CORONAVIRUS UPDATE: U.S. coronavirus deaths hit 10,000; Trump approves USNS Comfort to treat N.Y. patients. “President Donald Trump, at Cuomo’s request, approved the USNS Comfort to accept coronavirus patients, rather than act strictly as an overflow for non-COVID-19 patients.”
Archive for 2020
April 6, 2020
NBC REPORTS RALPH NORTHAM WEARS ‘BLACK FACE MASK.’ HILARITY ENSUES:
“Kudos to NBC for acknowledging that it wasn’t a simple mistake, that someone intentionally poked fun at the Governor. In reality, it’s quite funny, though the joke was probably lost on progressives. To them, Northam is still a hero, blackface and all.”
I feel badly for whoever wrote the tweet — poking fun at the left is a firing offense at NBC.
OPEN THREAD: Ring in the new week.
ANNALS OF IRRESPONSIBLE REPORTING: Washington Post (free link): Grocery Workers are Beginning to Die of Coronavirus.
The reporter tells us that at least four grocery store workers have died from Covid-19. Do we know if they caught the virus at their place of work? The reporter doesn’t say, and probably didn’t even ask. Meanwhile, the reporter never stops to ask whether “at least four” is a sufficiently large number that grocery store workers should be concerned.
So here is some quick math. About 2.5 million Americans work in grocery stores. About one in every 30 thousand Americans has now died of Coronavirus. Taking the simplest route, you would expect approximately 83 grocery, or 2.5 million/30 thousand, grocery store workers to have died of the virus.
If you were doing at least a semi-serious statistical analysis, you would then have to modify the 83 figure by age, preexisting conditions, etc., and almost certainly get a lower tally. But the point is, despite the tenor of the article the fact that at least four grocery store workers have died of the virus doesn’t give you any useful information about whethert being a grocery store worker puts you at special risk.
I’m not saying there isn’t an increased risk, and I do appreciate that the workers are coming to work every day and *potentially* putting themselves at higher risk. I am saying, reporting on “at least four deaths” out of 2.5 million grocery store workers isn’t actionable information. Scare stories like this, that provide no context, with reporters who don’t ask basic questions, are just irresponsible.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Why are grocery workers dying? I blame reusable shopping bags! Will no one stop the madness?
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: TurboTax Rebrands As ‘TurboTheft’ For Libertarian Market.
I HAVEN’T FOLLOWED THIS CASE, BUT MY FRIENDS WHO HAVE THOUGHT IT WAS A DISGRACEFUL RAILROADING: Cardinal George Pell to walk free after high court quashes conviction. “Just to be clear, this is the conclusion of the legal process in Australia. The high court has quashed his conviction. There will be no further trials. After more than 400 days in prison, he will be released today.”
2020: A Howard Zinn Pandemic.
LONGTIME DRUGBLOGGER DEREK LOWE isn’t enthusiastic about hydroxychloroquine.
Related: The Pandemic Pipeline. “Commercial biopharmaceutical discovery is a less than ideal vehicle for responding to an outbreak of a new viral pathogen spreading like wildfire through an immunologically naive population. Drug manufacturers are accustomed to navigating a regulatory and clinical development process that typically takes years, sometimes a decade or more; similarly, regulators have little experience for drug development in the context of a pandemic. There is no accelerated pathway for COVID-19 or any other emerging infectious disease.”
SHELTERING IN PLACE IS FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE:
—NBC5, March 25th.
Chaser: ‘I’m out in the public eye:’ Mayor Lightfoot gets haircut amid social distancing orders.
—WGN9 TV, today.
Chicago’s last Republican mayor left office in 1931.
THE PRESS IS SILLY AND STUPID AND MEAN, AND THEY KEEP SHOWING IT: TRUMP QUESTIONS COMMUNIST CHINA-OWNED JOURNALIST, MEDIA CRIES “RACISM.”
From a friend on Facebook: “Every time I wonder why Trump still holds these daily briefings, I see the media being so damned stupid, biased, petty, irresponsible, gullible, and ignorant, and suddenly it all makes sense to me.”
SALENA ZITO: How one Pennsylvania hospital system is navigating the coronavirus. “The Washington Health System in southwestern Pennsylvania has announced they are laying off healthcare staff due to several of their departments temporarily closing under the Gov. Tom Wolf’s state mandate that halted elective surgeries and diagnostic procedures. . . . In short, all of the routine, run-of-the-mill emergencies that community hospitals see every day dropped drastically.”
LAURENCE JARVIK: The Wages of “Resistance” is Coronavirus.
