Where’s the Science Behind CDC’s 6-Foot Social-Distance Decree? The new limit for schools is 3 feet. But the public is in the dark about the basis of these recommendations. Scott Gottlieb

https://www.wsj.com/articles/wheres-the-science-behind-cdcs-6-foot-social-distance-decree-11616358952?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidance on Friday about how far apart children ought to be while in school. The old standard of 6 feet has been replaced by a 3-foot minimum, which will make it much more feasible for many schools to reopen for full-time instruction in person.

The adjustment applies only to schools, not society more broadly, and only when prevalence is low and schools are taking other measures, such as keeping kids in social “pods.” The preconditions may preclude the guidance from having its full intended effect. The World Health Organization has allowed 1 meter of distance (around 39 inches) both in and out of school. China, France, Denmark and Hong Kong, among others, went with this spacing. If the CDC’s guidance were applied universally—to include work and retail—that one adjustment could restore substantially more commercial activity.

More distance is always better when it comes to contagion. But the 6-foot directive might have been the single costliest measure CDC has recommended, which have been largely followed over the past year. So what science went into making—and, more important, sustaining—the recommendation?

Nobody knows for sure. Most agree the guideline derives from a belief that Covid is largely spread through respiratory droplets, like flu. Old studies suggest that larger respiratory droplets are unlikely to travel more than 6 feet, and therefore close contact with an infected person is the primary mode of exposure. This research was hardly conclusive, but by most accounts it formed the basis for the initial Covid recommendations. More-recent research shows that the novel coronavirus can also spread through airborne particles, known as aerosols, especially indoors.

China’s Warning to Biden A lecture in Alaska shows that adversaries sense U.S. weakness.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-warning-to-biden-11616360915?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

That was some tongue lashing a senior Chinese official delivered last week in Anchorage to top Biden Administration officials in their first meeting. This is the new reality in U.S.-China relations, as adversaries look to see if they can exploit President Biden as they did Barack Obama.

The two sides had agreed to two minutes of opening remarks each. Secretary of State Antony Blinken kept his short and hospitable, though he did say the U.S. has “deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyber attacks on the United States, and economic coercion toward our allies. Each of these actions threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability.”

China’s director of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, Yang Jiechi, then went on a 20-minute tear (including translation) about the superiority of “Chinese-style democracy” and America’s sins. The latter included a reference to Black Lives Matter, human-rights problems, and that the U.S. “has exercised long-arm jurisdiction and suppression and overstretched the national security through the use of force or financial hegemony.”

Mr. Yang added: “So we believe that it is important for the United States to change its own image and to stop advancing its own democracy in the rest of the world. Many people within the United States actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States.” As we’ve noted, the Chinese like to echo the woke U.S. media critique of America.

Mr. Blinken responded that the U.S. “acknowledges our imperfections, acknowledges that we’re not perfect, we make mistakes, we have reversals, we take steps back” but then make progress again. This is true enough, but needlessly defensive after a foreigner’s public assault on U.S. interests and values.

Baghdad Bob at the Southern Border . By Charles Lipson

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/03/22/baghdad_bob_at_the_southern_border_145448.html

“There is absolutely no immigration crisis on the southern border.” That’s the repeated message from the Biden administration. It simply isn’t true.

Our leaders are telling Americans to ignore the overcrowded immigrant centers and caravans on the way. Don’t look at unaccompanied minors, arriving in record numbers. Those are mere “challenges.” Want to see for yourself? Sorry, no can do. The administration has blocked journalists from inspecting immigration facilities or accompanying the Border Patrol on their rounds. This is not the way to discuss democratic choices. It’s the way to grow mushrooms.

The media blackout and litany of false statements are reminiscent of the most dazzling press spokesman of modern times, “Baghdad Bob.” The mouthpiece for Saddam Hussein during the Iraq War famously told the world press, “There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!” What made his statement so memorable was that, just behind him on camera, American bombs were exploding. American troops were swarming into the country. He bravely — inanely — denied it all. U.S. soldiers, he said, “hold no place in Iraq. This is an illusion.” He was soon captured by those illusory troops.

