Something also tells me that this "novel" virus isn't really novel at all. It will be interesting to see if we arrive anywhere near the truth as more information surfaces in the coming weeks.

Did anyone see the interview with the NYC Health Commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot?

I will have to paraphrase slightly, because I cannot find a clip of the interview, however...

"There may be cases where someone died of a heart attack, and after their death they test positive for COVID-19, they should be counted as a COVID-19 death."

Wha... but... ummmmm... didn't you just say they died of a heart attack?

If we apply that same logic to all viruses, are people who are HIV positive, but die of a heart attack, counted as an AIDS death?

Just set aside all notions, right now, that you're getting good clean data from anyone, anywhere.

Maybe little pockets like County-X in State-Y know WTF is actually happening, maybe, sometimes.

Until then, if ever, it will no doubt be a confusing mess with substantially more questions than answers and far more goofy data than good. There are far, far too many people involved, in far, far too many places, under far, far too many different authorities, with an innumerable number of motivations/etc.

Nightmare doesn't begin to describe the problem in trying to get and manage good data here.

Wait and see. Or be constantly frustrated and confused.

Almost all of it now, in any meaningful degree of specificity, is worthless, baseless, speculation.

Counting deaths like that is the very real reason we can not trust all these numbers being thrown out by the government. We will never know just how many of the deaths occurred just like this. Of course, it's in their interest to keep people scared to death and get as high a count as possible so the sheep follow blindly along.

Has the Lockdown Worked?
Dennis Prager

Why are governments the world over rendering hundreds of millions of their citizens jobless, impoverishing at least a billion people, endangering the family life of millions (straining marriages, increasing child and spousal abuse, and further postponing marriage among young people), bankrupting vast numbers of business owners and workers living paycheck to paycheck, and increasing suicides?

The reason given is that we must lock down virtually all human social and economic activity in order to prevent millions of people from dying of the coronavirus and overwhelming hospitals.

But is it true? Was this lockdown necessary?

In order to answer these questions, we need to know how many people would have died from COVID-19 if we hadn't ruined the world's economic life.

The truth is we don't know. And the truth is we never knew. A large swath of the "expert" community cloaked itself with unscientific certitude, beginning on March 16, with a model from the Imperial College London -- the source governments relied upon for the decision to ruin their economies -- which projected about 2.2 million Americans and half a million Brits would die.

Almost every national leader, politician and media outlet in the world believed that model. As I explained in my last column, modern men and women have substituted "experts" for prophets and priests. Science is the secular religion, and "experts" are its prophets and priests. In fact, they have greater authority among the secular, especially those left of center, than the pope of the Catholic Church has among Catholics. Whereas popes have invoked the doctrine of "infallibility" twice in the history of the Catholic Church, "experts" invoke it every day among the secular faithful.

The Canadian Way of Dealing with a Pandemic: Ineffective, Clueless, and Dishonest

But on what grounds are we to believe that millions would die without ruining the American -- and the world's -- economy? Without our being told by an omniscient God, there is no way to know the definitive answer.

But here are some data that cast doubt on those assumptions, based entirely on the only metric that matters: deaths per 1 million. The number of confirmed infected people is meaningless, since so few people anywhere have been tested for the virus, and we don't know how many people already had the virus and never knew it. (Moreover, asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic carriers of the virus constitute the majority of those infected.)

As of yesterday, according to the Worldometer website, the United States ranked 12th, with 71 deaths per 1 million people. (I have not included San Marino and St. Martin because they have such small populations.)

France's death rate is 229 per 1 million, three times greater than that of the United States, and it went on national lockdown March 17. America didn't go on national lockdown because that decision is the responsibility of states. So, let's take California, the most populous American state (and therefore nearest to France's population). California went on statewide lockdown March 19, two days after France. The death rate from coronavirus in California is 2 per 100,000. Two. Deux.

That means France, which went on lockdown only two days prior to California, has more than 10 times the death rate.

And Nebraska, one of the few U.S. states that has not locked down -- to the intense anger of the state's Democrats at its Republican governor -- has a death rate of less than 1 per 100,000 (according to the Washington Post's daily listing of U.S. coronavirus deaths).

What do these statistics say about the efficacy and indispensability of a lockdown?

To give you an idea of how unreliable much "expert" thinking is, the Los Angeles Times published an article on April 10 titled "California's Coronavirus Death Toll Is Way Below New York's. Here's Why."

In it, the authors, needless to say unquestioningly, reported that Nicholas Jewell, identified as "a UC Berkeley biostatistician," explained why California had so many fewer deaths than New York:

"Just putting those controls in place a single day earlier makes a huge, huge difference in the growth rates," Jewell said, referring to California Gov. Gavin Newsom's March 19 lockdown order, whereas New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo waited three more days to lock down New York state. That, according to the expert from UC Berkeley and the Los Angeles Times, explains the "huge, huge difference in the growth rates" between the two states.

