RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/with_shortages_plaguing_medical_treatment_will_american_ingenuity_save_the_day.html

An American hallmark is that Americans take the initiative, creating for themselves whatever is necessary to get the job done. Indeed, back in the late 19th century, when Thomas Alva Edison was a whirlwind of inventions, Americans began to view themselves as a nation of inventors. The inspiration for Rube Goldberg’s fantastic, crazy cartoon ideas was the fact that invention was in the air.

People from all 50 states and every educational and ethnic background flooded the newspapers and the patent office with their ideas. It was from that intellectual ferment that we got assembly lines, adding machines, shredded wheat, smoke detectors, Ferris wheels, rotary dials, bottle caps, zippers, modern mousetraps, medical gloves, mufflers, ice cream scoops, and no end of other clever and useful things that are still part of our world today.

American ingenuity may once again come to the fore with coronavirus. One of the biggest concerns about the virus is that hospitals are worried that they will not have enough ventilators for all the people who need them.

In Italy, ventilators make the difference between living and dying. An Israeli doctor who has been working in Italy said that the current triage is to deny the available ventilators to any patients over 60:

Israeli M.D. Gai Peleg, who is currently working to save lives in Parma, Italy, told Channel 12 that things are only getting worse as the number of patients keeps growing. 

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/senate_democrats_block_the_coronavirus_relief_package_that_they_helped_write.html

“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” – Rahm Emanuel (actual quotation)

“This is a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.” – Rep. James Clyburn (actual quotation)

“Nice little country you’ve got here. It would be a shame if something happened to it.” – Congressional Democrats (fake but accurate quotation)

Over the past week, a bipartisan group of Senators hammered out the details of a phase-three coronavirus stimulus bill. On Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he’d had “two good meetings  . . . with Secretary Mnuchin . . . and I’m very optimistic that we can get something done.” He emphasized that it was important to “allow these businesses that are now closed to quickly re-establish themselves.” He boasted about “having good bipartisan agreements.”

And the bill was indeed a good enough bill, with straightforward help for people negatively affected by coronavirus:

Then, Nancy Pelosoi blew into D.C., cracked her whip, and everything changed. The narrative was no longer about saving American businesses to ensure that, after this panic is over, Americans will still have jobs. Nor was it about immediate financial relief for individuals who have already lost their livelihoods, cannot meet bills, or have rising medical costs.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/what-the-hell-do-we-have-to-lose-trump-to-send-malaria-meds-to-ny-to-begin-trials-on-covid-19-patients/

President Trump says that New York State will begin testing the anti-malaria medicine, chloroquine, on patients who are “very sick” with COVID-19 beginning on Tuesday.

Though he was chided by the media for giving “false hope” about the drug’s usefulness, Trump’s FDA has allowed special use of the medication by those suffering from COVID-19. As Trump put it last week, “what the hell do we have to lose?”

An NBC reporter last week challenged the president that he was giving “false hope” and “misrepresenting” the impact of the drug.  Trump wheeled back and let him have it, saying, “The American people are looking for answers and they’re looking for hope and you’re doing sensationalism … And you ought to get back to reporting instead of sensationalism. Let’s see if it works. It might and it might not. I happen to feel good about it, but who knows. I’ve been right a lot. Let’s see what happens.

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/03/23/population-testing-is-critical-to-managing-the-coronavirus-pandemic/

Is the United States ramps up rapid testing for the coronavirus, the results will surely show a sharp uptick in the number of cases of coronavirus-caused COVID-19. Those tested will learn whether they are infected, but, paradoxically, the public – and public health officials – will not know whether the overall results are encouraging or discouraging, because the rates of the coronavirus infectivity and mortality will remain poorly understood. The existing tests will not identify the potentially large numbers of people who were infected but didn’t seek medical attention, were never tested, and then recovered.

We also need to know how the coronavirus statistics are changing as governments take various actions to mitigate the spread of infections. Washington Post reporter Harry Stevens has created graphics that show clearly how assumptions about the disease and various public health interventions can “flatten the curve” to slow the spread of the disease.

But we need a deeper dive for more comprehensive information, such as what the curves look like for the asymptomatic, mildly ill, critically ill, and the fatalities. The differences among the rates for these groups would offer public health officials important guidance on the benefits of specific mitigation efforts.