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April 2020

Another blow dealt to public faith in scientific models Amanda Devine

https://nypost.com/2020/04/25/coronavirus-models-deal-another-blow-to-faith-of-americans-devine/

The random antibody testing of 3,000 people across the state of New York has delivered yet another blow to the faith we placed in the computer models that Governor Cuomo and President Trump used to shut down the economy and place all of America under virtual home detention.

The tests show 2.7 million in New York state have developed antibodies through exposure. Meaning, with 16,000 COVID-19 deaths, the state’s mortality rate is a little less than 0.6 percent. Nowhere near as lethal as the dire 3.4 percent death rate the World Health Organization was billing early last month, and these figures will keep changing as more data comes to hand.

And it wasn’t all because we are perfect practitioners of self-isolation and hand washing.

The President’s coronavirus task force took into account those mitigation measures when it used an amalgam of models to predict that between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans likely would die.

A model from the University of Washington has since revised the projected death toll to 60,000 down from an initial 162,000.

As of Friday, 51,000 Americans had lost their lives, and now the updated models are edging closer to grim reality.

A China-U.S. Cold War? Charles Lipson

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/04/27/a_china-us_cold_war_143042.h

China’s problems are mounting. As Beijing works frantically to cover up its responsibility for the global pandemic, Western intelligence is trying to find out exactly how the outbreak began and how much China’s leaders knew. It is already clear that China’s secrecy and deception imposed huge costs in lives and livelihoods around the world. Their regime will pay a heavy price as world politics is reshaped to see China as a dangerous adversary, not a benign partner.

U.S. intelligence agencies, working with epidemiologists, believe that the new virus first detected in Wuhan was a natural strain, not a man-made bioweapon. What they still don’t know is whether it spread from a wild bat or, as they increasingly believe, from poor containment at a virology lab. They still don’t know the identity of “patient zero.” They still haven’t been able to visit the region, the lab, or its researchers. They still haven’t been able to review essential medical data, much of it now deliberately destroyed. Chinese researchers and early patients have disappeared and may be dead. Official tallies of the dead and infected are obvious fakes. It’s a grim picture. The orchestrated coverup by the Chinese Communist Party cannot obscure it.

Despite this bodyguard of lies, Western intelligence agencies are confident the CCP’s top officials knew in December that the virus was highly contagious. Internal communications reveal party officials discussing the problem in mid-January, even as they told the world the opposite.

George Soros & Bill Gates Partner with China on Coronavirus Drug!

https://www.3ccorp.net/2020/04/16/george-soros-bill-gates-partner-with-china-on-coronavirus-drug/

As drug manufacturers speed up their efforts to find a new treatment drug for the coronavirus outbreak that has devastated China and has caused a world-wide panic, a Chinese drug company just announced that it has started mass-producing an experimental drug from Gilead Sciences that has the potential to fight the novel coronavirus (1).

BrightGene Bio-Medical Technology, a Suzhou based company (2), just announced that it has developed the technology to synthesize the active pharmaceutical ingredients of Remdesivir, the drug developed by Gilead Biosciences. Its stock price surged 20% in Tuesday morning trading in Shanghai (1).

“While BrightGene said that it intends to license the drug from Gilead, its move to start manufacturing at this early stage is highly unusual and a potential infringement of the American company’s intellectual property.“(1) This comes a week after Chinese researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology filed an application to patent Gilead’s drug Remdesivir to treat the new coronavirus, a bid that would give China leverage over the global use of the therapy to fight the outbreak (1)(3)(4).

The decision to seek a patent instead of invoking a “compulsory license” option that lets nations override drug patents in national emergencies, signals China’s commitment toward intellectual property rights. The timing is uncanny! Right? Gilead will retain the global rights to market the antiviral medication, once approved (3). Gilead has also announced that it is partnering with the Chinese Health Authorities on the clinical trials of Remdesivir as a treatment for coronavirus (5). Remdesivir was originally developed in 2016 by Gilead as a treatment for the Ebola virus (13). Many have argued that China stole the patent from Gilead due to a technicality, but you will soon see that this is indeed not the case (14).And who exactly is Gilead Biosciences? Gilead is partnered with Wuxi Pharmaceuticals (Wuxi AppTec) owned by New World Order philanthropist and mass manipulator himself, George Soros (6)(7)! Here is a printout of Soros Fund Managaement Portfolio which will confirm this (8)!

Wuxi Pharmaceuticals is conveniently located in the epicenter of the outbreak near Wuhan Institute of Virology that has been implicated as the Bioweapons manufacturer of this coronavirus (10)(11)(12)! Looks like China has both the Bioweapon and the cure! And let’s not forget the patent on the treatment drug! How charitable do you suppose China will be with the west?

But this story doesn’t end here. George Soros also owns Gilead Biosciences (15).

Biden: Let’s Fix The Economy By Repeating Obama’s Stimulus Fiasco

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/04/27/biden-lets-fix-the-economy-by-repeating-obamas-stimulus-fiasco/

Joe Biden has a plan to get the economy moving again after the coronavirus shutdown. Unfortunately for him, his plan has already been tried – and it failed miserably.

