Coronavirus Outbreak...

[carpedm9587]

April 5: 25,316 new cases and 1,165 new deaths

Both new cases and new deaths are down from the previous day. Could this be the inflection point?

Same pattern as last time - today rose again...

[carpedm9587]

Comfort seems an ideal option for a CV-19 isolation hospital. Why not fill it with infected people, much like London is doing with the conference centre, but better because it's already set up for medical care?

I think they lack the ICU capacity that is becoming more necessary. I think I read 8 ICU beds somewhere and Covid-19 has a 5% rate of escalation to ICU, so they would likely need 50+ beds for a patient count of 1,000 - the number of beds on the Comfort.


ETA: I should have checked those numbers before posting. They apparently have 80 ICU beds, not 8. That makes your idea pretty good, so the only other reason I can think of is that all NYC hospitals are currently dealing with Covid-19 and this is a theoretically Covid-free hospital space.

[carpedm9587]

Posting this without yet having read beyond Page 230...

Speaking as someone who has family and friends with multiple risk factors, and who himself has multiple risk factors (male, weeks away from age 60, BMI 31, HBP, taking ACE inhibitor, chronic cough), I find nothing with which I disagree in this article.

Gist is contained in the title: Accepting 2 million deaths may be better than lockdown.

The problem with the article is that it pits a high-probability outcome with science behind it against a lot of unsupported speculation. I look around myself and see people sharing what they have, making connections with people in novel ways, and rallying together in a "we're all in this together." I wondered if it was just Vermont, but we just came back from Massachusetts (my in-laws had a tree-branch through their roof and they are in their 80s) and I found the same spirit there. I see the same spirit reported in news stories and online exchanges with friends I have around the U.S. and in several other countries.

Yes - some businesses will never re-open. But some will and others businesses will arise to replace the ones that don't reopen. In the time between now and when all of this is behind us, new businesses will spring up to deal with the current reality and harness the available workforce. And when this is over, we will still need restaurants and someone will open them and hire people. The same will be true of pretty much everything that is "temporarily" shut down. And then there will be the inevitable baby boom!

Frankly, China is well on its way to becoming the new superpower, largely due to Trump's withdrawal of the U.S. from that nasty "globalism." That vacuum was inevitably going to be filled, and China has already been filling it for the past 3+ years. They were working in that direction long before Trump - but Trump just basically handed them the car keys and walked off.

[carpedm9587]

Fauci is the enemy.

At this point, I still agree with Tucker that Fauci's main problem is his narrow focus. But it's becoming increasingly clear that his instinct for solving problems is statism. Plus, he's been way too dismissive and resistant toward hydroxychloroquine.

It's time for Bad Orange Man to recruit some new members for the Task Force -- maybe Dr. David Katz, Dr. John Ioannidis, and Dr. Stephen Smith -- and put them in front of the camera, while Fauci stands back grimacing and rolling his eyes.

The attacks against Fauci from the right were pretty much inevitable. He is contradicting Mr. Trump and that simply cannot stand. I am surprised he has lasted this long. I'll be really surprised if he survives the week.

[carpedm9587]

Liberals have accused Trump of having a vested financial interest in promoting this treatment. I assume Adam Schiff has the evidence and will let us see it some day.

I'm sure it's a political calculation. If it is shown to be ineffective, he gets to say, "oh well, noting ventured nothing gained." If it proves to be effective, he gets to say "I told you so!" and appear the hero. It's a position with relatively little risk - like attacking football players who knelt for the flag. If there is one area in which Trump is truly a savant, it's controlling the media narrative.

[DivineOb]

Liberals have accused Trump of having a vested financial interest in promoting this treatment. I assume Adam Schiff has the evidence and will let us see it some day.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/u...aria-drug.html

If hydroxychloroquine becomes an accepted treatment, several pharmaceutical companies stand to profit, including shareholders and senior executives with connections to the president. Mr. Trump himself has a small personal financial interest in Sanofi, the French drugmaker that makes Plaquenil, the brand-name version of hydroxychloroquine.

In any case, the reason he promotes it has less to do with his financial stake and more to do with his malignant narcissism but you already knew that,

[seanD]

The attacks against Fauci from the right were pretty much inevitable. He is contradicting Mr. Trump and that simply cannot stand. I am surprised he has lasted this long. I'll be really surprised if he survives the week.

I honestly don't know why Trump picked him the first place. Did he not do a background check prior? If anything, there was an obvious political conflict of interest. It seems the person who wrote the article NR linked to had more info on this guy than they did.

[Mountain Man]

I honestly don't know why Trump picked him the first place. Did he not do a background check prior? If anything, there was an obvious political conflict of interest. It seems the person who wrote the article NR linked to had more info on this guy than they did.

While Hillary was secretary of state, Fauci sent her emails mentioning how much he loved her. Seriously.

fauci-love-letter-2.jpg

sketchy-fauci-2.jpg

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...ical-dr-fauci/

I actually came across this weeks ago but didn't think much of it because Trump tends to pick people based on their qualifications and isn't much concerned with any personal differences he might have with them. While this seems to work well enough in the business world where everybody has the same agenda (that is, make money), it doesn't work so well in politics, and I'm not sure why Trump hasn't seemed to figure that out.

