RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://newcriterion.com/blogs/dispatch/compared-to-what

Compared to what? That should be the question that every fear-mongering news story on the coronavirus has to start with. So far, the United States has seen forty-one deaths from the infection. Twenty-two of those deaths occurred in one poorly run nursing home outside of Seattle, the Life Care Center. Another nine deaths occurred in the rest of Washington state, leaving ten deaths (four in California, two in Florida, and one in each of Georgia, Kansas, New Jersey, and South Dakota) spread throughout the rest of the approximately 329 million residents of the United States. This represents roughly .000012 percent of the U.S. population.

Much has been made of the “exponential” rate of infection in European and Asian countries—as if the spread of all transmittable diseases did not develop along geometric, as opposed to arithmetic, growth patterns. What actually matters is whether or not the growing “pandemic” overwhelms our ability to ensure the well-being of U.S. residents with efficiency and precision. But fear of the disease, and not the disease itself, has already spoiled that for us. Even if my odds of dying from coronavirus should suddenly jump ten-thousand-fold, from the current rate of .000012 percent across the U.S. population all the way up to .12 percent, I’d happily take those odds over the destruction being wrought on the U.S. and global economy from this unbridled panic.

By comparison, there were 38,800 traffic fatalities in the United States in 2019, the National Safety Council estimates. That represents an average of over one hundred traffic deaths every day; if the press catalogued these in as much painstaking detail as they have deaths from coronavirus, highways nationwide would be as empty as New York subways are now. Even assuming that coronavirus deaths in the United States increase by a factor of one thousand over the year, the resulting deaths would only outnumber annual traffic deaths by 2,200. Shutting down highways would have a much more positive effect on the U.S. mortality rate than shutting down the U.S. economy to try to prevent the spread of the virus.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/f-d-a-approves-new-coronavirus-test-under-emergency-use-authorization/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved the use of a Wuhan coronavirus diagnostic that will be able to test patients faster than any diagnostic currently available in the U.S.

Roche Holding AG, a Switzerland-based healthcare company, received “emergency use authorization” to roll out the test. The test can be run on two models of Roche’s diagnostic systems, with one model able to complete 1,440 tests per day and the second model 4,128 tests per day.

“We are increasing the speed definitely by a factor of 10,” said Thomas Schinecker, head of Roche’s diagnostics unit, in comments to Bloomberg News. “We definitely extended the capacity of the testing significantly throughout the U.S.”

The Roche test is just the third diagnostic given emergency approval by the FDA since the start of the outbreak. The other two tests approved were developed by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the New York State Department of Health, and the FDA has given separate approvals to hundreds of hospital laboratories to develop tests.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/13/president-trump-declares-national-emergency-over-wuhan-virus/

President Donald Trump officially declared a national emergency over the Wuhan virus Friday, invoking the Stafford Act to release additional resources to combat the nationwide outbreak for state and local governments.

“Through very collective action and shared sacrifice, national determination, we will overcome the virus. … This will pass,” Trump announced from the Rose Garden. Trump also ordered the opening of “emergency operation centers” and requested that every hospital “activate its emergency preparedness plan” in the wake of the outbreak.

According to the latest numbers as of Friday afternoon, nearly 1,300 Americans have tested positive for the virus and 31 people have died, which is less than 0.000003 percent of Americans. The number of actual cases is expected to be far higher, however, due to lack of testing. Nearly all who have died are elderly in long-term care facilities, and the U.S. surgeon general reports the average age of those who have died of the disease is 80.

In declaring a national emergency over what the World Health Organization (WHO) has officially declared a “global pandemic,” the president is opening access to $50 billion in funds set aside by Congress in the Disaster Relief Fund.

https://www.algemeiner.com/2020/03/13/corona-is-slowing-down-humanity-will-survive-says-biophysicist-michael-levitt/

CTech – Nobel laureate Michael Levitt, an American-British-Israeli biophysicist who teaches structural biology at Stanford University and spends much of his time in Tel Aviv, unexpectedly became a household name in China, offering the public reassurance during the peak of the country’s coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak. Levitt did not discover a treatment or a cure, just did what he does best: crunched the numbers. The statistics led him to the conclusion that, contrary to the grim forecasts being branded about, the spread of the virus will come to a halt.

