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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 20, 2020 9:03:26 GMT -6
A Montana county is mandating citizens to wear a pink wrist band to go shopping at grocery stores. The band represents the person has quarantined for 14 days. You know who else had armbands? montanadailygazette.com/2020/04/14/montana-county-demands-people-wear-government-issued-arm-bands-to-do-business/In what might be one of the most over-the-top and draconian responses to coronavirus yet seen in Montana, Valley County is mandating that people wear government-issued pink arm bands in under to purchase products inside of stores. The measure, enforced by the Valley County Health Department, insists that store-owners keep customers out unless they have the pink arm-bands, which denote the customer has been in the area more than 14 days and submitted to quarantine protocol.
According to the flier produced by the Valley County Health Department, out-of-towners who lack the government-issued armbands will be prohibited from stores and residents are notified to call law enforcement if they do not comply.
The health department even issued a script to warn customers to flee, saying, “You are violating our Governor’s and Valley County’s Health Officer’s orders. I am happy to shop for you with curbside delivery. I will get the items for you and bring them to your car. If you don’t cooperate, you will force me to call law enforcement.”Here’s a copy of the flyer.
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 20, 2020 10:03:21 GMT -6
Dr. Fauci argued on Monday that the protests in support of our Constitutional rights to reopen the economy will actually SLOW the economy! Via The Hill: thehill.com/homenews/administration/493647-fauci-warns-protests-against-against-stay-at-home-orders-willAnthony Fauci, the top government official on infectious diseases, warned Monday that protests in opposition to governors’ stay-at-home orders meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus will “backfire” and further delay the reopening of the economy.
“Clearly this is something that is hurting from the standpoint of economics and the standpoint of things that have nothing to do with the virus, but unless we get the virus under control, the real recovery economically is not going to happen,” Fauci said on “Good Morning America.”
“So what you do if you jump the gun and go into a situation where you have a big spike, you’re going to set yourself back,” he said. “So as painful as it is to go by the careful guidelines of gradually phasing into a reopening, it’s going to backfire. That’s the problem.”
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 20, 2020 10:04:43 GMT -6
dailycaller.com/2020/04/20/msnbc-morning-joe-scarborough-mika-brzezinski-coronavirus-covid-19-deaths-count-higher-america/‘Morning Joe’ Co-Hosts Claim That Coronavirus Deaths In US Are ‘Much Higher’ Than 40,000 Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski claimed Monday that coronavirus deaths in the U.S. are “higher” than the approximately 40,000 officially reported, saying people “can feel” it. “People know, they can see, they can feel. Testing would have prevented deaths and would allow us to reopen safely. And don’t have it. And the Americans can see it,” Brzezinski said on the MSNBC program. “The other number they can see and feel: 40,000 people dead … 40,000. That’s not the number of unreported. That number is higher,” she said as co-host Joe Scarborough added, “much higher.” Brzezinski continued, “People see it, they feel it, they know people, they’ve had it.” (RELATED: Joe Scarborough: Dr. Phil And Dr. Oz Spreading ‘Propaganda’ For Trump) They then pointed to a series of polls conducted by NBC News and The Wall Street Journal that show public disapproval over the way President Donald Trump has managed the coronavirus crisis. Brzezinski noted that “65% said that Trump did not take the coronavirus threat seriously enough at the beginning, 32% believe that he did. Thirty-six percent say they trust the president’s opinion of the coronavirus. That’s compared to 66% who say they trust their state’s governor. And 60% say they trust Dr. Anthony Fauci.” She then claimed that support for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is eclipsing Trump because the former vice president “is careful with his words” and has produced some “really strong” campaign ads that “show clearly — clearly — that Joe Biden saw this [coronavirus pandemic] coming. He was writing about this in USA Today in January.” (RELATED: Ben Carson: If We Wait For COVID-19 Virus To Be Completely Gone Before Reopening, ‘Our Economy Will Be Gone Also’) Brzezinski lauded Biden for his alleged foresight in anticipating the crisis that was “coming like a steamroller … in the direction of the United States. He was concerned. He called on the White House, the president, the administration, to take it seriously. They did not. This is plain and simple.” Democratic presidential hopeful former US vice president Joe Biden participates in the 11th Democratic Party 2020 presidential debate in a CNN Washington Bureau studio in Washington, DC on March 15, 2020. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images) Democratic presidential hopeful former US vice president Joe Biden participates in the 11th Democratic Party 2020 presidential debate in a CNN Washington Bureau studio in Washington, DC on March 15, 2020. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images) Biden accused Trump of “xenophobia” after the president referred to COVID-19 as the “China virus” because it came out of the Chinese city of Wuhan. The former vice president said Trump moved too slowly to protect Americans from the pandemic. Biden advanced several false claims, including suggesting Trump cut funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and that the president described the pandemic as “a hoax.” Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor for the coronavirus task force, said that Trump took the COVID-19 threat seriously from the beginning of the crisis.
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 20, 2020 10:10:59 GMT -6
www.dailywire.com/news/protesting-is-a-non-essential-activity-police-department-says‘Protesting Is a Non-Essential Activity,’ Police Department Says It’s right there in the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
The Founders knew that protest — as long as it’s peaceful — is an important part of a democracy, and they wanted to ensure Americans that in the new experimental government, they would have a way to express their displeasure (not exactly OK when dealing with a king).
But the coronavirus is changing everything, and it’s even beginning to challenge the concepts set out in the Bill of Rights.
During a protest last week in North Carolina calling for the reopening of the economy, the Raleigh Police Department arrested a person for violating the state’s stay-at-home orders.
When someone asked on Twitter, “What part of the governor’s order was violated here?” The police department answered, “Protesting is a non-essential activity.”
Who has the power to do what during a pandemic is unclear. Kristie Graunke, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, told Reason that the First Amendment applies even under emergency orders, with caveats. “Enforcement of emergency orders should not exacerbate racial disparities and should not lead to custodial arrest unless doing so is the last resort, because arresting people and sending them to jail is antithetical to public health. The goal of enforcement should be to facilitate long-term compliance rather than to punish non-compliance,” she said. “Even under emergency orders, the First Amendment right to protected speech, including protest speech, remain in effect,” Graunke said. “But government officials may temporarily limit in-person gatherings in circumstances where medical and scientific experts agree that assemblies of people pose an immediate and grave risk to public health. Any public health measure limiting civil liberties must be re-evaluated when the medical and scientific consensus changes.” Shea Denning, a criminal law expert at the University of North Carolina school of government, told the News & Observer newspaper that “police do have the power to use criminal charges to enforce Cooper’s stay-at-home order.” “I think what people might be thinking about is, ‘Well, don’t I still have constitutional rights? And can a state statute take away my rights?’” Denning said. The answer, she said, is yes to both: A state of emergency doesn’t completely take people’s rights away, but it does let the government do things that might otherwise infringe on people’s rights. The demonstration came a day after North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said lifting his executive orders on COVID-19 would be a “catastrophe,” with experts saying it could flood the hospitals with patients. Since then, a social media campaign using the hashtag #ReopenNC has drawn much attention, with organizers calling for Cooper to recall the orders. “We continue to see the spread of the virus accelerate through North Carolina but at a much slower pace because people are following the executive orders on social distancing,” Cooper said. “These models show consistently that our executive orders work and that wholesale lifting of those orders would be a catastrophe.”