[Watermelon]

While Hillary was secretary of state, Fauci sent her emails mentioning how much he loved her. Seriously.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]44042[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]44043[/ATTACH]

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...ical-dr-fauci/

I actually came across this weeks ago but didn't think much of it because Trump tends to pick people based on their qualifications and isn't much concerned with any personal differences he might have with them. While this seems to work well enough in the business world where everybody has the same agenda (that is, make money), it doesn't work so well in politics, and I'm not sure why Trump hasn't seemed to figure that out.

So are you saying that Fauci is contradicting Trump because of political differences?

[Mountain Man]

So are you saying that Fauci is contradicting Trump because of political differences?

I think Fauci probably has his own agenda that is not aligned with Trump's, but I don't suspect he harbors any ill will towards the President.

[JimL]

I think Fauci probably has his own agenda that is not aligned with Trump's, but I don't suspect he harbors any ill will towards the President.

And what do you think those differing agendas are?

[rogue06]

While Hillary was secretary of state, Fauci sent her emails mentioning how much he loved her. Seriously.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]44042[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]44043[/ATTACH]

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...ical-dr-fauci/

I actually came across this weeks ago but didn't think much of it because Trump tends to pick people based on their qualifications and isn't much concerned with any personal differences he might have with them. While this seems to work well enough in the business world where everybody has the same agenda (that is, make money), it doesn't work so well in politics, and I'm not sure why Trump hasn't seemed to figure that out.

Not to mention at that time Trump himself was enthusiastically praising Hillary as well.

[rogue06]

I think Fauci probably has his own agenda that is not aligned with Trump's, but I don't suspect he harbors any ill will towards the President.

Being a doctor Fauci's only concern is going to be the medical issues surrounding the pandemic, just like an economist is going to focus on the economic issues. As president, Trump has the unenviable job of walking the razor's edge between the two.

[NorrinRadd]

And this kind of thinking is why it is so hard for anyone with experience and knowledge to survive in the Trump administration.

Tucker Carlson is NOT a doctor or any sort of truly knowledgeable person wrt epidemiology and the pathology of disease or the correct methods for establishing the effectiveness of a medicine to treat a disease and the reasons we have to protocols we do for evaluating drugs the way we do (e.g. so people don't die or suffer permanent damage worse than the disease itself). To let him drive policy wrt Fauci or to ignore Fauci's reluctance to jump on the hydroxychloroquine bandwagon is just ignorance. I mean, hydroxychloroquine might work, but hey a stopped clock is right twice a day too. But you'd never know when w/o a working clock.

Shooting from the hip is how we got here. Assuming you or Tucker or Trump's 'gut' is going to figure this out, or that anyone with knowledge of the situation that is reluctant to follow Trump's lead is necessarily some political paria is how we got here. Fauci is resitent because of what he knows about science and medicine. Don't play politics with medical knowledge and disease.

To be clear, that article is in no way by or about Tucker Carlson. I mentioned him more as a contrast, because, at least at the time I wrote that, he was speaking more gently and non-politically about Fauci than did the author of that article. (I did not see Tucker's subsequent program, so I don't know if that has changed.) Apparently you did not bother to so much as skim the article. Perhaps I'm not the one "shooting from the hip," or, in Scriptural terms, "To answer before listening -- that is folly and shame." (Prov. 18:13)

Regarding HCQ, Trump and Tucker did not just pull the idea out of their respective hindparts. Nor did Laura Ingraham. It is being *widely* used and recommended by doctors worldwide. Many doctors themselves are using it prophylactically. If there's anything wrong with the way Bad Orange Man is recommending it, it is that he's saying, "Hey, if you're dying, what have you got to lose?" But the fact is, infectious disease expert Dr. Stephen Smith (one of Laura's go-to guys) has observed that results are better when it is used *early* in the course of the illness, rather than waiting until things are desperate. Dr. Oz has been recommending it for weeks; he had been quite deferential to Fauci's cautiousness (to use a euphemism), until a day or so ago.

And none of this has anything to do with the article itself. The point of the article is that the author has observed Fauci's methodology and personal associations for over 30 years, and found him to be a committed leftist.

will you never learn?

To agree with you? I pray God that I *never* learn that!

[NorrinRadd]

The attacks against Fauci from the right were pretty much inevitable. He is contradicting Mr. Trump and that simply cannot stand. I am surprised he has lasted this long. I'll be really surprised if he survives the week.

I hope he stays, but takes a diminished role. I'd like to see Bad Orange Man add a few more experts with views contrary to Fauci's, and elevate them to at least equal to Fauci and Birx in rank.

Fauci is a legitimate expert and his input can be valuable. But his focus is too narrow (infectious disease), and his approach is too inclined toward researcher as opposed to clinician. He needs to be balanced more by experts who are interested in actually treating the disease NOW, and by experts on the mental and physical health effects of quarantine, unemployment, etc.

He has been ignorantly dismissive of both HCQ therapy (seeming to conflate "not conclusively proven" with "no evidence at all") and the dangers of shutdown and lockdown ("inconvenient").