RUTHFULLY YOURS

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.  

https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/23/feinsteins-real-insider-trading-scandal-is-selling

The far more consequential story is Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s participation in richly profiting from the U.S.-China policy for which she has lobbied for 40 years.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) rightly faces a potential scandal for dumping several million dollars’ worth of stock while privy to sensitive information as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee before a major drop in financial markets due to coronavirus. But the far more consequential story is Feinstein’s participation in the biggest insider trade of all in her family richly profiting from the U.S.-China policy for which she has lobbied for 40 years.

This policy of dramatically expanded economic and political ties between America and China while turning a blind eye to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) tyranny—enabling China to become a world power heavily integrated into global supply chains and international institutions—has contributed to this China-driven pandemic.

A Long History of Friendship with Communists

As detailed in an earlier Federalist exposéspurred by revelations that Feinstein had employed a staffer for nearly two decades who was spying for the Chinese government, arguably no politician in American history has maintained a deeper, more longstanding, and friendlier relationship at the highest levels of the CCP than Feinstein. This dates back to at least the normalization of U.S.-China relations in 1979, when shortly thereafter, as mayor of San Francisco, Feinstein established a “sister city” relationship with Shanghai and Mayor Jiang Zemin.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-washington-liquidity-infusion-11584919023?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Federal and state governments have shut down much of the American economy, and now Washington is moving to lend its balance sheet to compensate for some of the losses it is causing. The foremost goal should be to provide liquidity to prevent defaults and business failures that will cascade into mass layoffs and another depression.

By our deadline, the Senate had not reached a final deal. But the bipartisan draft bill and summaries we’d seen on Sunday afternoon were a major improvement on the state of play on Friday. The overall cost is murky, though it will be in the multi-trillions of dollars, and that includes hundreds of billions in subsidy payments to individuals to buy broad political support.

The version we examined is nonetheless worthy of Senate passage—not least to avoid House Speaker Nancy Pelosi making it worse. She and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer were blocking a deal late Sunday with more demands from their non-virus-related policy wish list.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/these-drugs-are-helping-our-coronavirus-patients-11584899438?mod=trending_now_4

A flash of potential good news from the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic: A treatment is showing promise. Doctors in France, South Korea and the U.S. are using an antimalarial drug known as hydroxychloroquine with success. We are physicians treating patients with Covid-19, and the therapy appears to be making a difference. It isn’t a silver bullet, but if deployed quickly and strategically the drug could potentially help bend the pandemic’s “hockey stick” curve.

Hydroxychloroquine is a common generic drug used to treat lupus, arthritis and malaria. The medication, whose brand name is Plaquenil, is relatively safe, with the main side effect being stomach irritation, though it can cause echocardiogram and vision changes. In 2005, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study showed that chloroquine, an analogue, could block a virus from penetrating a cell if administered before exposure. If tissue had already been infected, the drug inhibited the virus.

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

Every evening during the Vietnam War, the nightly news anchor would announce the number of wounded and dead Americans on that day. Doing this imparted a sense of immediacy to those numbers that undoubtedly helped drive the anti-War movement.

In our coronavirus era, the media are doing the same with the numbers for those stricken or dead. For example, in the Daily Mail’s Sunday night article about the Democrats’ refusal to approve a $1.8 trillion coronavirus economic relief bill, we read this line:

The impact of coronavirus in the U.S. have [sic] skyrocketed in the last week to more than 30,200 confirmed cases and nearing 400 deaths.  

Various websites also keep a ticker tape of the “wounded” and dead. Avi Schiffmann, only 17, put together a simple, yet almost awe-inspiring, website that tracks all the coronavirus statistics from around the world. It’s so accurate that you can practically see people sicken and die in real-time.

Watching the numbers tick up is unnerving, but also misleading because it creates an artificial sense of terror. A sense of proportion helps control that terror.

As of this writing, the number of dead around the world is 14,730. Even if China, Russia, and Iran are lying about their mortality numbers, the actual number probably isn’t higher than 20,000. (And the number could be lower because Italy may have been overstating its mortality rate.)

https://amgreatness.com/2020/03/22/the-virus-is-not-invisible-but-its-exposing-whos-irreplaceable/

When your refrigerator goes out under quarantine and your supplies begin to rot, do you really need another rant from Maxine Waters—or do you rather need a St. Michael Smith and St. Uriel Mendoza to appear out of nowhere as the archangels from Home Depot to wheel up and connect a new one?

In all the gloom and doom, and media-driven nihilism, there is actually an array of good news. As many predicted, as testing spreads, and we get a better idea of the actual number and nature of cases, the death rate from coronavirus slowly but also seems to steadily decline.

Early estimates from the World Health Organization and the modeling of pessimists of a constant 4 percent death rate for those infected with the virus are for now proving exaggerated for the United States. More likely, as testing spreads, our fatality rates could descend to near 1 percent.

There is some evidence from Germany and to a lesser extent South Korea, that it may be possible to see the fatality rate dip below 1 percent. And with the breathing space from the lockdown, better hygiene (the degree of constant and near-obsessive cleaning at businesses that are still open is quite amazing), more knowledge and data, better medical protocols, the use of some efficacious drugs, warmer weather, and experience with the disease will, in perfect-storm fashion, begin to mitigate the effects of the virus.

Should we get the lethality rate down to German levels (currently two to three in 1,000), then we can cautiously assume that those who predicted that the coronavirus could eventually be contextualized as a bad, H1N1-like flu will no longer be demonized as nuts, and life can resume with reasonable precautions and focused quarantines and isolation.