CORONAVIRUS IN CAYMAN: Cayman Airways reduces Sister Islands flights. “Cayman Airways will be flying only once a week to the Sister Islands, starting Monday, 6 April, the national carrier has announced. The airline released the new schedule Thursday night in a statement, saying it was in accordance with the Cayman Islands government’s ongoing measures to safeguard Cayman from COVID-19. It said the commercial passenger flights are restricted to essential travel only.”
UH, DON’T? How to practice activist engineering. Here’s a hint: If your cushy job conflicts with your “personal values,” get another job. If you’re not willing to give up your cushy job for your personal values, don’t expect anyone else to give up anything for them either. You’re just a selfish poser.
OH BOY, IS AUNTIE MAXINE GONNA BE PISSED: A Democratic state representative from Detroit — who is also a woman of color — is crediting hydroxychloroquine and Republican President Donald Trump who touted the drug — for saving her in her battle with COVID.
“Whitsett said she was familiar with “the wonders” of hydroxychloroquine from an earlier bout with Lyme disease, but does not believe she would have thought to ask for it, or her doctor would have prescribed it, had Trump not been touting it as a possible treatment for COVID-19 […] “It has a lot to do with the president … bringing it up,” Whitsett said. “He is the only person who has the power to make it a priority.”
I can just imagine Maxine Waters saying she should have died like a “true sister” rather than acknowledge being helped by Bad Orange Cracker.
GOOD: New model predicts dramatic COVID-19 flattening in Tennessee.
New projections for Tennessee predict a significant flattening of the curve of COVID-19 cases expected in the coming weeks.
Among the new factors included in the latest version: the potential impact of Gov. Bill Lee’s stay-at-home order.
Rather than facing a critical shortage of hospital beds and ventilators, the new model suggests that the Volunteer State will easily be able to meet the expected demand at the peak of the surge in mid-April. . . .
Last week, Lee announced that convention centers and other facilities across Tennessee would be converted into makeshift hospitals based on projections that the state would face a shortage of about 7,000 hospital beds at the peak of the surge.
But the latest IHME model predicts a demand for only 1,232 hospital beds on April 15 as a result of the stay-at-home order, well below the 7,812 beds currently available.
The state will need 245 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds at peak, with 629 currently available, the projections show.
The IHME model also predicts a need for 208 ventilators, well below the Tennessee Department of Health’s count of 800-900 available devices.
Social distancing works. Or as the press will no doubt soon be saying, the Trump virus plan was a success!
UPDATE: From the comments:
I credit President Trump’s brilliant and decisive action. He took the crisis seriously, and provided steady, confident, competent leadership at a time when others were playing politics.
The smartest, most elite, bestest possible experts all warned us that millions would die and there was little we could do. Instead, casualties though tragic have been light. Thanks to Donald Trump.
Bonus: President Trump backed the best treatment for the disease, one that the Left wing resistance dismissed, condemned, and in a few cases tried to outright ban.
Either the experts were idiots from the beginning, or President Trump delivered a miraculous victory over the pandemic. Actually, they’re idiots either way. But they predicted millions dead, and so far it’s been half of a flu season. Reason to take it very seriously, but President Trump HAS taken it seriously. So if they’re going to condemn the President, they’ll have to retract all their models and own the economic damage. And if they dump on their own models, then how are we to take their climatepocalypse warnings?
Exactly! President Trump saved millions of lives! If you don’t believe that, then you don’t believe in science.
ERICK ERICKSON CELEBRATES ACT OF CHARITY. NEWSWEEK ACCUSES HIM OF ERECTING ‘BURNING CROSS.’
Buried lede: There is still a zombie edition of Newsweek being published.
DAVE BARRY CONFRONTS CORONAVIRUS ARMED WITH BANDANAS AND READY TO STOCK UP ON SPATULAS.
My point is, I cannot sew a face mask. So I have decided that, if I have to go to a public place, I’ll wear a bandanna. My preference would be for a conservative bandanna, ideally in navy blue, but the only spare bandannas available in my household are ones from daughter’s old summer camp, Camp Highlander. They are quite colorful. When I wear one over my face I look like a festive bank robber, who perhaps is robbing the bank to raise funds for a community-theater production of “Cats.”
Read the whole thing.
OLD AND BUSTED: Believe All Women!
The New Hotness? ‘Due process:’ Alyssa Milano uses conservative argument from Kavanaugh hearings to defend Joe Biden.
VIRGINIA CLOWN SHOW UPDATE: