RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.foxnews.com/science/fda-authorizes-first-at-home-coronavirus-test

The FDA has authorized the first diagnostic test with a home collection option for COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus.

In a statement released Tuesday, the FDA said that it had reissued an Emergency Use Authorization for LabCorp to COVID-19 RT-PCR Test to permit testing of samples that were self-collected by patients at home using LabCorp’s Pixel by LabCorp COVID-19 Test home collection kit.

“Throughout this pandemic we have been facilitating test development to ensure patients access to accurate diagnostics, which includes supporting the development of reliable and accurate at-home sample collection options,” said FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn.

Coronavirus testing is in the spotlight as America fights to contain the outbreak. Data compiled by the CDC indicate that, since the start of April, up to 140,000 coronavirus tests a day have been conducted in the U.S.

“This reissued EUA for LabCorp’s molecular test permits testing of a sample collected from the patient’s nose using a designated self-collection kit that contains nasal swabs and saline,” explained the FDA, in its statement. “Once patients self-swab to collect their nasal sample, they mail their sample, in an insulated package, to a LabCorp lab for testing.”

https://ktla.com/news/local-news/l-a-county-officials-to-provide-latest-update-on-coronavirus-crisis/

While Los Angeles County has reported a total of 13,816 coronavirus cases, early results from an antibody study conducted with the University of Southern California shows that hundreds of thousands more could have had COVID-19 in the past, officials announced Monday.

So far, 863 L.A. County residents have been tested between April 10 and 14 as part of the study.

The study estimates a prevalence of COVID-19 antibodies in the county to be 4.1%, with a range that could be as low as 2.8% and as high as 5.6%, when you factor in the reliability of the tests.

An estimated 221,000 adults to 442,000 adults at the high end may have been infected at some point before April 9 with COVID-19, suggesting that the number of total people in the county with a past or current infection is 28 to 55 times higher than the number of reported positive cases, Dr. Barbara Ferrer, L.A. County’s public health director said Monday.

“Although I report every day that we have thousands of thousands of people that have tested positive, the serology testing lets us know that we have hundreds of thousands of people that have already developed antibodies to the virus because at some point in time over the last couple of months, they have in fact been infected with COVID-19,” Ferrer said.

But having up to that many people who may have already had the illness means that the fatality rate from the virus is much lower than originally believed, Neeraj Sood, the USC scientist leading the study said Monday.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/04/covid_numbers_getting_redefined_again.html

In a world of “lies, damned lies, and statistics,” we should consult the SARS-Cov-2 (COVID-19) source data to understand the current numbers and the methodology for classifying new cases and deaths.

According to the CDC website, as of April 18, there were 690,714 total cases and 35,442 total deaths.  A footnote says the total cases include 1,282 probable cases and the total deaths include 4,226 probable deaths, which is 12% of the total deaths after only four days of counting probable deaths.  This is probably the result of the new definition of “probable death” (see below).

The CDC began counting confirmed and probable cases and deaths on April 14, two days before President Trump announced his plan for states to reopen the economy, based on guidance provided by the Council for State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) on April 5.

The guidance for probable COVID-19 cases and deaths includes three options: (1) meets clinical criteria and epidemiologic evidence with no confirmatory laboratory testing performed, (2) meets presumptive laboratory evidence and either clinical criteria or epidemiologic evidence, or (3) meets vital records criteria with no confirmatory laboratory testing performed.

This guidance includes definitions for clinical criteria, epidemiologic evidence, presumptive laboratory evidence, and vital records criteria, but the threshold for “probable” seems “possible” in some cases.  

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/state-bailouts-beyond-galling/91099/

The drama of profligate states using the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to seek federal bailouts to paper over long-term mismanagement has finally found a Pavarotti — the editorial board of Chicago Tribune. It uncorked this morning an editorial calling pleas for as much as $40 billion in federal lucre for Illinois “shameless,” “dishonest,” “beyond galling.” And it was just getting tuned up.

We share the Tribune’s sentiments, not only in respect of Illinois but New York as well. And not just those two. “Every member of Congress should carefully scrutinize pleas from states whose unbalanced budgets, embarrassing credit ratings and vastly underfunded pension systems predated virus outbreak,” the Tribune reckons. It’s hard to imagine that there are not millions of Americans who share the sentiment.

