfer a patient to the vessel until he or she is thoroughly examined at a local hospital, including undergoing a test for the virus, and cleared.

“Ambulances cannot take patients directly to the Comfort; they must first deliver patients to a city hospital for a lengthy evaluation — including a test for the virus — and then pick them up again for transport to the ship,” according to the Times.

Ok, how to fix this? Idea: set up a couple of tents or Quonset huts on the dock to work as a triage center, and process walk-ins as well. Keep the patient transfer system they have in place, but augment it with a few dozen military ambulances if necessary. It may be a stretch, a fantasy, but I’d extend the triage center to also include something like the Urgent Care offices that are all over the place. Regular doctor’s office for walk-ins, staffed by docs and PAs. And everybody who comes in the door gets one of those 15 minute COVID tests, and then a pack of HCQ and a pack of zinc supplements. People who actually test positive get a Z-Pack too (and a free mask), and the folks with mild symptoms or no symptoms are sent on their way. Maybe severe virus patients get transferred back (or to) a regular hospital. Maybe they need to put up a couple more tents on the dock just for that. My point is that you deal with the medical need you’ve got, and it doesn’t have to be an either/or thing.

I don’t know what these 49 exempted conditions are. Duh, it’s a good bet the hospital ship isn’t an oncology center. Cancer. But I bet they’ll deliver babies. Come on, theses ships were designed to handle combat casualties. So gunshot victims, blunt force trauma, burns, concussions, etc, are their bailiwick. OTOH, they’ve got doctors and nurses, so see what you can do to extend their care coverage. General illness, asthma, rashes, poisoning. Eye care and dental? I really don’t know what the ships are capable of, but if they can do something close to full service medical care, than that’s what they should do. And it’s free.

But cut the red tape. Don’t thin it out, eliminate it. And cut the fiscal aspect of it too: is there even a tiny chance that hospitals aren’t transferring patients because that would cut their insurance billing? Can’t have that kind of attitude, not right now.

On the third hand, with the city pretty much shut down, shootings, car accidents, and job injuries are way down. I don’t have the numbers for domestic violence or other medical things that happens when everybody stays home all the time. 

Posted by Drew458     on 04/04/2020 at 09:07 AM   
Filed Under: • Health-Medicine • Military • Pandemic Pandemonium •  
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   Thursday - April 02, 2020

Data To Ignore

Merely “Anecdotal” Data: Worldwide Consensus of 6227 Doctors: Chloroquine Works Best

I gather from the MSM that “Anecdotal” is newspeak for snide dismissal from your betters.

An international poll of more than 6,000 doctors released Thursday found that the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine was the most highly rated treatment for the novel coronavirus.

The survey conducted by Sermo, a global health care polling company, of 6,227 physicians in 30 countries found that 37% of those treating COVID-19 patients rated hydroxychloroquine as the “most effective therapy” from a list of 15 options.

Hydroxychloroquine, which is sold under the brand name Plaquenil, was prescribed mainly in the United States for the most severe cases, but not so in other countries.

“Outside the U.S., hydroxychloroquine was equally used for diagnosed patients with mild to severe symptoms whereas in the U.S. it was most commonly used for high risk diagnosed patients,” the survey found.

The 30 nations surveyed included those in Europe, Asia, North America and South America, as well as Australia. No incentives were provided to participate in the poll, conducted March 25-27, according to Sermo.

What is missing from this news article is how effective it has been found to be. Or not to be.

•The two most common treatment regimens for Hydroxychloroquine were:
•(38%) 400mg twice daily on day one; 400 mg daily for 5 days.
•(26%) 400mg twice daily on day one; 200mg twice daily for 4 day

The standard HCQ pill is 200mg. So we’re talking about a maximum of 14 pills per person for a 6 day treatment plan of the first regimin above.

Average Time for COVID-19 Test:

•On average tests in the US take 4-5 days, and in 10% of cases the wait is more than 7 days.

•14% of US physicians and over 50% in all of Europe and Japan report getting test results in 24 hours; in China 73% of doctors get tests back in 24 hours, while 8% get tests back within the hour

The ENTIRE WORLD is 4-5 times better than us at test turnaround time. Somebody (CDC, FDA perhaps) has seriously screwed the pooch here.

Not to point out yet again that this stuff may do a better job with the lighter cases. It’s not like we don’t have tens of millions of these pills here. But we may be over focusing on the wrong patient group, to the exclusion of the others. The greatest help for the greatest number? The needs of the many versus the needs of the few? Does it really have to be an either/or thing when we have the capacity to do both?

By the time you read this we will have a quarter million cases in the USA. At 14 per, that adds up to 3.5 million pills. Pretty sure we’ve got at least 50 million at this point. WHAT THE FUCK IS THE PROBLEM HERE?? Oh, I forgot. “Anecdotal”. And Trump.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/02/2020 at 10:22 PM   
Filed Under: • Health-Medicine • Pandemic Pandemonium •  
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