Then the article added a line that undermined its entire thesis:

"Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis didn't impose a stay-at-home order until April 1." Apparently, it never occurred to the Los Angeles Times authors to even look up Florida's death rates. The nonconservative media have been largely worthless during this crisis -- intellectually vapid, and, along with "experts," the primary stokers of panic.

If a few days' delay in ordering the lockdown of a state (or country) makes a "huge, huge difference" in death rates, Florida should have had a worse death rate than New York, let alone California. Yet Florida's death rate is among the lowest in the country: 24 per 1 million -- despite the fact that Florida, along with Maine, has the largest percentage of elderly people (those 65 and over) in any American state.

And then there is Sweden, the one industrialized Western democracy that did not shut down -- engendering intense anger from scientists and other "experts," as well as left-wing media (i.e., virtually all major media) across the world. Sweden, which still has its restaurants and businesses open, is far below Spain, Italy, Belgium, France, the U.K., the Netherlands, Switzerland and Luxembourg -- all of which have national lockdowns -- in deaths per 1 million. Yes, Sweden's death rate per 1 million is higher than its Scandinavian neighbors, Norway and Denmark, which did lock down their economic life. But as of the latest report, in the past two days, Sweden, which has almost exactly the same number of people as Denmark and Norway combined, lost 20 of its citizens to the coronavirus, while its neighbors lost 18.

The left blames President Donald Trump for our crisis (as if only America is undergoing economic ruin and loss of life).

If they were honest, they would blame reliance on "experts" and "modeling." But they hate Trump more than they love Americans -- or truth.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-p...the-lockdown-worked/

quote:

Originally posted by tleo205:
Counting deaths like that is the very real reason we can not trust all these numbers being thrown out by the government. We will never know just how many of the deaths occurred just like this. Of course, it's in their interest to keep people scared to death and get as high a count as possible so the sheep follow blindly along.

I believe that's also the reason they are just now mandating that everyone wear useless home made masks too. Keep the optics looking bad and the fear will live on.

World-wide mendacity.

EXCLUSIVE: Images of Same Boy Are Being Used as the Youngest Coronavirus Victim in the UK, Portugal and Belgium – But Photo Is of Boy from Ireland!



European Media Caught in a Huge Coronavirus Lie
News broke this month that 13-year-old Ismail Mohamad Abdulwahab became the youngest coronavirus victim in the UK.
And 14-year-old Victor Godinho became the youngest coronavirus victim in Portugal.

The image of Conor Wilmot, a 13 year old Irish boy who died in 2017, is being used in fake reports about the identity and nationality of the youngest Muslim COVID-19 victim in the UK, Portugal and Belgium.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.c...to-2017-boy-ireland/

The news media everywhere totally sucks and is completely dishonest.

quote:

Originally posted by tleo205:
The news media everywhere totally sucks and is completely dishonest.

Mainly because China is so heavily invested in them. Because of all that money, they bow to their Chinese masters.

The Chinese own a $300 million stake in Reddit, FFS.

The 5th most visited site in the US and 13th worldwide (2019 numbers)...

Complaints of CCP influence and astroturfing and moderation are rampant in various corners of Reddit.

(A useful resource in many ways, mind you, but still...)

https://www.coloradocitizenpre...Rspwf9EX453W_rLTPTO4
.
.

I find it ironic the Chicoms are lying about their numbers in order to make it appear there are fewer deaths than there actually are from the Covid and the U.S. is lying to make it appear there are more deaths than there are from the Covid. The truth is harder to find than toilet paper!!

Just heard an interview on the radio. There's no evidence that Covid-19 is contracted through food consumption (it is after all a respiratory disease). Continue to employ your usual reasonable food-handling procedures.

quote:

Originally posted by Ryanp225:
https://www.coloradocitizenpre...Rspwf9EX453W_rLTPTO4
.
.

We don't need film reviews in this thread, or whatever the link is for. Maybe clown make up, or how to post a meme?

What are you trying to say?

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

Originally posted by Ryanp225:
https://www.coloradocitizenpre...Rspwf9EX453W_rLTPTO4

We don't need film reviews in this thread, or whatever the link is for. Maybe clown make up, or how to post a meme?

What are you trying to say?

Link is to a planned protest in CO about reopening. Or that's what I see every time I click it.

"Protest to Open Closed Businesses at the Colorado State Capitol on Sunday, April 19"

^^^ Oh his post made no mention about that, or any idea of what the link was for. I was thinking clown make up tutorial. Now I am disappointed.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

Originally posted by Ryanp225:

protest-to-open-closed-businesses-at-the-colorado-state-capitol-on-sunday-april-19

We don't need film reviews in this thread, or whatever the link is for. Maybe clown make up, or how to post a meme?

What are you trying to say?

Come on Jesse, lighten up a little. The Joker meme is somewhat irrelevant. The link (everything but the article name part edited out) is to an article at the Colorado Citizen Press about a protest against the lockdowns.

quote:

Originally posted by tleo205:
Counting deaths like that is the very real reason we can not trust all these numbers being thrown out by the government. We will never know just how many of the deaths occurred just like this. Of course, it's in their interest to keep people scared to death and get as high a count as possible so the sheep follow blindly along.

Yes...

Reason, Emergencies, and Self-Government

In the time of COVID-19, the primary practical problem is that any number of persons who hold positions of power have taken to exercising their statutory authority—and often much much more—to please themselves or to act out their dreams of power.

By Angelo Codevilla • April 14, 2020

As panic over the COVID-19 virus has gripped the country, the alarm has made it possible for many government officials to advance agendas that portend permanent accretions of power to themselves and diminution of others’ freedoms.

There is nothing new about claims that ordinary people must surrender their goods and freedoms in exchange for salvation from real, hyped, or imagined emergencies. These instances have occurred in societies ruled by magic, in ancient democracies and empires, in the context of religion, as well as under the presumed aegis of science. Plagues, comets, famines, anniversaries, computer problems (remember Y2K?), and global warming, have provided the fear. Power stokes panic, which perverts all judgment and emboldens the willful.

In Western civilization, and in America especially, the specific consequences of such panics are smaller than the corrosive effects they have on the civilization and the regimes themselves—based as these are on reason. What follows sketches the larger problem.

On April 8, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was asked about his agency’s guidance for classifying the relationship of COVID-19 infections to deaths, specifically: “In cases where a definite diagnosis of COVID-19 cannot be made, but it is suspected or likely (e.g., the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty), it is acceptable to report COVID-19 on a death certificate as ‘probable’ or ‘presumed.’”

The question proceeded from the fact that, as the number of deaths attributed to the Chinese coronavirus has risen, the number of deaths normally attributed to causes such as influenza, pneumonia, heart failure and complications from diabetes has declined significantly. Fauci was asked to explain why. Since the vast majority of serious COVID-19 cases occur in people with precisely such conditions, is it not possible that the high count of COVID-19 deaths is in part an artifact of CDC’s guidance?

The integrity of the numbers regarding infections and deaths is of the highest importance because these numbers are the basis on which Fauci, followed by model makers, followed by politicians, have estimated COVID-19’s lethality. And that estimate is the basis on which the state of emergency has been imposed, which is revolutionizing millions of lives. Besides, these estimates are diverging from reality ever farther with each passing day.

Yet Fauci did not address the numbers’ integrity. He dismissed the question. Above all, he dismissed the questioner’s right to ask it: “You will always have conspiracy theories when you have very challenging public health crises. They are nothing but distractions.”

Leave aside that Fauci and other unelected persons have no authority to decree anything; that, at most, they speak for the president of the United States. For anyone to dismiss legitimate questions and questioners, thereby claiming a right to rule in defiance of reason, is to negate nature as our civilization understands it—especially in America.

This civilization is based on the book of Genesis. And the United States of America is based on the Declaration of Independence. Both affirm that the universe is created according to reason, and is intelligible by human reason; both also affirm that all human beings are created by one God, equally in the image and likeness of God. As Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger summed it up in his 2006 Regensburg lecture, “Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God.”

The practical meaning of “all men are created equal” is that no one may rule anyone else without his consent. And the consent of equals must be obtained by persuasion. To impose strictures on someone else while dismissing reasonable questions as to the basis for them is no trivial offense. It is an offense against our regime quite as much as it is on the individuals being treated as beings so inferior as to be placed beyond reason’s reach.

In the time of COVID-19, the primary practical problem is that any number of persons who hold positions of power have taken to exercising their statutory authority—and often much more—to please themselves or to act out their dreams of power. This has resulted in such assaults on common sense as the release from jail of common criminals, failure to arrest others, and the arresting and even jailing of those who defy orders to stay indoors or not work.

Just as galling is the coalescence of America’s ruling Left in demanding that the country remain shut down indefinitely, pending their own decision to release some restrictions conditioned on obeisance to their prescriptions for new ways of life. Fauci himself has said that he would allow those who can be certified to have recovered from a COVID-19 infection to return to work—subject to twice-daily temperature checks. Who gave him the right to so order?

The most consequential of the consequences of all this is precisely the dismissal of argument. Who are we, the presumably non-expert to question the experts?

Reasonably, the question should be turned around: Who are you to presume to rule over me? Who gave you such authority? I did not.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/0...and-self-government/

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
^^^ Oh his post made no mention about that, or any idea of what the link was for. I was thinking clown make up tutorial. Now I am disappointed.

Clown makeup tutorial? Wtf are you smoking?
Click on the damned link if you want to know what the link is and if you've ever owned a television you should know what the picture means.
Or are you intentionally obtuse like when someone posts something about a celebrity and some a-hole always has to reply, "who?" so show everyone how cool they are.

Anyone else notice the IHME model hasn't been updated with hard data in 5 days? Curious, eh?

https://covid19.healthdata.org...ed-states-of-america