In an interview with Politico published over the weekend, Biden said that after injecting trillions of dollars to keep the economy from collapsing entirely, the next stimulus needs to be “a hell of a lot bigger.”

What should the money go for? A “trillion-dollar infrastructure program that can be implemented really rapidly (and) dealing with environmental things that create good-paying jobs.”

Politico says Biden also called for “massive aid to states and cities to prevent them from ‘laying off a hell of a lot of teachers and cops and firefighters.’”

“Biden said investments in light rail, clean drinking water, and half a million electric vehicle chargers on the nation’s highways could help retool the economy for the future.”

Where have we heard this before? Oh, right, Barack Obama’s 2009 stimulus, which was going to turbocharge the economy by funding “shovel-ready jobs,” heavy investments in mass transit, “clean” energy, electric cars, and a bailout of state governments.

A Failed State? Try the Elixir of Optimism

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/a-failed-state-try-the-elixir-of-optimism/91103/

It looks like the Democratic line going into the election is going to be that the coronavirus pandemic has exposed America as a “failed state.” That, at least, is the argument emerging in the left-of-center press. The idea seems to be that the full employment, rising wages, and economic growth Americans had been experiencing were an illusion — popped by Covid-19 to disclose a flat-footed state of incompetence and venality.

It sounds to us like wishful thinking. We’ve no doubt that our crisis is grave and that there have been errors at all levels of government, including federal, and in both parties (the one we worry about most is monetary policy). We’ve read the Times piece headlined “Nervous Republicans See Trump Sinking, and Taking Senate With Him.” What strikes us, though, is that the line on the left goes beyond Mr. Trump to the record of capitalism itself.

President Trump hadn’t been in office half a year when Foreign Policy issued a piece under the headline “Is America a Failing State?” It suggested, in the sub-head, that the “right path forward must not include Donald Trump as president.” Six weeks ago, when the novel coronavirus had only begun claiming American lives, the Atlantic put over one of its pieces a headline declaring: “America Is Acting Like a Failed State.”

As Kim Jong Un Disappears, North Korea Watchers Advise Caution The guessing game began when the leader missed his country’s most important holiday April 15, then ratcheted higher after a South Korean publication reported he had heart surgery By Andrew Jeong

https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-kim-jong-un-disappears-north-korea-watchers-advise-caution-11587918517?mod=hp_lead_pos5

One question swirled among North Korea watchers this weekend—where is Kim Jong Un?—as the dictator’s unexplained absence stretched past two weeks and Twitter lighted up with speculation about his incapacitation or death.

As of late Sunday, there was little information about the third-generation leader’s health. The guessing game began when Mr. Kim missed the country’s most important holiday on April 15, then ratcheted higher after a South Korean publication reported he had had heart surgery. On Saturday, a Japanese magazine took it a step further, writing that he had been left in a vegetative state after the procedure was botched.

The rumors illustrate North Korea’s outsize dependence on a single person for its political stability. The answer to the question of his health holds significant implications for the future of high-stakes nuclear negotiations with the U.S. and the stability of a country on China’s border.

“These persistent rumors suggest that there are concerns that his health could impact his ability to lead the country,” said Jean Lee, a public-policy fellow at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center. “And those concerns are always worth paying attention to with a country like North Korea where the system has been built around the rule of one family.”

Our Virus Is a Violent Teacher by Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/26/our-virus-is-a-violent-teacher/

For a brief season in time, we glimpsed from the awful epidemic what was wheat and what was chaff, what was mahogany beneath and what a scrapped thin veneer above, who were the V8s and who the mere gaudy, tail fins—and how America ultimately got by and how it almost didn’t.

Before this virus has passed, those of the New York Symphony, like the defeated Redcoats at proverbial Yorktown, will be playing the real “The World Turned Upside Down”:

And then strange motions will abound.
Yet let’s be content, and the times lament,
you see the world turn’d upside down.

Before the virus, apparently we were prepping for our brave new progressive, centrally planned dystopia.

During the Barack Obama years, government agencies had begun to chart a new inclusive future for hoi polloi Americans. We were lectured frequently that the Obama arc of the moral universe was long, but it always bent toward his sense of justice. Translated that meant, like it or not, we Americans had a preordained moral rendezvous with a progressive destiny.

Suburban lifestyles, yards, grass, rural living, and commute driving were to be phased out. High rises, government run-buses, and high-speed rail were in: more people in less space, with less energy consumed, meant less trouble. Granny was better off in a green rest home, not the back bedroom.

Ohio was over; the EU was our future. Clean coal was a 20th-century embarrassment; the next and future Solyndra would be cutting-edge. The idea that the United States ought to be self-sufficient in energy and food seemed worthy of yawns.

The Standard for Reopening States is Rigged By Richard Baehr

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/04/the_standard_for_reopening_states_is_rigged_.html

The new White House standard for reopening the economy in various states is rigged to severely prolong the economic strangulation under the current lockdowns. The criterion has been defined as a 14-day period of declining volume in new cases or a 14-day period of declining rates of positivity of those tested.

Testing is ramping up in every state, which if the epidemiologists are right, will produce a lower percentage rate of positivity on the tests since the curve has been bent.  But there is a new factor which throws all of these calculations off so far off that the 14-day standard should be abandoned.

That factor is the likelihood that there are an enormous number of asymptomatic cases out there that have never been counted (nor tested so far). Early estimates based on sampling in Iceland suggested maybe half of all those infected were asymptomatic. Dr. Fauci estimated 25% of cases might be asymptomatic. Now we have much higher estimates. The Stanford sampling study in Santa Clara County testing for antibodies, a similar study in Los Angeles County, a study in a town in Germany, a study just done in New York State, and testing in an Ohio prison and a Boston homeless shelter, suggest the number of asymptomatic cases are in fact  many multiples of the number of cases already tested positive so far.

Palestinians and the Virus of Normalization by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15918/palestinians-virus-normalization

If Hamas is opposed to any form of cooperation with Israel, why does it continue to allow medical supplies to be transferred from Israel into the Gaza Strip on an almost weekly basis?… It was also revealed that the sister of senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouk had been admitted to an Israeli hospital for two weeks for cancer treatments.

Yet, Hamas is now saying that the Palestinian “peace activists” who talked to Israelis through an online videoconference will face legal measures for their “crime.”

If Hamas does not want any contact with Israel, it should close the Gaza Strip border with Israel and refuse to medical supplies or truckloads of goods and fuel. If Hamas does not want any contact with Israel, it should stop sending family members of its leaders to receive medical treatment in Israel. If Hamas does not want any form of contact with Israel, it should stop sending Palestinian doctors to receive training from Israelis.

If and when the “peace activists” go on trial in the Gaza Strip, the international community and all those who describe themselves as pro-Palestinian advocates will have a golden opportunity to call out Hamas for its hypocrisy and lies. Failing to do so will directly facilitate the intimidation that Hamas and Palestinian extremists apply to anyone who seeks a better future for the Palestinians or peace with Israel.

Rami Aman, a Palestinian journalist and “peace activist,” has been under detention by Hamas since April 9 on charges of holding a videoconference chat with Israelis to discuss the situation in the Gaza Strip and the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

Eyad al-Bozom, a spokesperson for the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Interior, said that Aman and other Palestinians who participated in the videoconference with the Israelis are suspected of “holding a normalization activity with the Israeli occupation via the internet.” According to al-Bozom, “holding any contact with the Israeli occupation is a crime punishable by law and a betrayal of our people and their sacrifices.”

The arrest of Aman and his friends surprised none of those familiar with Hamas’s repressive measures against the two million Palestinians living under its rule in the Gaza Strip. Moreover, the arrest of the “peace activists” is right in line with the Palestinian and Arab anti-normalization campaign that prohibits any form of contact between Palestinians and Israelis.

Combatting China, Cuba and Venezuela’s COVID-19 Propaganda War in Latin America by Joseph M. Humire

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15931/coronavirus-china-cuba-venezuela

China and its Latin American allies are aggressively attempting to convince the world that the U.S. is secretly the original source of the virus and that China is the only country that can save us. This state propaganda is enforced through a digital army of upwards of two million state-backed internet trolls dubbed the “Wu Mao” or “50 cent” army, named after how much the PRC reportedly pays per pro-China post.

China and Cuba have been complementing their propaganda with “medical diplomacy”, which appears to serve as a gateway to enhance their strategic positioning in Latin America. Efforts include aggressive propaganda, such as the fake news that Cuba has the cure for the coronavirus. The message is then spread in Spanish through social media and messaging platforms. Meanwhile, Cuba has been sending medical missions, manned by physicians who are evidently victims of human trafficking, to Panama, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Belize, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil.

The Cuban and Chinese medical diplomacy also stretched to Spain, where, on March 30, shortly after Spain’s Health Minister Salvador Illa announced the purchase of $467 million in medical supplies from China, 39 Cuban doctors were dispatched to neighboring Andorra. The shipment from a Chinese manufacturer included “quick result” COVID-19 tests that were faulty and had to be sent back.

Cuba has been touting its Alfa 2B drug as a potential cure to COVID-19 in state media platforms, which are parroted by China. This claim…. prompted a South African spokesman to warn that “there is still no cure for the killer virus.”

Cuban state media loves to boast that the export of Alfa 2B is in demand in more than 15 countries and has been used to cure 1,500 cases of the coronavirus in China. What it is actually exporting is the propaganda around the drug. Several fabricated “news” clippings have surfaced in recent weeks on Spanish social media saying that Cuba has a cure for COVID-19. This propaganda is being spread by Cuba’s allies in the “Bolivarian network” led by Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro.

The increasing evidence that SARS-CoV-2 might have originated in a Wuhan laboratory is sparking an intense global battle of credibility between Washington and Beijing. The People’s Republic of China (PRC), however, has already been fighting this war through an aggressive disinformation campaign against the U.S. in various parts of the world, including in Latin America.