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 20, 2020 10:13:31 GMT -6
Milton Friedman once said: The British obey all laws, the French obey no laws, and the Americans obey good laws. That's why America is superior. That's one protection from tyranny. www.dailywire.com/news/social-shredding-defiant-residents-grab-shovels-dirt-bikes-after-cali-authorities-dump-tons-of-sand-in-skateparks-for-social-distancing‘Social Shredding’: Defiant Residents Grab Shovels, Dirt Bikes After Cali Authorities Dump Tons Of Sand In Skateparks For ‘Social Distancing’ California authorities tried to stop skateboarders by dumping literally tons of sand into at least two area skateparks in an effort to enforce so-called “social distancing.” However, the effort was for naught, it seems. Young residents in California responded to the government’s extreme social distancing enforcement action by grabbing a few shovels, buckets, and booms and turning at least one sand-filled skatepark into a park for both skating and dirt biking. “Took advantage of all the sand the city dumped into the San Clemente skatepark then helped some local skaters dig it all out so they could do some social shredding,” Buttery Films’ Instagram account posted at San Clement Skatepark on Sunday. Famed surfer and actor Kalani Robb added his approval to the comment section, posting a heart emoji. As seen below in the Instagram post, there is still skating at the park, in an area where the sand has been totally cleared out, as well as dirt bike “shredding” in others parts. Here’s one portion of the video posted by Buttery Films via Twitter (original Instagram post is available below): As noted by The Daily Wire on Sunday, the San Clemente skatepark was recently filled with 37 tons of sand by authorities to discourage skaters and “promote social distancing.” “San Clemente had shut down all its parks and facilities on April 1 under the state’s stay-at-home orders, but skaters ignored signs warning against trespassing at the Ralphs Skate Court, 241 Avenida La Pata,” Los Angeles CBS reported. “Since park facilities have been closed city officials say they routinely saw people visit the skatepark, even by some children accompanied with their parents, according to the San Clemente Times. City officials told the newspaper they followed in the footsteps of other cities, and filled the skatepark with 37 tons of sand.” Authorities never notified the nonprofit group that raised money to support the skatepark about the sand dumping. Authorities manning Venice Beach’s skatepark followed suit days later. “By Friday afternoon, the ramps and bowls at the park located at 1800 Ocean Front Walk were buried beneath enough sand to make them unrideable,” reported KTLA. “All parks, beaches, bike paths and trails in Los Angeles County are closed until at least May 15 to support social distancing under the county’s Safer at Home order.” “At Venice Beach, all parking lots, bathrooms, piers and beach access points are also shuttered, along with the boardwalk and Ocean Front Walk. There is some access in the area to essential businesses,” the report added. The move was widely criticized online, even garnering a reaction from Texas Senator Ted Cruz. “Clearly, the greatest public- heath threat imaginable…a kid on a skateboard. Young people, remember, this is what Big-government statist Democrats do—they take away your freedom,” the Republican posted online. “And to all the Lefties defending California’s idiocy, skating alone poses ZERO public health threat to anybody. You want to enforce social distancing in public spaces, fine, but filling a skate park with sand—so nobody can use it—is authoritarian abuse of power.” WATCH:
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 20, 2020 11:58:44 GMT -6
www.dailywire.com/news/gov-whitmer-considers-extending-michigan-lockdown-to-punish-protestersMichigan governor Gretchen Whitmer is considering extending the state’s lockdown orders because of protesters, who flooded the state capital last week in a car-bound protest against her restrictive coronavirus-related regulations. The Washington Examiner reports that Whitmer called the protest “irresponsible” in an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow last week and claimed that the protests, which largely abided by social distancing guidelines, put Michiganders at greater risk of contracting the virus. She then threatened to impose further restrictions on Michigan residents in order to curb the protest’s (unknown) effects. “We might have to actually think about extending stay-at-home orders, which is supposedly what they were protesting,” Whitmer quipped. She then called the protest “a political rally,” implying that the demonstration was motivated by support for President Donald Trump and not her unreasonable and often arbitrary coronavirus restrictions. “When you see a, you know, a political rally — that’s what it was yesterday — a political rally like that, where people aren’t wearing masks, and they’re in close quarters, and they’re touching one another, you know that that’s precisely what makes this kind of a disease drag out and expose more people,” Whitmer said. A handful of protesters did exit their cars for an in-person protest, but media accounts from the demonstration report that the vast majority of those who clogged the streets of Lansing, Michigan, remained in their cars, practicing precisely the kind of social distancing Whitmer is stressing. Whitmer has, of course, institued restrictions on Michigan residents that go far beyond those in place in neighboring states. In addition to shelter-in-place orders, which Whitmer put into effect late — nearly a week after Illinois, and days after Ohio — Whitmer has banned the sale of “non-essential items” and barred Michigan residents from most outdoor activities. In some cases, the orders are so sweepingly restrictive that they become vague, leaving residents confused as to which actions and products are actually banned. Residents cannot purchase seeds or other gardening and home improvement items (but can purchase lottery tickets and marijuana), they cannot travel to other residences, and they cannot fish or travel on in-state lakes if they have a motorized boat (canoes, kayaks, and other non-motorized vehicles are acceptable). Michigan residents can, of course, obtain abortions, which Whitmer called “life sustaining” in a mind-boggling explanation last week, and out-of-state residents can travel within the state of Michigan to summer homes and vacation locales. Whitmer defended her actions in an interview on CNN over the weekend. “Michigan right now has the third-highest death count in the country; we are the 10th largest state, as you can deduce this means we have a uniquely hard issue going on here,” Whitmer told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “It is disproportionately hurting our state and that is why we need to take a uniquely aggressive action to protect people.” The orders do have an expiration date — April 30th — and Whitmer, part of a group of midwestern governors working together to restart the regional economy, has said that the state will begin to “open up” as soon as May 1st.