Bagdad Bob set the gold standard for government flacks and the politicians who hide behind them. But he has plenty of imitators. Donald Trump’s first press secretary, Sean Spicer, repeated his boss’s ludicrous claims that the 2017 presidential inauguration was the best-attended in U.S. history. Aerial photographs proved otherwise. But Spicer stuck with his story, to mounting ridicule. He knew who had hired him. Today, his old boss won’t even admit he lost the 2020 election or had anything to do with losing Georgia’s two Senate seats, which cost Republicans control of the upper chamber.

In the annals of public deceit, the Trump administration leaves big shoes to fill. The Biden administration is making an impressive effort to fill them, shoveling steaming heaps of disinformation about its immigration policies. Joe Biden doesn’t do that himself. He avoids answering questions or speaking off the cuff, apparently for good reason. So it’s up to his press secretary, Jen Psaki, and the secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, to explain how the administration is handling immigration. Their answers have only a glancing relationship with the truth.

China: What to Do About It? by Gordon G. Chang

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17191/china-what-to-do-about-it

Amendments to China’s National Defense Law, effective the beginning of this year, take away sweeping powers from the State Council, which leads China’s civilian government, and give it to the Communist Party’s Central Military Commission. These powers include the power to mobilize all of society for war.

Everything they do, whether it is seemingly innocuous, such as measuring a mountain or putting a rover on Mars, is a means of claiming sovereignty, of enlarging the People’s Republic. Now, of course, there are, in addition to these incursions, China’s militant, hostile, belligerent acts…. The question is, what are we going to do about it?

China will land a Rover, its Rover, on Mars in either May or June…. China’s officials have been talking about moon and Mars as if they are sovereign Chinese territory — part of the People’s Republic.

They look at near heavenly bodies the same way they do the South China Sea, something that should be theirs. This means that if they get there, China believes it has the right to exclude other nations.

Today let’s focus on three things that China is doing relating to genetics. First, China is collecting the world’s DNA. Second, China is genetically engineering the Chinese to become a superhuman race, in other words, eugenics. Third, Chinese researchers are working on pathogens, new pathogens, artificial ones, to create the world’s next pandemic.

The story here is that we allowed the Chinese to plunder our society for data.

This whole subject was brought to the attention of the American public by John Ratcliffe, then director of National Intelligence, when he wrote that China was trying to grow super‑soldiers. Ratcliffe mentioned that China is already conducting experiments on people in the People’s Liberation Army to enhance their abilities, to create, as he called it, “biologically enhanced capabilities.”

The Chinese regime does not have ethics or morality. It is not restrained by law. It does not have a sense of restraint. The regime is trying to create the perfect communist. China has the ability and the will to do this, which means that the world has got to prevent this experimentation.

China can become number one in two ways. It can enhance its own CNP ranking by becoming stronger, or it can decrease the CNP rankings of other countries. That’s where pathogens come in. This notion of decreasing CNP of others meant that China had no inhibitions about spreading the coronavirus around the world.

Now, China’s ranking of CNP will increase dramatically, of course, if the next disease leaves the Chinese alone and sickens only foreigners.

The spreading of the coronavirus is indeed an application of unrestricted warfare. Many analysts have said that biological warfare does not work. I can understand why they say that, but unfortunately we have just seen a disease kill about 2.4 million people as well as hobble societies across the world.

COVID-19 is the ultimate proof that biological weapons work. If Chinese scientists actually succeed in developing viruses that attack only foreigners, China could end up as the only viable society in the world. This is communist China’s weapon against the world and against the United States as well.

[O]n January 20 — just hours after taking the oath of office — Biden issued an executive order that repealed President Trump’s executive order of May 1st, 2020, preventing grid operators in the US from buying Chinese equipment. This means China is now free to sell sabotaged equipment to the US.

