RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/07/optimism-is-dawning-in-new-york-city/

There is a strange thing about New York City that anyone who has ever lived here has experienced, but which is hard to quantify and explain. Oft times the city has a mood. That is to say that from your door, on the subway, around the streets, bars, and restaurants, for an entire day New York can take on a collective attitude. Sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s annoyed, but over the past day or so, it is beginning to feel optimistic.

Monday night it was announced that the number of cases and deaths from the novel coronavirus had slowed. While both Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio have expressed caution, it is mixed with hope. As expected, the curve of cases in Gotham is flattening and maybe, just maybe, the worst will soon be behind us. For the first time in weeks, a future seems to be opening up.

I could feel it in the street yesterday. To be sure, it was a small cross sample. I haven’t left my little Brooklyn neighborhood in more than a month, but on my regular constitutional to the bodega to buy tobacco, and the grocery store to purchase my less pressing needs, something was in the air. In fairness, it was a nice day, the first in some time: low 60’s, sunlight speckling the sidewalks through clouds. But it was more than that — a spring in the step, the faint return of a twinkle in the eye.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/coronavirus-deaths-will-be-much-much-much-lower-than-predicted-models-says-head-of-cdc/

In the ever-changing contradictory nature of information during the pandemic age, the head of the CDC, Robert Redfield, told listeners of Arizona’s 1030 KVOI radio he believes there’s good news ahead. Redfield said the death toll from the Chinese COVID-19 will be “much, much, much lower” than the models have predicted. “If we just social distance, we will see this virus and this outbreak basically decline, decline, decline. And I think that’s what you’re seeing,” he said.

The models the White House is using projected the deaths of between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans. Redfield says models aren’t the end of the story. “Models are only as good as their assumptions, obviously there are a lot of unknowns about the virus,” he said. “A model should never be used to assume that we have a number.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/as-new-york-posts-highest-one-day-death-toll-cuomo-says-no-victim-died-because-we-couldnt-provide-care/

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday that no victim of the coronavirus has died because the state could not provide health care for them, even as New York posted its highest number of deaths in one day.

“You can’t save everyone. This virus is very good at what it does, and it kills vulnerable people,” Cuomo said at his daily briefing providing updates on the outbreak. “The question is, are you saving everyone you can save? And there the answer is yes, and I take some solace in that fact.”

“Our health care system is operating. I don’t believe we’ve lost a single person because we couldn’t provide care,” the Democratic governor continued. “People we lost we couldn’t save despite our best efforts.”

A record 731 New Yorkers died between Monday and Tuesday, Cuomo reported. He cautioned that the death rate is a “lagging indicator,” meaning that those who died are often sick for weeks before they pass. More than 138,000 people in the state have been infected with the respiratory illness, with 8,157 new positive cases on Tuesday, the lowest rate in a week. The number of patients being hospitalized and moved to intensive care has dropped as well.

5

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/04/democrat_trump_derangement_syndrome_tds_escalates_corona_spread.html#ixzz6IxG7rUwr

How ironic that Bill DeBlasio, New York City’s mayor, who designated his city a sanctuary city, and Governor Andrew Cuomo, who designated New York a sanctuary state, both in defiance of federal orders, have blamed the federal government for not supplying all of their hospital and other state needs. These two, among other prominent Democrat mayors and governors who for many years virtue-signaled and put the rest of the country in jeopardy — claiming it is not the fed’s business what they do in their states — suddenly have relinquished city and state responsibility for the conditions in their jurisdictions. Virus protection is the federal government’s obligation, they bellow.

These same mayors and governors who proudly stood in the way of ICE, the federal government’s agency for protecting our borders and citizens from illegal immigrant criminality, were blithely willing to endanger the rest of the country by arrogating to themselves all power.  Suddenly, they take no personal blame for the lack of preparedness and supplies, or the absence of a game plan in their districts, where heretofore they claimed absolute power and independence.  

Some questions: Why hadn’t they stockpiled masks, gowns, gloves, and ventilators? Some have held office for almost ten years. It seems they were not focused on nuts and bolts but exotic projects and trendy politics. Their city and state health departments have budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars. We now see they are all boast but no toast. Instead of serious governing, they have spent the last three years trying, through the courts, do defy President Trump. Who do they blame for what’s happening now in their city and state? Trump and the federal government.

https://www.cfact.org/about/

It is with a heavy heart that we at CFACT share sad news with you today.

Dr. S. Fred Singer, a giant in the field of science and a good CFACT friend, passed away quietly yesterday at the age of 95.

His loss will be deeply felt not just by myself and those of us at CFACT, but by all of our friends and allies engaged in the cause of promoting sound science and liberty.

Dr. Singer’s accomplishments are truly legendary, but his life wasn’t always easy. Born to a Jewish family in Austria in 1924, Fred had to escape with his life as a young boy to England when Adolf Hitler invaded the country in 1938. During the war, he immigrated to the U.S. where he assisted the U.S. Navy, later obtaining a Ph.D. from Princeton in 1947. From there his years were to be marked by a number of high achievements.

Among these would include serving in the U.S. Embassy in London as a scientific liaison officer (1950-53), serving as one of 12 members of the American Astronautical Society of the nation’s top 300 scientists (1954-56), director of the Center for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Maryland (1953–62); first director of the National Weather Satellite Service (1962–64); founding dean of the School of Environmental and Planetary Sciences, University of Miami (1964–67); deputy assistant secretary for water quality and research, U.S. Department of the Interior (1967– 70); deputy assistant administrator for policy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (1970–71); vice chairman of the National Advisory Committee for Oceans and Atmosphere (NACOA) (1981–86); and chief scientist, U.S. Department of Transportation (1987– 89).