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 20, 2020 12:00:25 GMT -6
www.breitbart.com/tech/2020/04/20/ivy-league-schools-receive-millions-in-bailout-cash-despite-huge-endowments/The institutions that comprise the Ivy League will receive millions of dollars in federal bailouts despite the billions of dollars in their endowments. Harvard University, for example, currently boasts an endowment of $40.9 billion. According to a report by Campus Reform, Ivy League institutions like Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth, are set to receive millions of dollars in federal bailouts as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. However, Ivy League institutions are infamous for their large endowments, most of which reach 11-figures. The smallest endowment in the Ivy League belongs to Brown University, which has an endowment of $4.2 billion. Despite this massive endowment, Brown is set to receive $4.8 million in bailout funds. Harvard University will receive $8.6 million in federal bailout funds despite its endowment of nearly $41 billion. Yale University, which boasts an endowment of $30.3 billion, will receive $6.8 million in bailout funds. Princeton University, which has an endowment of $26.1 billion, will receive $2.4 million in bailout funds. Cornell and Columbia will receive the largest bailouts at $12.8 million each. Breitbart News reported last week that Harvard University President Lawrence Bacow addressed critics that had called on him to use the university’s endowment to prevent layoffs during the Chinese virus pandemic. Bacow explained that the use of endowment funds is restricted for specific purposes. “Some of you may be wondering why we can’t just dip into the endowment to support us through these difficult times. We do intend to distribute as much from the endowment as we responsibly can, but there are limitations to the endowment’s capacity,” Bacow wrote in the letter. “Because of the recent declines in the markets, the endowment, while still large, is not as large as it was previously. As it shrinks, it has less capacity to support our existing operations, especially as other shortfalls in revenue sources loom.” Despite its $40.9 billion endowment, Harvard announced a salary and hiring freeze for all university employees last week. Bacow also announced that layoffs or furloughs are possible if the Chinese virus lockdowns extend into the summer.
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 20, 2020 12:45:52 GMT -6
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 20, 2020 14:44:32 GMT -6
www.lifenews.com/2020/04/20/michigan-gov-gretchen-whitmer-celebrates-killing-babies-with-planned-parenthood-hat/#.Xp364eqUWi0.twitterA tweet from 2018 made by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has recently surfaced in on Twitter that highlights her leftist pro-abortion dogma, while mocking Pres. Donald Trump’s famous campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.” Whitmer is shown in a pink t-shirt and matching ball cap with white words emblazoned across it that read, “Planned Parenthood Makes America Great.” She captioned her selfie saying, “The future is bright…. and pink!” Last week, Whitmer drew widespread outrage from the right when she made a nonsensical statement on a liberal podcast calling abortion “life sustaining” during the COVID-19 outbreak: A woman’s health care, her whole future, her ability to decide if and when she starts a family is not an election, it is fundamental to her life. It is life sustaining and it’s something that government should not be getting in the middle of. Whitmer has drawn huge protests for overstepping her authority during the pandemic by imposing despotic restrictions on the people of Michigan, including banning the purchase of seeds, American flags, and other items. She has also prohibited the use of motor boats and vacation homes – all while keeping abortion facilities open and operating.
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 20, 2020 14:46:32 GMT -6
dailycaller.com/2020/04/20/joy-behar-armed-lockdown-protesters-terrorists/‘Give Me Liberty And Give Me Death!’: Joy Behar Says Armed Lockdown Protesters Are ‘Terrorists’ Joy Behar referred to armed lockdown protesters as “terrorists” on Monday’s “The View,” saying that there was no need for them to carry guns at rallies. Behar said that she felt for those who had lost jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic, but worried that those who were ignoring the social distancing guidelines to join public protests were potentially putting other people in danger. “They have to understand that they can infect other people,” Behar explained. “And, um, to paraphrase Patrick Henry, ‘Give me liberty and give me death,’ is what they’re basically proposing. Because a lot of people are going to die because of this behavior.” Behar went on to point out that social distancing had reportedly been effective in at least slowing the spread of the virus, noting that a failure to implement such measures had led to higher infection rates in some areas. “And by the way, can I just make one more point?” Behar added. “These people are being egged on by right-wing media, people like Alex Jones and Rush Limbaugh. And why are you bringing guns to a rally? You want to call yourself protesters, leave your guns at home. Those are terrorists who bring guns to things, to rallies. I don’t trust that at all.”
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 20, 2020 14:49:03 GMT -6
www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/20/nancy-pelosi-clueless-15-democrats-calling-immediately-funding-small-business-aid/Nancy Pelosi Clueless About 15 Democrats Calling for Immediately Funding Small Business Aid House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) claimed on Sunday she did not know about the 15 Democrats who called for immediately replenishing small business relief despite her objections. Fifteen House Democrats, as well as Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Tina Smith (D-MN), called to immediately refund the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) relief fund, known as the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which ran out of money last Thursday. ABC host George Stephanopoulos asked Pelosi on Sunday why Democrats should continue blocking a simple refunding of small business aid, given that many Democrats have called to replenish the program. He asked, “You’ve even got some of your own Democrats who are saying, you know, those other programs are important. We should negotiate those in a new package. But it’s important to pass the PPP funding right now by unanimous consent. Why not do that?” “Well, I don’t know who’s saying that,” Pelosi said, claiming ignorance of the many Democrats calling for immediate funding of the PPP. “But I will say, overwhelmingly, my caucus–and we’re working closely with the Senate Democrats–know that we have an opportunity and an urgency to do something for our hospitals, our teachers, and firefighters, and the rest right now. And then, we are preparing our next bill,” she added: The 15 House Democrats who called for immediately refunding the PPP are: Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) Rep. Dianna DeGette (D-CO) Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR) Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) Rep. Kendra Horn (D-OK) Rep. Joe Cunningham (D-SC) Rep. Anthony Brindisi (D-NY) Rep. Ami Bera (D-CA) Rep. Gil Cisneros (D-CA) Rep. Max Rose (D-NY) Rep. Tom O’Halleran (D-AZ) Rep. Any Kim (D-NJ) Rep. Cindy Axne (D-IA) Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said on Breitbart News Saturday that Speaker Pelosi is losing the confidence of her rank-and-file members by resisting a simple refunding of the small business program. McCarthy spoke with Breitbart News Saturday host Matthew Boyle: She is because she’s doing nothing but playing politics,” McCarthy said, when asked if Pelosi is losing the backing of her conference’s members. “We knew this fund was going to run out of money when it was first opened, so the administration smartly requested money more than a week. Mitch McConnell went to the floor with a one page bill, just putting more money in. Democrats came back to Washington just to object, and they continue to object when I was in Washington last week to pass it along with Mitch McConnell. They said no. That’s outrageous that they continue to harm small businesses because that’s not where the American public is. They want to help these people keep their jobs. It’s the people you see every day. There are 22 million reasons why the Democrats should have said yes. Why are they hurting small businesses? They claim they’re the party of fairness. This isn’t fair. McCarthy added, “This isn’t about America. They’re playing pure politics as she always does, as Nancy Pelosi only wants to do.”
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 20, 2020 14:49:53 GMT -6
www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/20/ayanna-pressley-trumps-handling-of-coronavirus-akin-to-war-crimes/Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) said on Monday that President Donald Trump’s management of the coronavirus outbreak is “akin to war crimes.” Pressely and other left-wing members of the House of Representatives and leftist organizations held a virtual press conference on Facebook to slam the Trump administration and put forth their demands for what should be in the next coronavirus relief legislation. “So as far as I’m concerned what’s happening with this administration, it’s akin to war crimes,” Pressley said. “Criminal negligence, science denial, a sluggish response.” “And so we find ourselves in the position of playing catch up in the midst of a pandemic,” Pressley said. “Which is the last place you want to be in the midst of any public health crisis — certainly not a pandemic — is working from behind.” “And we just have to reject any calls for a return to normal because that normal was what was slowly killing people,” Pressley said. The event was billed as launching the “#PutPeopleFirst campaign” to demand “progressive” priorities in future legislation. Past relief bills, and the present negotiations over additional funding for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), have focused on the American economy, which has been largely shut down for fear of the coronavirus spreading. The demands by left-wing members of Congress include a guaranteed income for individuals and families for an extended period of time; universal health care; debt forgiveness; and housing guarantees. Those on the call included Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Mark Pocan (D-WI), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ilhan Omar (D-MI), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA). Activists included Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of the Indivisible Project; Lorella Praeli, president of Community Change Action; Greisa Martinez Rosas, DACA recipient and deputy executive of United We Dream; and Reggie Hubbard, a Washington, DC-based strategist with MoveOn.org.