[W]e should impose costs on China for spreading COVID‑19. Recently, we passed that grim milestone of more than 500,000 deaths. This pathogen is not finished with us yet. We have to impose these costs on China to convince Xi Jinping that he cannot spread the next disease beyond his borders.

[W]e need to have the President of the United States impose costs on China for what it’s doing in Hong Kong. President Trump started imposing costs but did not do enough. I hope that Biden, who ran on a campaign of trying to help the people of Hong Kong, will do so.

Right now, the Chinese economy may be growing, but it did not grow at the 2.3 percent that Beijing announced for 2020. It is probably just a smidgen over zero, if it is zero.

We are approaching a point where ‑‑ this will be critical ‑‑ where Biden will have to decide whether to run to the rescue of China’s regime. We know that Nixon in 1972, George H.W. Bush in 1989, and Bill Clinton in 1999 rescued Chinese communism. I hope Biden does not do that a fourth time.

[T]he Biden team — and they have talked about this in public — they say, “We will impose costs on China for those things which are unacceptable, we will criticize them on others, and we will cooperate where there are common interests.” I don’t think we can do that because I do not see that we have common interests with a country that’s trying to overthrow our government. My message is: understand the fundamental nature, the hostility, and the maliciousness of China, and remember one other thing. That is, China deliberately released the disease that has killed more than 500,000 Americans. That alone means there can be no cooperation with China.

We need to say this to France, to Germany, to everybody else, that this is a zero‑sum game. You either work with the US or we do not consider you to be our friend. I think Israel would choose the right side. I am not so sure about some of the other countries mentioned…. [T]his is something where American presidents have not communicated to our friends, allies, and partners how we feel about China. I say we should no longer support China’s Communist regime.. We consider it to be an enemy, and we will act to protect ourselves in an appropriate fashion. Just tell Biden, in May 2019, People’s Daily ran a piece that declared a “people’s war on the US.” That is all Biden should need to know.

We know the Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and others are dying in these facilities. The only thing that separates the People’s Republic of China and the Third Reich is that China has not gone to mass exterminations — yet. This meets the definition of “genocide” in the Genocide Convention of 1948. If Biden needs another message, this is not just a policy choice for him. We are a party to that Genocide Convention, which requires signatories to “prevent and punish” acts of genocide.

“What should Biden do?” One of the things Secretary Pompeo said that really unnerved the Chinese was talking about in‑person diplomacy, talking to the Chinese people directly. ….Biden needs to do the same thing. Not every solution is military. As a matter of fact, our solutions with China are not military. It really starts with talking to the Chinese people.

What does China really want?

Biden’s firing squad stands in a circle With no one in charge, none of Washington’s recent threats is consistent with identifiable policy objectives David Goldman

https://asiatimes.com/2021/03/bidens-firing-squad-stands-in-a-circle/

The Biden Administration last week set a new historical record by threatening sanctions against Germany, India, Russia and China in the space of 72 hours. Germany and India are, or at least were, American allies.

Washington is angry at Germany for building a natural gas pipeline with Russia, at India for purchasing a Russian air defense system, at Russia for mistreatment of President Putin’s opponents and at China for treatment of its Uighur Muslim minority.

None of Washington’s recent threats is consistent with identifiable policy objectives. On the contrary, recent outbursts from Biden and his cabinet will cement a Sino-Russian alliance against the US, undermine US efforts to rebuild relations with European allies and damage US efforts to create a “Quad” alliance against China in the Pacific.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that no one is in charge at the White House, and that senior officials are jockeying for position in a power vacuum by signaling to domestic constituencies. But the net effect recalls the old joke about the firing squad that stands in a circle.

President Biden March 16 called Russia’s President Putin “a killer” who “has no soul,” and averred that Putin would “pay a price” for allegedly trying to help Trump in the 2020 presidential election—an unprecedented combination of threat and insult that no Western leader ever has uttered except in wartime.

Visiting India last week, Lloyd Austin, “the guy who runs that outfit over there” in Biden’s description, warned India not to go through with its planned purchase of Russia’s S400 air defense system, to “avoid any kind of acquisitions that would trigger sanctions.”