The calming messages Levitt sent to his friends in China were translated into Chinese and passed from person to person, making him a popular subject for interviews in the Asian nation. His forecasts turned out to be correct: the number of new cases reported each day started to fall as of February 7. A week later, the mortality rate started falling as well.

He might not be an expert in epidemiology, but Levitt understands calculations and statistics, he told Calcalist in a phone interview earlier this week.

The interview was initially scheduled to be held at the fashionable Sarona complex in Tel Aviv, where Levitt currently resides. But after he caught a cold — “not corona,” he jokingly remarked — the interview was rescheduled to be held over the phone. Even though he believes the pandemic will run its course, Levitt emphasizes his support of all the safety measures currently being taken and the need to adhere to them.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/03/12/instead-of-bracing-for-coronavirus-democrats-focused-on-impeachment/

On January 15, House Democrats delivered two articles of impeachment to the United States Senate. Democrats knew the Republican-controlled Senate would not have enough votes to convict President Trump. But that didn’t deter House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) from wasting government time, resources, and attention for months in a doomed effort to remove Donald Trump from the White House. 

Six days later, on January 21, the first known case of novel coronavirus (COVID-19, or the Wuhan virus) was reported in the United States.

While the Left and NeverTrump Right predictably gather steam to condemn Trump for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, congressional Democrats have escaped any accountability for ignoring the early stages of the outbreak. And, with no sense of irony, the very journalists and pundits who cheered impeachment are the same folks now blasting the president for “not doing enough” to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Let’s back up for a moment: Since before Donald Trump took the oath of office, the Left and NeverTrump Right have been on a destructive crusade to crush his presidency. It is unlike anything in recent political history—no tactic has been considered too beyond-the-pale or in violation of sacred limits. The Russian collusion farce and ensuing special counsel investigation into an imaginary crime monopolized the White House’s attention for more than two years. When that failed, House Democrats and their administrative toadies in government concocted the Ukrainegate scandal that began the month after Robert Mueller’s disastrous testimony on Capitol Hill. 

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/03/13/time-to-end-coronavirus-hysteria-and-focus-on-saving-some-lives/

The hysteria over the coronavirus has hit, if you’ll pardon the expression, fever pitch. The media are full of dire prognostications about the future, while online sites run scary data projections showing potentially millions dying from the coronavirus, also known as COVID-19. And of course, financial markets have cratered, investors fearing the worst.

But is the hysteria warranted? What do we really know about this virus? There are, according to the most recent estimates, roughly 128,000 people with the COVID-19 virus, spread over 111 countries. So far, about 4,700 people have died.

The problem is, no one knows if those numbers are even close to correct. Reports of new cases keep arising, and anecdotal reports of mass graves for COVID-19 victims in Iran and body disposals in China do little to encourage optimism.

Thousands and thousands of people may be walking around with the virus, and don’t even know it. Some people who’ve contracted the disease have said the symptoms were mild. It seems to be deadliest for the elderly and those with compromised immune systems.

Even the death rate is in dispute. We’ve seen estimates ranging from a high of around 3%, to as low as 0.6%. The common flu, which spreads much faster than COVID-19, has just a 0.1% death rate.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2020/03/when-an-irrational-panic-goes-viral/

My last piece was on whether the cure for the (Chinese) coronavirus was worse than the disease. Well, surely, we now know the answer. Italy has closed itself down over 7000 known cases in a population of over 60 million. Imagine the dire consequences of this for businesses across Italy if this were to last more than a few days, and yet, once you close the place down, how the heck do you quickly open it up again?