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 20, 2020 14:50:50 GMT -6
www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/20/abcs-hostin-trump-is-inciting-violence-insurrection-with-his-tweets/Monday on ABC’s “The View,” co-host and network legal analyst Sunny Hostin accused President Donald Trump of “inciting violence with these tweets,” encouraging lockdown protesters to liberate their states. Co-host Joy Behar said, “These people are being egged on by right-wing media and people like Alex Jones, like Rush Limbaugh. Why are you bringing guns to a rally? You want to call yourself protesters leave your guns home. Those are terrorists that bring guns to rallies. I don’t trust that at all. Don’t listen to these people.” Hostin said, “Well, what really disturbed me was the president tweets. You know the president saying things like ‘liberate Virginia’ and then also in the same sentence, bringing up the Second Amendment. And to Joy’s point, you saw protesters with guns. I think you know he’s, in a sense implying an incited insurrection. I think the argument can be made that he is inciting violence with these tweets. He is inciting a government insurrection.” She continued, “Many people are saying well it’s his free speech, but the Supreme Court has found many times that if you are inciting lawlessness that is leading to violence, that type of speech isn’t protected. So I’m just shocked that we have the president of the United States again inciting this kind of behavior, inciting these protests. I mean, if you look at Kentucky, what was fascinating to me was, right after a week of protests to reopen up the state, Kentucky reported the highest coronavirus infection increase that it has had. You now have in Kentucky 273 new confirmed cases of the virus. What about stay at home to saves lives that people don’t understand?”
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 20, 2020 14:59:19 GMT -6
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 20, 2020 15:03:12 GMT -6
More research suggesting the lock down wasn't needed: www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/04/18/swedish_epidemiologist_johan_giesecke_why_lockdowns_are_the_wrong_policy.htmlSwedish Epidemiologist Johan Giesecke: Why Lockdowns Are The Wrong Policy UnHeard: Professor Johan Giesecke, one of the world’s most senior epidemiologists, advisor to the Swedish Government (he hired Anders Tegnell who is currently directing Swedish strategy), the first Chief Scientist of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and an advisor to the director general of the WHO, lays out with typically Swedish bluntness why he thinks: UK policy on lockdown and other European countries are not evidence-based. The correct policy is to protect the old and the frail only. This will eventually lead to herd immunity as a “by-product." The initial UK response, before the “180 degree U-turn”, was better. The Imperial College paper was “not very good” and he has never seen an unpublished paper have so much policy impact. The paper was very much too pessimistic. Any such models are a dubious basis for public policy anyway. The flattening of the curve is due to the most vulnerable dying first as much as the lockdown. The results will eventually be similar for all countries. Covid-19 is a “mild disease” and similar to the flu, and it was the novelty of the disease that scared people. The actual fatality rate of Covid-19 is the region of 0.1%. At least 50% of the population of both the UK and Sweden will be shown to have already had the disease when mass antibody testing becomes available. ......................................................................... www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/17/theres-no-direct-evidence-that-the-lockdowns-are-working/‘There’s no direct evidence that the lockdowns are working’ Dr John A Lee on why we need to keep questioning the response to Covid-19. The UK government has extended its lockdown for another three weeks. But could the shutdown of society be doing more harm than good? In fact, is there any evidence it is doing any good at all? Dr John A Lee, a recently retired professor of pathology and NHS consultant pathologist, has repeatedly called for a critical and dispassionate examination of the evidence in relation to Covid-19, raising questions about the government and its advisers’ interpretation of the data. spiked caught up with him to find out more. spiked: You have been a relatively lone voice in questioning mainstream assumptions about coronavirus. Why have you found it important to speak out? Dr John A Lee: As a doctor and a scientist my entire career, I believe that medicine and science have improved life immeasurably over the past 200 years, and especially over the last 50 years. But in the particular mix of science, medicine and politics that we are seeing now, I am not absolutely sure that is the case. I think it is more important than ever to try and look at this issue in a clear way in order to make sure that we are really doing the right thing on the basis of the right ideas. And it isn’t clear to me at the moment that we are. spiked: What problems do you see in the way figures are currently being recorded and reported? Lee: The figures are just so unreliable. It’s very difficult to understand when you are looking at figures from different countries, and figures in isolation about things like death, what they really mean. And obviously, if we can’t understand what the figures mean, it is quite difficult to then know what we should do about them. ‘We are living in an era of global madness’ PODCAST ‘We are living in an era of global madness’ SPIKED These figures are then fed into models of the disease and the epidemic which are being used to influence and inform public policy. But those models are only as good as their input data and the assumptions they make. And there are so many unknowns which means the models’ outputs are really quite questionable. And given that we have now got ourselves into this situation, for a variety of reasons, getting ourselves out of it using the same models and predictions is even more questionable. So we are in a very difficult situation. For example, we are currently in lockdown for two reasons. One is that the initial figures suggested that we were dealing with a very highly virulent disease. The World Health Organisation initially suggested that the case-fatality rate – the proportion of people diagnosed with the disease who die – would be 3.4 per cent. This is a very high number which would have caused a huge number of deaths. But as we have had gradually more and more data coming in, those percentages have been falling. In many examples, more complete data are now suggesting case-fatality rates of 0.4 per cent. My guess is that it will end up between 0.5 and 0.1 per cent, and probably nearer to the lower end of that. So if the disease isn’t as virulent as was originally thought, the number of deaths will be correspondingly lower. The second reason that we were then put into lockdown is that it was assumed that this new virus was going to rip through the population, and a very high percentage of people were going to be infected quickly. This would cause a big surge or peak of cases which healthcare systems wouldn’t be able to deal with. The lockdown is supposed to reduce that peak, to enable health systems to cope with it. We had various pictures from Italy, Spain, New York and other places showing that health systems weren’t able to cope. But of course, in lots of other places, health systems have been able to cope with it. The real point is that there isn’t any direct evidence that what we are doing is actually affecting the peak. It is possible to make arguments that sound reasonable that a lockdown should affect the peak. And yet other places which are doing different things seem to have similarly shaped graphs. It is only an assumption that the lockdown is having a big effect on the virus spread, but this is not a known scientific fact. The rise and rise of Covid conspiracy theories RECOMMENDED The rise and rise of Covid conspiracy theories FRANK FUREDI As far as I can see, Sweden, despite not having anywhere near as severe a lockdown as we have had, actually has a very similar curve to ours. And Sweden’s death rate per hundred thousand people is roughly half of ours at the moment. So it is not a given that what we are doing is either working or is having all the right effects. spiked: Has the media given us an accurate picture of what might be going on? Lee: I suppose that depends on what media you are looking at. It seems to me that there are two types of media: there is the investigative-journalism type media that tries to find out whether the facts and the interpretations of stories are really true. And then there is the less critical type of media which essentially illustrates a story that it thinks it already knows. And I think in the case of Covid-19, because of what originally came out of China and the pictures that were beamed around the world, people felt that they already knew that this was a highly virulent and dangerous disease. So pretty much the entire media coverage has illustrated this as a very dangerous disease. Don’t get me wrong, it is clearly a nasty disease, but it is not as nasty as it was originally thought. Unfortunately, the media have tended to reinforce the initial ideas about what this disease was like which have not necessarily been borne out by the numbers since then. I think that there has not been enough questioning of the story that has been placed out there by governments. Governments were placed in a difficult position. Because of the amount of fear and panic and apparent severity of this disease, they felt they had to do something. But of course, having done something, they are now in a position of having to justify their actions. We can reasonably question the assumptions of the models, for example. The accuracy of the models, and their predictions of how many people will be infected and die, depend on things like the transmissibility of the virus. But that isn’t something we know very accurately at the moment. It also depends on population susceptibility. The UK models, as I understand it, said that 60 to 80 per cent of the population would be infected by the virus in a short period of time. Whereas in fact some of the evidence from enclosed populations, such as the Diamond Princess cruise ship, suggests that only 15 per cent of the population may be susceptible. Maybe that is because the virus spreads in a different way than we thought. Maybe some people actually have immunity based on other coronaviruses that are already out there in the population. If you change those numbers, it makes a huge difference in the number of cases you would expect in a given time. Really, the case for lockdown depends on the number of cases coming through, which is very important for people to distinguish from the number of people who are going to die of this virus. The fact is, Pandora’s Box is now open. This virus is spreading in the population. There is no evidence whatsoever that we are going to be able to put it back in its box. So it is going to spread through the population at a certain speed. And after a year or two, the number of people who are going to have died from it is probably going to be similar either way – it is just a question of the speed at which those people are dying. The real question, therefore, is what are the downsides of the treatment that we have chosen for this virus? Do lockdowns actually have side effects that could be even more severe than the virus we are trying to suppress? And I think there is clearly a serious worry that they could have. spiked: Is the lockdown sustainable? Lee: If you still believe that this virus is incredibly virulent and therefore is killing a high percentage of people that it infects, it might be reasonable to stay locked down. For example, in the plague that spread through Europe in the 14th century, it is reckoned that maybe one in three people died. Obviously, if we were facing something like that, it would be reasonable to take very extreme measures. But this is a disease that is maybe going to kill 0.3, 0.2 or 0.1 per cent of people that it infects. And it may only infect a relatively small proportion of the population. We just don’t know. So we do have to ask what are the side effects of this treatment. And the fact is, they are clearly huge, but they have been largely unassessed. It seems incredible to me that we are not equally as interested in the effects of the lockdown on lives and livelihoods as we are in the actual virus itself. I think we are guilty at the moment of being a bit monomaniacal and focusing only on one thing, and really not focusing enough on the consequences that are coming out of what we have done to face this one thing. spiked: Will governments find viable exit strategies? Lee: I think it’s difficult because governments, having gone down this route, are stuck between two rather difficult places. One is the worry that any relaxation of the lockdown which causes an increase in the scorecard number of deaths will be criticised. But also, the very fact that the lockdown was put in place, despite the huge set of side effects, means that the government has to justify having done it. In a way, that actually makes it harder to come out of a lockdown. If it subsequently becomes apparent that the lockdown – or at least the severity of the lockdown (I do agree with temporary, limited social distancing for vulnerable groups) – was overdone, then the government is going to come in for criticism from that angle, too. I think personally that we should aim to relax the lockdown faster than some commentators are suggesting. The government’s reticence to talk about this is based on modelling assumptions of numbers which we know are fraught with uncertainty. It is equally possible to make a case that relaxing the lockdown more quickly than is currently being suggested will have beneficial effects overall, even if the number of viral deaths ticks up again. Time will tell, but they are going to have to try to do the right thing soon, which means not prolonging this unnecessarily.
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 20, 2020 15:04:45 GMT -6
So, like the flu then? fox8.com/news/coronavirus/reports-suggest-many-have-had-coronavirus-with-no-symptoms/Reports suggest many have had coronavirus with no symptoms (AP)-A flood of new research suggests that far more people have had the coronavirus without any symptoms, fueling hope that it will turn out to be much less lethal than originally feared. While that’s clearly good news, it also means it’s impossible to know who around you may be contagious. That complicates decisions about returning to work, school and normal life. In the last week, reports of silent infections have come from a homeless shelter in Boston, a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, pregnant women at a New York hospital, several European countries and California. The head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 25% of infected people might not have symptoms. The vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. John Hyten, thinks it may be as high as 60% to 70% among military personnel. None of these numbers can be fully trusted because they’re based on flawed and inadequate testing, said Dr. Michael Mina of Harvard’s School of Public Health. Collectively, though, they suggest “we have just been off the mark by huge, huge numbers” for estimating total infections, he said. Worldwide, more than 2.3 million infections and more than 160,000 deaths have been confirmed. The virus has caused nearly unprecedented economic and social harm since its existence was reported in early January. STEALTH CASES Based on known cases, health officials have said the virus usually causes mild or moderate flu-like illness. Now evidence is growing that a substantial number of people may have no symptoms at all. Scientists in Iceland screened 6% of its population to see how many had previously undetected infections and found that about 0.7% tested positive. So did 13% of a group at higher risk because of recent travel or exposure to someone sick. Aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, where one crew member died from the virus, “the rough numbers are that 40 percent are symptomatic,” said Vice Adm. Phillip Sawyer, deputy commander of naval operations. The ratio may change if more develop symptoms later, he warned. In New York, a hospital tested all pregnant women coming in to deliver over a two-week period. Nearly 14% of those who arrived with no symptoms of coronavirus turned out to have it. Of the 33 positive cases, 29 had no symptoms when tested, although some developed them later. Previously, tests on passengers and crew from the Diamond Princess cruise ship found nearly half who tested positive had no symptoms at the time. Researchers estimate that 18% of infected people never developed any. FLAWED METHODS These studies used tests that look for bits of the virus from throat and nose swabs, which can miss cases. Someone can test negative one day if there’s not much virus to detect and then positive the next. Symptoms also may not appear when someone is tested but turn up later. One Japanese study found more than half of those who had no symptoms when they tested positive later felt sick. Better answers may come from newer tests that check blood for antibodies, substances the immune system makes to fight the virus. But the accuracy of these, too, is still to be determined. On Friday, researchers reported results from antibody tests on 3,300 people in California’s Santa Clara county: Between 1.5% and 2.8% have been infected, they claimed. That would mean 48,000 to 81,000 cases in the county — more than 50 times the number that have been confirmed. The work has not been formally published or reviewed, but some scientists were quick to question it. Participants were recruited through Facebook ads, which would attract many people likely to be positive who have had symptoms and want to know if the coronavirus was the reason. Some neighborhoods also had way more participants than others, and “hot spots” within the county might have made infections seem more common than they are elsewhere.Ships, maternity wards and single counties also don’t provide data that can be used to generalize about what’s happening elsewhere. And many of the figures have come from snapshots, not research on wide populations over time. NEXT STEPS Antibody testing in particular needs to be done “in an unbiased approach” on groups of people that are representative of the geographic, social, racial and other conditions, Mina said. The CDC and other groups plan such studies, and they could guide public health advice on returning to normal life for people in certain areas. If infections are more widespread than previously understood, it’s possible that more people have developed some level of immunity to the virus. That could stifle the spread through what’s called herd immunity, but scientists caution that there is still much to learn about whether mild illnesses confer immunity and how long it might last. It will probably be months before enough reliable testing has been done to answer those questions and others, including how widespread infections have been and the virus's true mortality rate, which has only been estimated so far. “If they’ve all seen the virus before, then maybe you can relax in that neighborhood” and ease social distancing, Mina said. “We’re not anywhere close where we need to be” on antibody testing to do that yet, he said.
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 20, 2020 15:06:18 GMT -6
www.nationalreview.com/corner/a-little-more-light-in-a-vast-sea-of-viral-darkness/A Little More Light in a Vast Sea of Viral Darkness? By VICTOR DAVIS HANSON April 18, 2020 6:30 AM Almost every day, more studies, strange data, anecdotal reporting, and theories emerge about the virus, many of which could change existing conventional wisdom. In discussions about the nature of any existing seroprevalence in California, and about how even apparently small percentages of those already infected in the population could radically alter rates of epidemic and mortality modeling, this early abstract of a recent study could be of interest. It was co-reported by a rather large team of 16 distinguished researchers conducting an early assessment of their recent antibody testing in Santa Clara County. 65 They and their publisher cite customary caution due to the preliminary nature of the “unrefereed preprint” of their findings. e.g., “This article is a preprint and has not been certified by peer review.” (What does this mean?) “It reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice.” But the concluding paragraph of the abstract could become of interest in its implications for both state and federal policy, especially when the data of such research are finished being peer reviewed and, if substantiated, and the findings possibly replicated in future such studies: TOP ARTICLES 1/5 READ MORE Heroism, War, and Hell These prevalence estimates represent a range between 48,000 and 81,000 people infected in Santa Clara County by early April, 50-85-fold more than the number of confirmed cases. Conclusions: The population prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in Santa Clara County implies that the infection is much more widespread than indicated by the number of confirmed cases. Population prevalence estimates can now be used to calibrate epidemic and mortality projections. (Emphasis added.) If one were to use these parameters of cases to recalibrate with the known deaths in Santa Clara County from the SARS-CoV-2 virus (increased to 69 as of yesterday), or if their percentages represented the epidemic in the state at large, then the results in a variety of ways could shed some light on, and context about, the ongoing mystery of California’s supposed number of cases and apparent fatalities to the virus (28,000 cases and 973 deaths in a state of 40 million), while suggesting that perhaps many more coastal Californians, or Californians in general, or perhaps even Americans, have previously been infected by the virus than we had heretofore imagined (with many either unaware or not overly concerned by that fact). In fairness to the researchers, we outside the medical research community should remember the warning referenced in the study to journalists concerning the preliminary nature of the results: We also urge journalists and other individuals who report on medical research to the general public to consider this when discussing work that appears on medRxiv preprints and emphasize it has yet to be evaluated by the medical community and the information presented may be erroneous.
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 20, 2020 15:07:17 GMT -6
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 20, 2020 15:07:48 GMT -6
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 20, 2020 15:42:11 GMT -6
www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/20/indiana-gov-eric-holcomb-calls-lockdown-protests-not-helping-petri-dish-for-virus/Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb (R) on Monday criticized lockdown protests in his state, calling the demonstrations “demoralizing” for healthcare workers and an “almost perfect petri dish” for spreading the Chinese coronavirus. Holcomb weighed on the protests in his daily press conference, responding to the more than 200 residents who rallied Saturday outside the Governor’s Residence to demonstrate against his stay-at-home order aimed at preventing further spread of the coronavirus. “It’s an environment that appeared to be an almost perfect Petri dish of how this can spread,” Holcomb said, adding that he hopes it is not. The Indiana Republican then said that while people have the right to express themselves, “this would be the exact way to not to be productive” and could potentially set the state back. Holcomb also said that the combination of protesting and lack of social distancing is “demoralizing” for medical staffers, adding: “When we just add to that in an almost flaunting way, it is not helping.” “I totally get the anxiety and the impatience and the desire to get back out there and get back out the way things used to be,” the governor continued. “We’re on the right path.” “We’ll get there a lot faster if everyone subscribes to the notion that we’re in this together,” he added. As of Monday, Indiana has confirmed 11,686 coronavirus cases and 569 deaths, according to data tracked by Johns Hopkins University. Holcomb’s remarks come as protesters across the country are calling for the loosening on restrictions. Several states, including Texas, are taking steps to reopen their economies to reverse further financial carnage sparked by the pandemic. On Monday, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department announced that Gov. Greg Abbott (R) ordered for parks to open. Visitors must wear face masks and remain six-feet apart from others.
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 20, 2020 15:42:42 GMT -6
www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/04/20/kerry-on-push-to-reopen-trump-is-playing-russian-roulette-with-american-lives/Monday on MSNBC, former Secretary of State John Kerry said President Donald Trump encouraging protests to end state stay-at-home orders when governors are pointing to insufficient testing availably was akin to playing “Russian roulette with everybody’s lives.” Kerry said “I think what’s extraordinary is that the president of the United States, whose responsibility it is to lead the nation, according to the best advice and all the best advice, the best business advice, the best medical advice, the best security advice is all saying, you can’t make the economy work again if the majority of the people of our country are in fear, and they’re not going to come out, and they’re not going to take risks if they don’t have the testing. So the critical component here is where is the presidential leadership? The president has tweeted about liberating Michigan and liberating Minnesota. He now has tweeted in support of people coming out and demonstrating. He’s trying to play it, I think, in such a political way, we’re in a situation that is life and death.” He continued, “What is it, 36% of people trust Donald Trump on this? About 80 or 70-some percent trust the doctors and the experts. I think what this underscores is the absence of presidential leadership — the absence of the kind of leadership that the nation needs at this moment. And the COVID-19 challenge has now been added to, among those things where the right, the political right, is prepared to attack science, math, evidence, facts, basic truth in favor of an ideology. They’re pushing that ideology on our nation, and it wouldn’t be a big deal if it weren’t costing lives and if it weren’t linked to larger issues that are coming at us. The disinformation campaign that President Trump has succumbed to, with respect to the COVID-19, is the same disinformation campaign from some of the same people who have brought us doubts about what is scientifically proven, which is climate change, the climate crisis.” Kerry added, “We all understand the desire to get back. I mean, there isn’t anybody in America who isn’t concerned about where we’re heading economically. But if you stop and think about, as they are in a lot of these countries — I mean, look, the facts. I’ve listened to the president at some of his conferences, and I’m not going to listen to anymore, because it’s the same thing all the time and it’s mostly a political campaign rally and a promotion of himself. But the fact is, he stands there and says, we have the best testing in the world. No, we don’t. We do not have the best testing in the world. We are not testing on a per capita basis, which is the real ratio you look at is the size of our country, measured against the tests we’re having. It doesn’t do us any good to have more testing than a tiny nation in the world and stand up and say, ‘We have more tests than anybody in the world.’ We have to measure the number of tests against the people, against the risks, against what it takes to put people back to work. And if you don’t have the ability to track who’s had it, the antibodies test, and you don’t have the ability to track who has it now, it’s very difficult to say to people, ‘Hey, you’re safe, go out to work.’ What are you doing to do? Play Russian roulette with everybody’s lives? That’s not the job of the president of the United States. His job is to lead the country to a place of calm understanding about how together, together, that’s what our nation is built on, you know, out of many come one, e Pluribus Unum, we are one. And the one is the job of the president of the United States to think about.”