According to news reports, Austin is the US secretary of defense. India is supposed to anchor the “Quad,” a four-way alliance among the US, Japan, Australia and India to contain China’s ambitions in the Pacific. Threatening one’s prospective allies with sanctions is not the conventional way in which alliances are built.

The Collapsing American Family by Linda Goudsmit

http://goudsmit.pundicity.com/25228/the-collapsing-american-family

   http://goudsmit.pundicity.com and website: http://lindagoudsmit.com

What explains the radical leftist attack on the American family?

To answer this question we must understand the combatants in terms of competing ideologies. Leftism is rooted in Marxist collectivism and loyalty to the state. Conservatism is rooted in individualism and loyalty to the family. Consider the communist revolution in China. Thousands of years of venerating the family was extinguished and replaced with loyalty to the Communist Chinese Party (CCP).

Maoists instituted a national cancel-culture campaign that burned books, demolished statues, erased history, destroyed culture and cultural norms in a re-education campaign that replaced traditional Chinese culture with Maoist slogans and loyalty to the state.

In contemporary America, the radical leftist Democrats are following the Maoist cancel-culture model. They are targeting the three supporting pillars of American society; the American family, our Judeo-Christian faith, and the U.S. Constitution symbolized by our American flag. Cancel-culture is asymmetric warfare used by the advancing enemy to prepare the population for a replacement ideology.

How is this possible in the United States of America?

Hitler tried it in Germany. Hitler removed the children from their parents and indoctrinated them with Nazi re-education lessons that demanded loyalty to the state. Hitler’s youth actually turned in parents who rejected Nazism.

Marxist cancel-culture is ripping out the foundations of America’s constitutional republic that guarantee decentralized government, individual rights, and states rights. It is leftist preparation for a Marxist-style centralized, federalized, collectivist replacement ideology. According to Karl Marx, the father of Communism, an ideal communist society would have centralized banking, centralized education, and centralized labor. All infrastructure facilities, all agriculture, and all industries would be government-owned. There would be no private property, no inheritance rights, and the government would levy high taxes on everyone to support its programs.

BDS: The 21st Century reprise of Nazism Diane Bederman

https://dianebederman.com/bds-the-21st-century-reprise-of-nazism/

Today, the Jewish world is under attack by BDS: Boycott, Divest Sanction. BDS is our century’s Nazism. We do not tolerate white supremacists calling for our death, yet we sit and tolerate BDS?

It is time to show the world the truth. It is time to smackdown and destroy the Jew hating BDS organization; a virulent transmitter of Jew hatred. You cannot reason with evil. It will not pass over.

BDS has one purpose, and one purpose only – to destroy. The rhetoric of BDS is no different from the rhetoric of the Nazis. Will we continue to duck and hide, talk till we are blue in the face, look for allies, you know like FDR who cared until he didn’t? Or will we stop putting out the fires lit by Jew hatred and BE the fire and destroy the hate?

Listen to hitler and then listen to Muslim leaders. Can you tell the difference?

From the lips of hitler”

“I have often been a prophet in my life and was generally laughed at. During my struggle for power, the Jews primarily received with laughter my prophecies that I would someday assume the leadership of the state and thereby of the entire Volk and then among many other things, achieve a solution of the Jewish problem. I suppose that meanwhile the resounding laughter of Jewry in Germany is now choking in their throats.”

“The Aryans, by their nature, their blood, were chosen to rule the world. The Aryan race is the bearer of human cultural development and therefore human culture and civilization are inseparably bound up in the presence of the Aryan. What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and reproduction of our race and our people, the sustenance of our children and the purity of our blood, the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that our people may mature for the fulfillment of the mission allotted it by the creator of the universe.

Middle East Reality Welcomes President Biden Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

 https://bit.ly/2P1wNbk

 US policy in the Middle East

Since the 7th century, the Middle East has been one of the most tempestuous epicenters of domestic, regional and global wars and terrorism. The Middle East has frustrated US policy-makers, whose genuine attempts to promote peaceful-coexistence, human rights, democracy and international law have – too often – fueled social and political disintegration, repression, domestic and regional wars and global terrorism. 

