RUTHFULLY YOURS

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.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/13/six-feet-under/

There will be plenty of soul searching after this crisis abates: demanding to know the scientific rationale for keeping us six feet apart when people needed each other most should be at the top of the list.

During a run over the weekend, I approached a couple walking in front of me. They appeared to be in their mid- to late-60s and had just crossed a somewhat busy 10-lane highway in southwestern Florida after shopping at a large grocery store. (They were carrying a few bags.)

But apparently my looming presence posed a lethal threat to the couple: As I came closer, the two nearly lept into a row of hedges to avoid any chance they would share air space with me for more than three seconds. They bolted in a panic as if I were wielding a flaming machete.

Here I was—an obviously healthy person jogging in the middle of the afternoon in the Florida heat and humidity—deemed a public risk simply because I would violate their personal space outside for a fleeting moment.

What in the world would prompt otherwise sane people to act so irrationally?

The explanation, of course, is the six-feet “social distancing” policy recommended by the Centers for Disease Control allegedly to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. What initially sounded like reasonable suggestions—keep some space between yourself and someone exhibiting symptoms, don’t touch your face, stay home if you’re sick—has quickly devolved into a nearly comical world where people dive off sidewalks to avoid a momentary invasion of their six-feet perimeter from clearly healthy countrymen.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15885/coronavirus-primer

Important note to our readers: As a public service, the Gatestone staff has gathered the following information from established and credible internet sources along with published medical journals to try to give you a deeper understanding of the COVID-19 and the means to contain it.

However, Gatestone is not a medical authority and you will definitely want to consult your personal physician or health care professional first please as a precaution.

As a reminder, please continue to stay social distanced: we all hope to have many years ahead of us to pursue our shared examination of public policy, foreign affairs, and our nation’s domestic agenda.

Cordially,
The Staff at Gatestone continue reading

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-pandemic-california-

We’re fighting an epidemic of untruths pushed by unscrupulous reporters.

California is touchy, and yet still remains confused, about incomplete data showing that the 40-million-person state, as of Sunday, April 12, reportedly had 23,777 cases of residents who have tested posted for the COVID-19 illness. The number of infected by the 12th includes 674 deaths, resulting in a fatality rate of about 17 deaths per million of population. That is among the lowest rates of the larger American states (Texas has 10 deaths per million), and lower than almost all major European countries, (about half of Germany’s 36 deaths per million).

No doubt there are lots of questionable data in all such metrics. As a large state California has not been especially impressive in a per capita sense in testing its population (about 200,000 tests so far). Few of course believe that the denominator of cases based on test results represent the real number of those who have been or are infected.

There is the now another old debate over exactly how the U.S. defines death by the virus versus death because of the contributing factors of the virus to existing medical issues. Certainly, the methodology of coronavirus modeling is quite different from that of, say, the flu. The denominator of flu cases is almost always a modeled approximation, not a misleadingly precise number taken from only those who go to their doctors or emergency rooms and test positive for an influenza strain. And the numerator of deaths from the flu may be calibrated somewhat more conservatively than those currently listed as deaths from the coronavirus.

Nonetheless, the state’s population is fairly certain. And for now, the number of deaths by the virus is the least controversial of many of these data, suggesting that deaths per million of population might be a useful comparative number.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-art-of-an-oil-deal-11586819335?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

“So credit to Mr. Trump for using U.S. global influence to mitigate the mayhem. Russia and Saudi Arabia have agreed to take on the bulk of the cuts. After Mexico balked at an order to cut its production by 400,000 barrels a day, President Trump volunteered the U.S. to cover 300,000 barrels of its share.”

President Trump has been chasing a diplomatic victory, and he got one this weekend when he brokered a deal between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia to limit their production that may also limit the bloodbath in the U.S. shale patch.

OPEC and Russia have agreed to curtail their production by 9.7 million barrels a day—about 10% of global output—in May and June amid a steep falloff in demand due to the coronavirus that is expected to exceed 20% of last year’s consumption. After Russia last month refused Riyadh’s calls to cut supply, Saudi Arabia opened up its tap and slashed its crude price.

https://www.mercatus.org/bridge/commentary/beware-government-overreach-protect-our-health

When two important goals conflict, sensible people try to strike a sensible balance. This sense of proportion and mutual forbearance is central to living peacefully in a liberal society like ours.

It is important to remember these values as we deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. The most striking aspect of the American public’s response has been the extensive, purely voluntary compliance with city, state, and local guidelines and orders. That phrase “purely voluntary” is crucial. Some of the guidelines have hardened into legal mandates, but even in those cases people have cooperated willingly because they want to do the right thing, both for themselves and for their community.

What about cases where voluntary compliance breaks down, where people don’t follow the guidelines or even the laws? If personal values and social pressures don’t work, the authorities have to step in. But their first step should be a warning, unless a violations are malicious or pose serious danger. If finger wagging at lessor violations fails, the next step should be a fine or sometimes even jail. But punishment should be a last resort.

Balancing the right to assemble with public safety

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/12/herd-immunity-vs-herd-mentality/

Although we do not yet know every detail of the end of our infatuation with the coronavirus, it’s clear that the historian of this episode will include a chapter called “Mistakes Were Made.”

If I might adapt Keats, “much have I travell’d in the realms online, / And many goofy states and kingdoms seen.” And if my experience wasn’t quite like that of the “watcher of the skies / When a new planet swims into his ken” (or even “like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes / He star’d at the Pacific”), still there have been discoveries that produce a little frisson of recognition.