The grand tenors of the Tribune were ignited by a letter to the Illinois congressional delegation in Washington from the president of the Illinois senate, Don Harmon. The Harmon epistle was so craven that even Governor Pritzker made a point of distancing himself from it. Yet the idea of a federal bailout for Illinois in the midst of this crisis is broadly supported within the Democratic Party in the state, and even by some Republicans.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/04/rep_dan_crenshaw_politely_destroys_bill_mahers_blame_game_against_trump.html

We all know that decisions are based on best guesses about future events.  We don’t get to make prospective decisions with the benefit of hindsight.  Some decisions when made are manifestly stupid (no smart decision ever began with the phrase “hold my beer”), and even some thoughtful ones reflect bad reasoning (“I have returned from Germany with peace for our time”).

However, when dealing in real time with an unknown disease playing out in countries with different population demographics, different health care systems, and different record-keeping (and, in China’s case, lots of lies), it’s unlikely that there will ever be a perfect response.  Nevertheless, the newest Democrat position is that, because Trump’s response failed to block the Wuhan flu from landing on our shores, he is a blundering, blustering incompetent who is ready for another impeachment.

When someone comes flying at you with that kind of broad accusation, one grounded in emotion and historical rewrites, it’s hard to marshal the appropriate facts and make a sensible argument.  Or maybe it’s hard only if you’re not a former Navy SEAL like Dan Crenshaw, a House representative from Texas.  While most of us have been tested solely in the crucible of mean words and dirty arguments, he was tested under fire, and, as his debonair eye patch shows, he paid a high price during that test.

On the same show during which Bill Maher earned deserved kudos for attacking mainstream media’s execrable, emotion-laden, dishonest coverage of the Wuhan virus, he made the mistake of trying to debate Rep. Dan Crenshaw about whether Trump’s response to the Wuhan virus was timely.  If we could all learn to debate as Crenshaw does, the world would be a better, more logical, well ordered, and well run place.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/apr/15/bill-gates-oh-boo-hoo-rails-trump-pulling-who-fund/

Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder who recently cut his board of directors ties to his company so that he could focus in part on curing the world of disease — such as through the Decade of Vaccines his foundation helped pioneer to develop and administer vaccines around the world — just called out President Donald Trump’s decision to pull U.S. funding from the World Health Organization as abysmal, “dangerous” and deadly.

Hmm. There’s an entirely unexpected and shocking reaction — not.

His condemnation isn’t rooted so much in a “watching out for America” kind of view as it is in a “protecting self and self-interests” panic.

Yes, even billionaire philanthropists can have agendas.

Fact is, Gates is a huge funder of WHO.

https://www.bizpacreview.com/2020/04/19/let-us-work-protests-spread-all-across-the-us-this-weekend-demonstrators-labeled-as-far-right-910354

As protests against coronavirus-based lockdowns continue spreading across the country (and globe), authorities are growing increasingly despotic and arguably fascist in their enforcement of “stay-at-home” orders, with police in one community arresting a woman for simply planning a protest.

That woman, Kim Pagan of New Jersey, reportedly faces charges for “organizing a prohibited event” that involved protesters gathering in order “to demonstrate against” Gov. Phil Murphy‘s potentially unconstitutional coronavirus restrictions.

“Pagan has to answer to the charge in Muncipal Court. Violations of emergency orders constitute a disorderly persons offense carrying a potential sentence of up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine,” Fox News reported.

On Friday, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal posted a tweet in which he seemed to mock Pagan and other locals who’ve been charged for violating the governor’s authoritarian decrees:

But try as he and other officials might to infringe on the American people’s constitutionally guaranteed right “peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances,” protests continue to blossom throughout the country, from Nevada to Idaho, Texas and even California.

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

Rep. Adam Schiff spent months launching secret impeachment hearings, never thinking his conduct would be called into question.

He is now caught in the crosshairs of a formidable government agent, Mr. Brendan Carr, Federal Communication Commissioner. The impeachment may be over, but Mr. Carr is formally investigating Rep. Schiff for violating privacy laws — more like obliterating ethical boundaries — by setting up his own surveillance state to target the president’s allies.

Carr is currently uncovering the diabolical nature of the congressman’s “surveillance state.” At the time, Schiff resorted to such desperate measures because he didn’t have much of an impeachment case: Therefore, he issued secret subpoenas to phone carriers hoping to mine the private data of his political opponents, or in effect ransacking their private lives.

The objective was to obtain and publish the calls of Trump’s allies.