For example, in 1978/79, the US intent to advance the cause of human rights and democracy in Iran, led to the embrace of Ayatollah Khomeini (an old religious leader in exile….) and betrayal of the Shah, providing the tailwind for the transformation of Iran from the American Policeman of the Gulf to the worst enemy of the US and all its Arab allies, a major proliferator of terrorism, wars and ballistic capabilities.

In 1990, the US considered Saddam Hussein an ally (the enemy of my enemy is my friend….), unintentionally providing a “green light” to his invasion of Kuwait (during Saddam’s meeting with US Ambassador April Glaspie).

In 2003, the US toppled Saddam Hussein, crushed Iraq’s Sunni dominance of Iraq and empowered the Iran-backed Shiites, which unleashed a ferocious civil war and intensified Islamic terrorism.

In 2009, the US spurned the pro-US President Mubarak and courted Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood – aiming to advance the cause of human rights and democracy – which catapulted the Brotherhood to power in 2012/13, and energized their attempts to terrorize and topple every pro-US Arab regimes. 

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

 

On March 27, the holiday of Passover begins in the evening. Families will tell the story of how the Jewish people fled the cruelties and tyranny of the Pharaoh to make their way to Israel. As the Egyptian armies pursued them close behind, the sea parted for their escape, drowning their oppressors. Millennia later after the Holocaust which claimed the lives of one in every three Jews in the world another miracle occurred when the steel hulls of ships parted the waters of oceans on their way to liberated and restored Israel in 1948. Who could have dreamed of the amazing research and development which Michael Ordman catalogs for us every week? To all who celebrate Passover, I wish a wonderful and sweet holiday and to all who celebrate Easter I wish all the blessings of peace and good times.

RSK

 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Huge drop in infections. (TY UWI) Israel’s Covid-19 infection rate has fallen such that hospitals are now closing their coronavirus wards. 50% of Israelis are now fully vaccinated against Covid-19. See also the YouTube animation showing relative percentages of each country’s vaccinations over the last 3 months. 

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/HJbiwkpmd

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/298855

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MzBmOURnB8

Together we can do miracles. Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer explains why he chose Israel as the priority destination for his company’s SARS-COV-2 vaccine.  A small population, a good healthcare system, a high degree of electronic data and an obsessive Prime Minister. And the scientific partnership has a great future.

https://www.israelunwired.com/pfizer-ceo-we-placed-the-bet-with-israel-and-we-are-so-happy-with-the-results/

 

The Covid-19 benefits of Aspirin. (TY UWI) A joint team from Israel’s Leumit Health Services, Bar-Ilan University, and Barzilai Medical Center analyzed records of over 10,000 Leumit patients. They found low-dose aspirin (75mg) reduced Covid-19 infection risk by 29% and shortened virus duration by about two days.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/aspirin-may-protect-against-covid-19-israeli-research-finds/

 

Successful UK trial of anti-Covid-19 nose spray. Israel’s SaNOtize (reported here previously) has announced that UK trials showed its Nitric Oxide nose spray successfully reduced virus severity in infected patients and prevented it being transmitted to others. Emergency deployment is now being sought in Britain and Canada.

https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/israeli-maker-of-nose-spray-that-kills-covid-19-applies-for-uk-rollout/

 

Portable blood count system for UK hospital. Israel’s Sight Diagnostics (reported here previously) has deployed its lab-grade Sight OLO solution to the UK’s John Radcliffe Hospital, part of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation. The portable system delivers Full Blood Count (FBC) results in just a few minutes.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3898111,00.html

Guiding catheters to the tumor. Israel’s Cortica (reported here previously) has launched another medical spinoff – CORDiguide. It is developing AI-based technology to navigate catheters, using angiographic imaging, to transport miniature treatment devices to a cancer target, along a road map of blood vessels.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3897691,00.html