The most recent was the distinction I saw somewhere between herd immunity, on the one hand, and herd mentality, on the other.

We’ve been hearing a lot about “herd immunity” lately. Along with the phrases “social distancing,” “flattening the curve,” and “sheltering in place,” “herd immunity” is one of the chief flecks of jargon adopted by newly minted amateur epidemiologists in this age of (new master word) coronavirus. (And it seems we’re all epidemiologists now, in more or less the same sense that the future King Edward VII was correct when he observed, in 1895, that “we’re all socialists now.”)

“Herd immunity” is a settled concept in epidemiology. It occurs when “a large percentage of a population has become immune to an infection, whether through previous infections or vaccination, thereby providing a measure of protection for individuals who are not immune.”

“Herd mentality,” on the contrary, provides immunity from independent thought. It protects a population from thinking clearly by spreading a spirit of conformity. It increases a people’s docility, thus rendering them more susceptible to the blandishments of usurping authority.

https://humanevents.com/2020/04/09/with-coronavirus-overkill-is-what-works/

As Americans endure the privations necessary to “flatten the curve” of new cases of coronavirus COVID-19, we wish that our leaders could manage even a fraction of the comity and tolerance exhibited every day by ordinary people throughout this country.

Sadly, we see too much of the opposite.

Putting aside the machinations of politicians, there seems to be a widespread need to blame any misstep, or even uncertainty, on somebody or something. The ubiquitousness of social media and the internet drives the conviction that there is a definitive answer for everything, if only you could find the right website or news channel, or follow the right people. And there certainly is no shortage of pundits and pontificators confident about offering predictions based on insufficient or anecdotal data—or, worse yet, making assertions that genuine experts know are false.

America would like to know the exact mechanism by which COVID-19 spreads in order to impose only those measures that are necessary and sufficient.

Unfortunately, although we have many insights, and are gaining more every day, that knowledge is not perfect. We do know that a sledgehammer will drive that nail—in other words, in this situation, overkill is what works, even if it cannot be continued indefinitely.

Currently, scientists have no way to accurately predict which infected patients will develop an often-fatal condition called “cytokine storm,” a severe immune reaction in which the body releases an excess of chemicals called cytokines into the blood too quickly, which compromises oxygenation of the blood in the lungs and can cause multiple organ failure. Surrogate variables like age and certain pre-existing conditions are helpful, but not definitive, predictors.

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Most decisions we make involve some measure of risk. Generally, the consideration is fleeting. Do I take the stairs and risk falling, or the elevator and risk it breaking down? At times, the choice is more absolute: Do I take the double-black diamond with moguls, or do I go around on the bunny trail? Sometimes the odds are important: Is my need to cross the street against traffic so great that the attempt should be made despite oncoming traffic? Risk is ubiquitous.

It is embedded in the friends we make, where we go to college, what job we take and in our choice of a marriage partner – a risk my wife and I took fifty-six years ago today. A wise friend used to say that he was never upset with mistakes he had made but was troubled by risks he never took. Risks vary depending on what we do. To a soldier in combat, risks have different consequences than the ones we encounter daily. In his 1916 collection of poems, Mountain Interval, Robert Frost included “The Road Not Taken.” At a fork in the road a traveler pauses, knowing he cannot walk down both paths, so chooses “the one less traveled by…”  The reader never knows whether the choice was a good one or not, only that it “has made all the difference.” As well, progress is impossible without risk. A baserunner cannot steal second without taking his foot off first. Neither can we avoid risk. “Security,” as Helen Keller once wrote, “is mostly a superstition.”

Risk is defined as the interaction with uncertainty, a measure of the probability of danger or loss, against safety or profit. In our daily lives, we try to mitigate risk. We are encouraged to look before we leap. Insurance companies employ actuaries to assess risk and calculate premiums. Investors use algorithms to quantify the risk of loss against the potential for gain. While these calculations are never perfect, they are Darwinian in that those who are best at measuring risk tend to be the most successful, what Joseph Schumpeter termed creative destruction in industries as they adapt to change.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/10/time-to-sideline-the-false-prophets-of-doom/

Fauci, Birx, and Adams have sent too many mixed messages from the start. While at first diminishing the threat of COVID-19, they now are sowing fear and panic across the country.

The warning from the nation’s top public health official was terrifying.

“This is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment, our 9/11 moment, only it’s not going to be localized,” U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams said on Fox News last Sunday, referring to coming deaths due to the novel coronavirus. “It’s going to be happening all over the country. And I want America to understand that.”

Holy Week, Adams further cautioned, would be the “hardest and saddest week of most Americans’ lives.”

President Trump echoed Adams’ dire prediction. “We are coming up onto a time that’s going to be very horrendous, probably a time like we haven’t seen in this country,” Trump said from the White House on April 4. Instead of celebrating Easter and Passover this week, the president soberly admonished, Americans would instead see “some very bad numbers” about people succumbing to COVID-19.

Those alarming forecasts were based on a model produced by the University of Washington late last month. Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, assembled a set of graphs to show how COVID-19 would overwhelm the country’s health care system, causing a shortage of hospital beds, intensive care units and ventilators.

Murray also originally calculated that 2,271 people would die on April 15, which would be the peak “death day” in the United States. But that wasn’t the only scary news. Sick people would by dying in the streets and entryways outside of hospitals across the country because no beds would be available.