RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/14/coronavirus-racial-disparities-miss-the-bigger-picture/

Public officials and activists are sounding the alarm about alleged racial disparities in the coronavirus death rate. New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams claimed last week that the city’s official responses to the virus have “clearly” discriminated against black and brown New Yorkers, as evidenced by fatality data. Blacks make up 22 percent of New York City’s population. As of April 6, they made up 27.5 percent of virus fatalities where the race of the deceased was recorded. (Such data were compiled in 63 percent of all cases.) White New Yorkers are about 33 percent of the city’s population. They made up 27.3 percent of virus fatalities where the race was recorded.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said that the black fatality rate for coronavirus in her city—68 percent of all such fatalities—was “among the most shocking things” she had seen. Blacks are a little under one-third of the city’s population. “Those numbers take your breath away, they really do,” she said.

The chief equity officer of the American Medical Association invoked the “widely known history that American health institutions were designed to discriminate against blacks” as an explanation for the disparities.

The racialization of the coronavirus discourse is now pervasive. News outlets across the country are rushing to compile racial data on their local caseloads. President Donald Trump, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and Surgeon General Jerome Adams have all addressed the issue; questions about racial disparities are now an almost inevitable part of local or federal press briefings.

These black and Hispanic virus deaths are a tragedy, especially for the victims’ families and acquaintances. But many of the same politicians and race activists who are now so incensed by coronavirus deaths have been virtually silent for years about far greater disparities in black-white fatality rates: those that result from urban crime.

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/04/15/who-will-get-blamed-if-coronavirus-shutdown-turns-out-to-be-a-massive-overreaction/

As the Trump administration tries to figure out when to reopen the economy, and Democrats try to blame President Donald Trump for every coronavirus death, there’s another question lurking in the background. What if we learn that trillions of dollars in economic costs from the coronavirus shutdown bought us little or nothing in terms of public health?

As the disease progresses and our understanding of it increases, that possibility grows.

Consider these facts:

Death projections were wildly exaggerated. On March 16, epidemiologists at Imperial College London predicted that 2.2 million could die here if the country didn’t impose draconian lock-down orders. Even with those in place, it said, the deaths would likely top 1 million.

The White House later downgraded the death toll, but still predicted that as many as 200,000 could die. In late March, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington released a model that projected more than 80,000 deaths, assuming the U.S. maintained its lockdown, which prompted the Trump administration to extend the shutdown through April.

But within a week, that projection dropped to a little more than 60,000, as actual deaths started to come in much lower than expected. In the past week alone, the death toll has been 2,267 lower than the model initially forecast. That puts coronavirus deaths more in line with deaths attributed to a bad flu season.

Reports of overwhelmed health care were exaggerated. There was a steady stream of warnings that the coronavirus would overwhelm the U.S. health system.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/04/what-will-change-after-virus-crisis-bruce-thornton/

We’ve reached that point in the Wuhan pandemic when we start talking about how the world will change after the crisis passes. The impact on everything from the media to globalism is being reassessed, and prognostications about the future, both good and bad, are being promulgated. But those hoping for improvement are likely to be disappointed, just as those who said “this changes everything” were after the terrorist attacks on 9/ll. To quote Adam Smith, “there is a lot of ruin in a nation,” as stubborn inertia created by entrenched vested interests and received wisdom protect the status quo.

The media’s performance during the virus crisis has been par for the course in their unhinged zeal to damage the Trump administration, which has made the president’s attempt to handle the crisis even more difficult. From claims that Trump called the outbreak a “hoax,” to accusations that his comments about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine were “snake oil,” the media have doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on their usual repertoire of fake “facts,” anonymous leaks, bought-and-paid-for “experts,” dishonest editing, and outright lies––even to the point of impeding treatment that might save lives.