Reducing nerve damage from cancer treatments. A study of 500 cancer patients at Tel Aviv’s Sourasky (Ichilov) Medical Center found that those who took cannabis prior to oxaliplatin chemotherapy suffered 40% less nerve damage than those who didn’t. Oxaliplatin’s neurological side effects affect 70% of cancer patients.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/cannabis-can-prevent-major-chemotherapy-side-effect-israeli-study-suggest/

Faster recovery from strokes. Israel’s BrainQ (reported here May 2018) reported that the double-blind trial of its AI-based electromagnetic therapy shows that patients recovered 77% faster from the disabilities caused by the stroke and were able to resume normal life. The therapy now has FDA Breakthrough Device Designation.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/study-of-25-stroke-patients-shows-brainqs-wave-therapy-can-reduce-disability/

Safe insertion of feeding tubes. (TY WIN & I24 News) Thirty million feeding tubes are inserted into patients annually. One million are inserted incorrectly, many with tragic consequences. The ENVue electromagnetic wave-guided system from Israel’s Envizion prevents those mistakes. Its use is mandatory at many US hospitals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAyaP0zWOOU  https://www.envizionmed.com/

Saving Eli. Scientists at Tel Aviv University’s Blavatnik Center (see here) are racing to find a cure for 2-year-old Eli Reich from New York, who suffers from the rare FOXG1 syndrome that damages brain development. They have already identified several FDA-approved medications that could repair Eli’s faulty FOXG1 proteins.

https://www.jpost.com/health-science/can-israeli-innovation-save-the-life-of-a-2-year-old-jew-from-new-york-662070    http://www.webelieveinacure.org/our-story

Paramedics save Jerusalem mother at 3am. Just before 3:00 a.m., a 56-year-old mother suffered a heart attack at her Jerusalem home. A total of eight United Hatzalah volunteer EMTs ran up five floors to administer CPR and defibrillator shocks. After 12 minutes, the woman’s pulse returned, and she opened her eyes.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/298489

Live Not by Politics Things I’ve read that I’ve loved of late. Bari Weiss

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/live-not-by-politics?token=

EXCERPTS

I realize that sounds nuts given that my work requires me to read for many hours each day. But I don’t mean Internet-reading or newspaper-reading or even magazine-reading. I mean paper in hand, curled up on couch while eating chips, or laying in the Los Angeles sun old-fashioned reading. This mostly happens on Shabbat, when we mostly turn off our phones for 25 hours. (Nellie, who has the zeal of the convert, sometimes catches me texting in a closet.)

I wanted to share some of my favorites of the past six months. Soon I’m going to launch a book club to bring my favorite writers to you, so consider this a very initial foray into that project.

What the hell is going on? How did things get so broken? And how can we live well inside (or despite) the brokenness? There are three books I’ve read that answer each one of those questions.

THE REVOLT OF THE PUBLIC by former CIA analyst Martin Gurri is the book I have recommended more than any other this past year. He owes me a cut, as I told him in a recent interview, which I’m going to write up for a future column.

Anyone that thinks the primary conflict in America is between Republicans and Democrats is out to lunch. The real conflict — not just in this country but in the 21st century — is the one between what Gurri variously calls the center and the border, the hierarchy and the network, or the elites in their ivory towers and the public in their chaotic squares. That conflict has been created by the digital revolution. If you dream of things calming down or going back to normal anytime soon, bad news: we are only at the very beginning.

The tool of the revolution is information. The authority of 20th century institutions like Harvard or The New York Times depended on scarcity; they genuinely had access to exclusive information and secret knowledge. That authority has utterly collapsed under the force of the never-ending tsunami of information available to any fool with Google.

If you want to understand how seemingly discreet phenomenon like Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, and the GameStop short squeeze are actually all part of one story, Gurri, who published this book in 2014, will show you.

Most important, he will convince you, once and for all, that the old hierarchies are dead and no amount of nostalgia can revive them. The real question is what comes next.