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 20, 2020 16:20:34 GMT -6
www.dailywire.com/news/l-a-county-study-antibody-testing-suggests-covid-19-infections-far-more-widespread-death-rate-much-lower-than-thoughtL.A. County Study: Antibody Testing Suggests COVID-19 Infections ‘Far More Widespread,’ Death Rate ‘Much Lower’ Than Thought In a press release issued Monday, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health announced that the early results of its highly anticipated joint study with the University of Southern California on COVID-19 infections rates in the county suggest that “infections from the new coronavirus are far more widespread — and the fatality rate much lower — in L.A. County than previously thought.” “Based on results of the first round of testing, the research team estimates that approximately 4.1% of the county’s adult population has antibody to the virus,” the press release states. “Adjusting this estimate for statistical margin of error implies about 2.8% to 5.6% of the county’s adult population has antibody to the virus — which translates to approximately 221,000 to 442,000 adults in the county who have had the infection. That estimate is 28 to 55 times higher than the 7,994 confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported to the county by the time of the study in early April. The number of COVID-related deaths in the county has now surpassed 600.” The study’s lead researcher, USC Public Policy Professor Neeraj Sood, said in a statement that their study’s early estimates suggest that “we might have to recalibrate disease prediction models and rethink public health strategies.” “We haven’t known the true extent of COVID-19 infections in our community because we have only tested people with symptoms, and the availability of tests has been limited,” said Sood, who is also a senior fellow at USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics. “The estimates also suggest that we might have to recalibrate disease prediction models and rethink public health strategies.” L.A. County Department of Public Health’s chief science officer Dr. Paul Simon, co-lead researcher on the study, stressed that while the results indicate that the death rate is far lower than previously believed, it is still important to continue “vigorous” prevention measures. “Though the results indicate a lower risk of death among those with infection than was previously thought, the number of COVID-related deaths each day continues to mount, highlighting the need for continued vigorous prevention and control efforts,” said Dr. Simon. Below is the full text of the L.A. County Department of Public Health’s press release on the early results of the study: USC-LA County Study: Early Results of Antibody Testing Suggest Number of COVID-19 Infections Far Exceeds Number of Confirmed Cases in Los Angeles County Los Angeles (April 20, 2020) – USC and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (Public Health) today released preliminary results from a collaborative scientific study that suggests infections from the new coronavirus are far more widespread – and the fatality rate much lower – in L.A. County than previously thought. The results are from the first round of an ongoing study by USC researchers and Public Health officials. They will be conducting antibody testing over time on a series of representative samples of adults to determine the scope and spread of the pandemic across the county. Based on results of the first round of testing, the research team estimates that approximately 4.1% of the county’s adult population has antibody to the virus. Adjusting this estimate for statistical margin of error implies about 2.8% to 5.6% of the county’s adult population has antibody to the virus- which translates to approximately 221,000 to 442,000 adults in the county who have had the infection. That estimate is 28 to 55 times higher than the 7,994 confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported to the county by the time of the study in early April. The number of COVID-related deaths in the county has now surpassed 600. “We haven’t known the true extent of COVID-19 infections in our community because we have only tested people with symptoms, and the availability of tests has been limited,” said lead investigator Neeraj Sood, a USC professor of public policy at USC Price School for Public Policy and senior fellow at USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics. “The estimates also suggest that we might have to recalibrate disease prediction models and rethink public health strategies.” The results have important implications for public health efforts to control the local epidemic. “These results indicate that many persons may have been unknowingly infected and at risk of transmitting the virus to others,” said Dr. Barbara Ferrer, director of the L.A. County Department of Public Health. “These findings underscore the importance of expanded polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing to diagnose those with infection so they can be isolated and quarantined, while also maintaining the broad social distancing interventions.” The antibody test is helpful for identifying past infection, but a PCR test is required to diagnose current infection. “Though the results indicate a lower risk of death among those with infection than was previously thought, the number of COVID-related deaths each day continues to mount, highlighting the need for continued vigorous prevention and control efforts,” said Dr. Paul Simon, chief science officer at L.A. County Department of Public Health and co-lead on the study. The study’s results have not yet been peer reviewed by other scientists. The researchers plan to test new groups of participants every few weeks in coming months to gauge the pandemic’s trajectory in the region. About the study With help from medical students from the Keck School of Medicine of USC, USC researchers and Public Health officials conducted drive-through antibody testing April 10th and 11th at six sites. Participants were recruited via a proprietary database that is representative of the county population. The database is maintained by LRW Group, a market research firm. The researchers used a rapid antibody test for the study. The FDA allows such tests for public health surveillance to gain greater clarity on actual infection rates. The test’s accuracy was further assessed at a lab at Stanford University, using blood samples that were positive and negative for COVID-19. In addition to Sood and Simon, other authors and institutions contributing to the study include Peggy Ebner of the Keck School; Daniel Eichner of the Sports Medicine Research & Testing Laboratory; Jeffrey Reynolds of LRW Group; Eran Bendavid and Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University School of Medicine. The study was supported with funding from USC Schwarzenegger Institute, USC Lusk Center, USC President’s Office, Jedel Foundation, LRW Group, Soap Box Sample, and several individual donors.