I would guess that the number of actual cases is a multiple of 7000 and those afflicted haven’t noticed. This of course elevates the assumed death rate to well above the common flu which kills many people each year. It most definitely elevates it among those who are prone to panic.

I am just watching Tucker Carlson 0n Fox News (10 March) who seems to associate transnational public and governmental panic over the virus with the threat of the virus itself. Without realising it, he is on to something. The real threat of this virus is what is being done about it. By the way, as I am writing, I have just heard him saying “people are dying of the plague” in response to Joe Biden making one of his few perceptive remarks, that fear-mongering is going on. You couldn’t write home about it.

Only those old and/or frail are particularly at risk, as they are from the flu and any number of maladies. US Surgeon General Jerome Adams reported yesterday that those who had died in the US from the new coronavirus (twenty-one at that point) had an average age of 80 years. So, cocoon vulnerable people as best can be done. It can be done easily enough in nursing homes and the like, and if you are visiting elderly family members or friends take precautions. Have groceries delivered and provide wipes to wipe the boxes down.

Government should focus on assisting in this process of protecting the vulnerable not in trying to prevent healthy adults from contracting the virus by closing down whole economies. The costs of this in human wellbeing and health will be incalculable and will put the threat of the virus itself in the shade.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/turtles-on-a-treadmill-joni-ernst-blasts-ludicrous-government-waste-in-scathing-senate-speech

The dysfunction of the federal government is almost humorous until one remembers that we taxpayers are the ones footing the bill for the state’s foolishness.

Of course, few lawmakers in Washington actually seem to care, as both parties’ establishments have made peace with bloated budgets and sky-high deficits so long as their pet projects and interests get funded. Sen. Joni Ernst appears to be one of the rare and welcome exceptions, reminding us of her willingness to fight for fiscal conservatism with a scathing Senate speech Wednesday afternoon.

The Iowa Republican drew a spotlight to one particularly egregious example of waste, a taxpayer-funded study that blew almost a million dollars putting turtles on treadmills, both dead and alive, then comparing their speeds. And it’s not like this is some one-off fluke: The federal government spends taxpayer money on everything from scaring monkeys to the point of brain damage to funding the Pakistani film industry to subsidizing Serbian cheese production.

“Your tax dollars actually paid for a study that put turtles on treadmills,” Ernst lamented. “To no one’s surprise, it turns out that turtles are really, really slow. That’s what our tax dollars went to.”

“Now, how many of your tax dollars went to this study, exactly? Your guess is as good as mine … because there is no legal obligation for most federal agencies to disclose the price of government projects — even though the American taxpayers are paying for them,” the senator railed. “Folks, this is your money: So, shouldn’t you have a right to know how it’s being spent?”

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/03/12/how_to_get_the_stock_market_back.html

Election years make cowards of governments.  How else can you explain the White House response to the challenge of markets in panic over the new coronavirus? The Trump administration has moved into a defensive crouch. Its best ideas seems to be to rail at the Federal Reserve, or to reduce the payroll tax.  A quick-stim payroll tax cut may be just the ticket for an administration desiring to supply a momentary pocketbook break to a maximum number of voters. The president isn’t doing more because – or so goes the logic – to propose dramatic changes requiring legislation is to run the danger of humiliating rejection by Congress. And this White House, any White House, wants to look strong in an election year.

But the reality is that a temporary payroll-tax cut is a baby-step Keynesian move that won’t get America its market back. And one can’t count on the Federal Reserve, whatever it does, to restore our economy single-handedly. It’s worthwhile, therefore, to suspend disbelief for a moment and at least consider the “impossibles” — what could be done for markets by the White House and Congress if this were not an election year. There are plenty of measures that would bring the Dow Jones Industrial Average or the S&P 500 roaring back to where they were before the panic – or yet higher. And those increases would come not just because of post-panic euphoria, but also because the prospects for growth in the United States would ratchet upward. Herewith are four transformative growth proposals: