GUESS WHAT’S BURIED WAY DOWN IN THIS STORY? “It was the worst 2 weeks of my life”: Woman recovers from coronavirus. Here it is:
It wasn’t until she was given hydroxychloroquine, a drug used to treat Malaria, that things started looking up.
“After I started taking the Malaria medicine, I started to feel a lot better,” she said. “Like, the next day.”
False hope.
ROGER SIMON: Is the White House Correspondents’ Association Enabling Communist Propaganda at Presidential Briefings?
Yes. Next question?
YOUR WARREN ZEVON LYRIC FOR OUR TIMES: “Everybody’s restless, and they’ve got no place to go.”
HERE’S A STORY ON THE EXECUTIVE ORDER I MENTIONED YESTERDAY: Trump signs executive order to support moon mining, tap asteroid resources.
THIS CAN’T HAPPEN AND IT’S CRAZY TO SUGGEST: Ezekiel Emanuel: U.S. Must Stay Locked Down For 12-18 Months Until There’s A Vaccine. Two more weeks and we’re going to have to start reopening stuff.
CHINA BARS CHURCHES FROM STREAMING SERVICES: Millions of Americans are holding church services and meetings via the Internet during the coronavirus pandemic. Not so in China, which has recently increased its already oppressive measures against Christians.
ENCOUNTER IS STILL RUNNING A PROMOTION ON MY THE SOCIAL MEDIA UPHEAVAL, which is now $1.99 on Kindle.
You can also get it for $1.99 on Nook.
SO YOU’RE SAYING IT’S NOT TRUMP WHO’S CRAZY HERE?
MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Time to put China on lockdown for its dishonesty amid coronavirus crisis. “China’s response was inept, dishonest and utterly inconsiderate of the world. We need to teach the Chinese government a lesson.”
SWEDEN: Some people are pointing to the contrast between Sweden and Norway as a useful model for our situation. Sweden is one of the few countries that has not shut things down drastically. Instead its leaders say that they are relying on people’s common sense. By contrast, the otherwise similarly situated Norway has taken an approach more like ours. Many people are thus pointing to the fact that while Sweden’s population (about 10 million) is twice Norway’s (about 5 million), Sweden has only about 30% more confirmed cases. That sounds good … at least at first blush.
But numbers can be deceiving. While Sweden’s population is twice Norway’s, its number of deaths from among confirmed cases is more than six times higher than Norway’s. The difference is unlikely to be the quality of Swedish health care. My initial thought was that it was much more likely that Norway has tested more symptomatic people in its population than Sweden has. Sweden therefore may have a higher proportion of unconfirmed but nevertheless very real cases. They just aren’t being counted.
Testing kits remain in short supply. Most countries are able to test only a proportion of the individuals who are symptomatic. It may well be the case that to get the test in Sweden one needs to be sicker than one does in Norway.
I checked this against the data on Real Clear Politics and sure enough, Norway has given massively more tests (113,896) than Sweden has given (54,700), despite Sweden’s much larger population.
We need more analysis.
GOOD: N.Y. Virus Deaths Hit New High, but Hospitalizations Slow. “The number of patients on ventilators in intensive-care units increased, too, but at the smallest one-day rate in weeks, up 2 percent since Monday. As of Tuesday, there were nearly 4,600 patients on ventilators in New York, far fewer than pessimistic projections in recent weeks had said there might be. That has helped keep the state from exhausting its supply of ventilators.”
TAIWAN BANS GOVERNMENT USE OF ZOOM OVER CYBERSECURITY CONCERNS: “Zoom routed some data through servers based in China as well as using developers there, internet security think tank Citizen Lab said in a report last week. Any official data being routed through China poses a major risk for Taiwan. Beijing claims the self-ruled island as part of its territory, and threatens to invade if Taiwan moves to make its independence official. Taiwan’s government rejects China’s claim, viewing the island as a sovereign nation.”
Related: Let’s Zoom Xi. He has questions to answer, Niall Ferguson writes.
Update: BlackBerry uncovers China-backed hacking campaign.
Buried lede: BlackBerry is still around.
(Updated and bumped.)
BOJO UPDATE: “Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has said he is ‘confident’ Boris Johnson will recover from coronavirus, describing the prime minister as a ‘fighter’. Speaking at the daily coronavirus briefing, Mr Raab said Mr Johnson remained in ‘good spirits’ and was breathing without assistance.”
Related: This Lefty Mayor’s Attack on Boris Johnson Was So Disgusting It Got Her Booted From Her Own Party.
FIASCO: ACTING NAVY RESIGNS AFTER CRITICISM OF HIS SPEECH TO SAILORS ABOUT CAPT. CROZIER. “First-ballot Hall-of-Fame PR clusterfark.”
THIS IS CNN: CNN: People Of Color Should Not Wear Face Masks.
WELL, TO BE FAIR, TWITTER SUCKS: Is Twitter using the health emergency to settle political scores?
WORST RACIST AND/OR RUSSIAN STOOGE EVER: Trump administration designates White supremacist group in Russia as terrorists.
GREAT MOMENTS IN OBJECTIVITY: CNN’s Tapper ripped for retweeting post calling Trump ‘insane.’
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