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Post by kcrufnek on Apr 21, 2020 2:14:56 GMT -6
townhall.com/tipsheet/bethbaumann/2020/04/18/not-in-favor-of-lockdowns-msnbc-thinks-youre-a-racist-confederate-n2567170MSNBC Spends an Entire Segment Talking About How Lockdown Protestors Are Racist Confederates Americans across the nation have had enough of the stay-at-home and shelter-in-place orders that have been handed down by state governors as a means of mitigating the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus. They’re antsy. They’re restless. People want to get back to work and back to “normal,” or at least as normal as possible… According to MSNBC’s Joy Reid and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D), if you’re someone who wants to see the economy reopen and get back to work, you must be some sort of Confederate racist. “Black people are being left in a situation where they’re more vulnerable by default: less health care, jobs that are hourly, jobs where you’re closer to people, stuck working near to each other,” Reid said. “When you hear Donald Trump talking in this sort of faux-Confederate language about these lockdown orders – which are meant to save lives – and you see people with these instaprotests, paid for by activists for the super-rich, egging on this kind of activity that could get violent, what does that say to you?” ....... Ellison suggests the protesters are pawns that Trump is willing to ‘sacrifice’ for reelection. Joy was at her bigoted, race baiting best as well as her large panel. I don't know which is worse. This crap or Pelosi going on Chris Wallace and flat out lying. www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2CJ0PNLNKw
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Post by kcrufnek on Apr 21, 2020 2:19:12 GMT -6
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy banned the annual drive-through tulip farm in Cream Ridge this year. Owner Casey Jansen said he invested ONE MILLION in planting all the bulbs in the fall. But the governor threatened to arrest Jansen if ONE CAR drives through his farm for the annual attraction! This is tyranny — plain and simple. shorenewsnetwork.com/2020/04/19/new-jersey-shuts-down-drive-through-tulip-farm-threatens-to-arrest-owner/CREAM RIDGE, NJ – Governor Phil Murphy’s administration today shut down the drive-through tulip farm in Cream Ridge, but allowed the owners to continue selling their tulips to their customers for curbside pickup.
Owner Casey Jansen said his family owned farm makes about a one million dollar annual investment into planting tulips to operate the annual drive-through. This week, he was relayed a message from Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, “No drive through allowed”.
“We planted all these tulip bulbs in the months of October and November. That’s when we make the investment, and my investment is just about a million dollars,” Jansen said in an interview with NJ.com.
Meanwhile, out in Gloucester County, the Dalton Farms tulip drive-through, which is booked solid through the weekend has given a pass by Murphy’s administration.
Jansen claims that he received a letter from the state threatening that two New Jersey State Police officers would be at his farm to arrest him if a single car drove through his field.So you can't cross the street to visit someone. You can't go to the doctor for your allergies or migraines. You can't but tulips. But....need an abortion? Lottery tickets? Booze? Come on down.
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Post by kcrufnek on Apr 21, 2020 2:29:56 GMT -6
Small businesses and regular people can't get money. The Dems are blocking further aid. Any surprise people are out protesting?
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Post by kcrufnek on Apr 21, 2020 2:33:11 GMT -6
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 21, 2020 2:35:06 GMT -6
On Monday Dr. Deborah Birx was finally questioned about the misleading numbers she and Dr. Fauci have been pushing on the American public.
Dr. Birx was asked about the California study that shows the coronavirus is more prevalent than the experts predicted.
Birx dodged the question,(then again, if you were one of the two people who suggested killing the best economy in the world, would you want to own it)?
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 21, 2020 2:47:23 GMT -6
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 21, 2020 6:29:30 GMT -6
YouTube CEO Susan Wojkicki joined CNN’s Brian Stelter this past weekend and said the company removes anything that is against the World Health Organization, the same group that lied for weeks for the Chinese Communists while the coronavirus spread around the globe.
This is unreal.
Susan Wojkicki: “We talk about removing information that is problematic. Of course, anything that is medically unsubstantiated, people saying like “take vitamin C” um, um “take turmeric, it will cure you.” Those are the examples of things that would be a violation of our policy. Anything that would go against World Health Organization recommendations would be a violation of our policy. And so remove is another important part of our policy.
This comes at the same time that Facebook announced it is working with state governments to take down organizing announcements for protests of the COVID-19 Chinese coronavirus lockdowns.
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CNN’s Oliver Darcy and Donie O’Sullivan posted Monday about Facebook and the state’s conspiring to suspend the First Amendment rights of Americans.
“Anti-quarantine protests being organized through Facebook in California, New Jersey, and Nebraska, are being removed from the platform on the instruction of governments in those three states because it violates stay-at-home orders, Facebook spokesperson @andymstone tells @donie”
“Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events in California, New Jersey, and Nebraska after consultation with state governments”
“Says it is working to get answers from New York, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Pennsylvania as to whether anti-quarantine protests breaks those states’ social distancing measures.”
California and New Jersey have Democrat governors. Nebraska has a Republican governor.
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Post by soonernvolved on Apr 21, 2020 6:31:36 GMT -6
dailycaller.com/2020/04/21/wuhan-lab-denies-coronavirus-covid-19-link-gordon-chang-zero-credence/Although the Wuhan Institute of Virology is denying it had any involvement with creating and releasing the coronavirus, a critic of China warned on Monday night’s edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” that there is “zero” credibility to that claim. When asked by Fox News host Tucker Carlson “how much credence should we attach” to the lab’s claim, author and China expert Gordon Chang responded, “About zero.” Chang explained that in early 2018, State Department representatives visited the Wuhan lab “and they came away alarmed. They saw protocols and precautions were not being adhered to, and they actually said that there was a possibility of a SARS-like pandemic resulting from an outbreak from that lab.” (RELATED: Trump Says He’ll End Obama-Era Funding To Chinese Lab That May Have Spawned The Coronavirus) Carlson aired a segment of his show on March 31 that examined the possibility that the laboratory was the cause of the coronavirus. Other reports followed that suggested highly placed sources in the Trump administration were taking the accusation extremely seriously. While emphasizing the need for serous concern, Chang cited “China Daily,” an official Chinese publication that released photos of the refrigerators that can be found in the lab. “This was propaganda to show how precautions were being taken. Well, you can see from the photo that the seals on the refrigerator doors were broken, which obviously is one way the virus could have escaped from the refrigerator and therefore from the lab as well,” he said. The author wondered that if the “official photos” of the site are this “damning,” then “God knows what else there is there that we have not seen.” (RELATED: Trudeau Government Funding Research Project That’s Partnering With Chinese Lab Where COVID-19 May Have Started) WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 19: U.S. President Donald Trump takes questions at the daily coronavirus briefing at the White House on April 19, 2020 in Washington, DC. New York state will begin the nation's most aggressive COVID-19 antibody testing campaign this week even as some states begin to loosen restrictions amid pressure to restart the economy. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC – APRIL 19: U.S. President Donald Trump takes questions at the daily coronavirus briefing at the White House on April 19, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images) Chang continued, “But the point is, the assurances that we heard Saturday from the director of the lab, are not to be taken at face value at all. We’ve got to be concerned because Beijing has prevented people from actually investigating this, and so therefore, there’s got to be concern.” The commentator mused that “there is probably hysteria in Beijing right now” after President Donald Trump talked about the Wuhan lab during his Saturday coronavirus task force news conference and wondered if releasing the COVID-19 virus was a mistake or “done deliberately.”
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