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/04/07/coronavirus-anthony-fauci-social-distancing-deborah-birx/2959335001/

As the U.S. braces for what health experts and President Donald Trump say will be an especially devastating week in the nation’s battle against the novel coronavirus, “positive signs” are emerging in some of the areas hardest hit by the virus.

While Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was quick to caution that the U.S. still has much work to do amid this public health emergency, he pointed to “good signs” from New York, citing data saying the numbers of hospitalizations, ICU admissions and requirements for intubations over the last three days have started to level off. 

“Everybody who knows me know I’m very conservative about making projections, but those are the kind of good signs that you look for,” Fauci said during Monday’s coronavirus task force briefing at the White House. “You never even begin to think about claiming victory prematurely, but that’s the first thing you see when you start to see the turnaround.”

Fauci stressed the importance of continued mitigation and social distancing. 

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/06/are-covid-19-deaths-being-overreported/

Playing loose with the number of fatalities or giving local officials the greenlight to inflate those figures is inimical to the public’s need to get a firm grasp on the danger of the disease.

According to some tracking sites, the U.S. death toll from the novel coronavirus reached 10,000 victims on Monday. Grim reapers on social media noted the “grim milestone” and forecast more grim days ahead for Americans now trapped by government-imposed house arrest as they helplessly watch their savings and livelihoods and freedom implode in real-time.

The U.S. surgeon general warned that this week’s catastrophic death toll will rival those not seen since the most horrific attacks on American soil. Jerome Adams said that the next several days will be “our Pearl Harbor moment, our 9/11 moment. Only, it’s not going to be localized, it’s going to be happening all over the country.” President Trump and his closest medical advisors also have reiterated that terrifying scenario.

But there is little information available as to what qualifies as a coronavirus fatality for official counts. And there is good reason to approach such tallies with skepticism since reporting from states like New York is suspiciously vague.

If Americans are to believe that COVID-19 poses a mortal risk to the general population and therefore requires the most intrusive measures ever invoked to stop the spread of the deadly virus, then government officials must clarify the classification. Health officials have confirmed that older people and those with underlying medical issues such as heart disease or diabetes are most at-risk; the concern, however, is that fatalities in such cases are always attributed to coronavirus as the main cause of death instead of just noting it as a contributing factor.

Questionable Guidance

Guidelines recently released by the Centers for Disease Control bolster concerns that the death toll is being rigged to show a higher fatality rate.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/04/who-really-failed-stop-coronavirus-hitting-lloyd-billingsley/

By Sunday, the United States marked almost 350,000 cases of COVID-19, with nearly 10,000 deaths. The pandemic took down a strong economy and millions of Americans are out of work. This disaster might not have happened if a little-known American government agency was doing its job.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention deploys something called the Epidemic Intelligence Service. As Diana Robeletto Scalera of the CDC Foundation explains, the EIS “works day and night domestically and globally to ensure epidemics in other countries do not hit American soil.” EIS disease detectives are “are the ones responsible and they take this role very seriously.” Even so, the coronavirus epidemic certainly hit American soil, so Americans have good cause to wonder about this epidemic intelligence service.

Established in 1951, Scalera notes, the EIS is “a two-year postgraduate program of service and on-the-job training for health professionals interested in the practice of epidemiology.” Since the program began, more than 3,500 EIS “officers” have been trained.

According to the CDC, “EIS officers serve on the front lines of public health, protecting Americans and the global community.” When diseases and public health threats emerge, “EIS officers investigate, identify the cause, rapidly implement control measures, and collect evidence to recommend preventive actions.”

The EIS did not identify the cause of the coronavirus and any rapidly implemented control measures proved a complete failure. So coronavirus victims have a right to wonder what these intrepid disease detectives are really about. As the CDC explains, EIS alumni have gone on to become CDC directors, leading CDC scientists, acting surgeons general, and even World Health Organization assistant directors-general.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/04/fear_not_science_guides_our_current_approach_to_covid19.html

Are Anthony Fauci, the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization our best guides through current events?  Are we so confident in their opinionsmodels of COVID-19 spread that we are willing to risk whole economies? Is it possible that those authorities not only miscalculate, but see such a small piece of the overall biomedical/social picture that they are creating worse problems — by shouting “fire” in a crowded world theater?

I have reason to believe that they will:  As a postdoctoral fellow at Fauci’s NIAID from 2004-2009, and one of its few theoretical biologists, I found Dr. Fauci to be exceptionally knowledgeable about all aspects of virus biology and immunity.  So it is difficult to understand why he and others are promoting models of COVID-19 spread which all but completely ignore the likelihood that most people will have powerful natural resistance against the virus (unless they are quite old, have hypertension, smoke, or have other pre-existing lung or immunological damage).

My guess, judging from historical precedent, is that Dr. Fauci and his colleagues are just plain afraid of what might happen, although we have no real data to make a prediction about what actually will happen. After all, they are human beings, and beings of a particular sort — namely doctors.   Although imagining all hospital beds suddenly filled with coughing people is something that terrifies them beyond belief — as a few have confided to me — doctors sometimes underestimate how much care they could provide to patients in their own homes, if it were absolutely necessary to do so.