THE CDC IS TRYING TO SPIN ITS FAILURES: What happened to the CDC?
Well, as I’ve noted before, the CDC lost sight of its actual job in favor of more politically-focused tasks.
Related: The CDC was Fighting Racism and Obesity Instead of Stopping Epidemics.
DON’T GET COCKY: James Carville predicts ‘Democratic wipeout’ in November after Trump’s coronavirus response.
And never trust Carville.
LOOKING FOR ANOTHER KIND OF RESURRECTION: It’s Easter, so people are talking about resurrections. Over at Issues & Insights, the focus is on a different sort of resurrection.
1984: A WARNING FOR THE REST OF US, A HOW-TO GUIDE FOR THE LEFT. ‘Incredible!’; ABC Report, CNN’s Cooper Marvel at China’s Mass Surveillance State.
SO MUCH FOR THE CLAIM THAT ISLAMIC HYGIENE PROTECTS MUSLIMS AGAINST THE CORONAVIRUS: Turkey’s Covid-19 infection rate rising fastest in the world: More than 3,000 new cases reported daily but Erdoğan insists normal work must go on.
WHEN EVEN EZRA KLEIN IS WORRIED ABOUT OVERINTRUSIVE GOVERNMENT, YOUR REOPENING PLAN NEEDS WORK: I’ve read the plans to reopen the economy. They’re scary.
Right and left, all the plans he’s reviewing basically come from think tanks. I expect that Trump’s plan will be better. But note that it’s all basically up to governors:
The White House cannot unilaterally reopen the country. Though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued federal guidance advising people to avoid social gatherings, work from home and use pickup and delivery options for food, it is state officials who have put the force of law behind those suggestions.
The CDC guidance is set to expire April 30, but the states are free to choose their own paths. Already, the state directives have varied in timing and in severity, and that is certain to continue as they are rolled back. . . .
Among those pushing to reopen the economy, according to senior administration officials, is Marc Short, the vice president’s chief of staff and a top adviser to Trump. Short has argued there will be fewer deaths than the models show and that the country has already overreacted, according to people with knowledge of his comments.
Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top expert on infectious diseases, said Thursday that some places might reopen sooner than others, and that hard-hit New York, for example, shouldn’t loosen its restrictions until there was a “very steep decline” in infections.
The President can mostly just recommend, and offer help. Governors are in the driver’s seat here.
SHOT: U.S. Should Bring China to U.N. Court Over Coronavirus Cover Up, Says GOP Rep.
CHASER: UN’s Irrelevance in Corona Crisis Invites a Rethink of the World Body.
Indeed. If the UN is going to toe the Communist Party line, China can pay for the whole damn thing.
SO IS FALSELY CALLING SOMEONE A “WHITE SUPREMACIST” GROUNDS FOR A LIBEL ACTION? Syracuse student gov candidates resolve to shut down ‘white supremacist’ Ben Shapiro visit after initially agreeing.
WHY IS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY SUCH A CESSPIT OF RACISM? Dem Michigan AG faces backlash after condescendingly anti-white COVID tweet.
UPDATE: From the comments: “It is a pretty good sign that the left’s attempts to politicize a crisis have failed when they descend to the ‘Racist!!’ stage.”
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Progress! WuFlu Gets Dogs an Upgrade From Menu to Pet in China. “The Week Four WuFlu Wind-Down finds us all heading into an online Easter weekend that is going to require a little adjustment. And when I say ‘adjustment,’ I mean’“alcohol.’ Well, that’s what I’ve been using for adjustment, anyway.”
It works for non-Easter weekends, too.
GIVEN HOW GERMANS TREAT COMORBIDITIES THAT’S PROBABLY ON THE LOW SIDE, BUT THAT WOULD MAKE IT ABOUT 4 TIMES WORSE THAN NORMAL FLU: Preliminary German Study Shows a COVID-19 Infection Fatality Rate of About 0.4 Percent.
One often-heard statistic is the “case fatality rate”—that is, the percentage of people diagnosed with a disease who will die of it. This afternoon that figure stands at 3.5 percent for COVID-19 in the U.S., but this rate is significantly inflated because it does not count asymptomatic cases or undiagnosed people who recover at home. What we really need to know is the infection fatality rate: the percentage of all the people infected who eventually die of the disease. That’s what the German study attempts to do.
Over the last two weeks, German virologists tested nearly 80 percent of the population of Gangelt for antibodies that indicate whether they’d been infected by the coronavirus. Around 15 percent had been infected, allowing them to calculate a COVID-19 infection fatality rate of about 0.37 percent. The researchers also concluded that people who recover from the infection are immune to reinfection, at least for a while.
For comparison, the U.S. infection fatality rates for the 1957–58 flu epidemic was around 0.27 percent; for the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, it was about 2.6 percent. For seasonal flu, the rate typically averages around 0.1 percent. Basically, the German researchers found that the coronavirus kills about four times as many infected people than seasonal flu viruses do.
Bad but maybe not bad enough to justify the response. On the other hand, it’s hard to base actions in February on studies that come out in April.
Hasn’t that already been done, during the 2012 election cycle, when Rubin was supporting the Romney-Ryan ticket?
CONSTRUCTION IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS: Coronavirus could soon topple one of NYC’s most luxurious new supertowers.
One of the tallest residential buildings in the nation, 111 W. 57th St., is just weeks away from missing its construction deadline, known as an “outside date,” thanks to years of delays and the construction moratorium caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
If that happens, in-contract buyers could — and likely would thanks to coronavirus fears and an abysmal stock market — walk away with their deposits, leaving the $1.45 billion development empty.
Plus: “Just about any luxury condo in New York — whether it’s complete, almost complete or partly complete — is in the same boat right now: It’s frozen.”
YOU CAN’T BLAME HIM FOR THIS, HE HAS DEMENTIA: Biden and Trump Agreed to Keep Details of Their Call Private. Then Biden Told Us Everything He Said.
SO IS IT TOO EARLY TO START QUESTIONING FAUCI’S TRACK RECORD?
THE REPORTING IS ALWAYS QUESTIONABLE, BUT IT’S LOOKING AS IF WASHINGTON STATE IS ON THE BACKSIDE OF THE CURVE. Here’s the “confirmed cases” graph:
And here’s the chart for deaths, which are usually a lagging indicator.
Either social distancing has worked, or it’s burning out on its own. Sadly, I’m pretty sure it’s the former. Why are deaths improving faster than number of cases here? I’m guessing, but probably because the disease started with retirement homes, where the death rate was huge, and has now moved to a more general population. And perhaps treatment is better. But that’s just my guess.
A friend on Facebook raises a good point, though: “What I would like to see from these ‘deep thinkers’ is what would constitute success? Hold them to it.”
Related: Seattle’s Army-built field hospital is coming down without treating a single patient. “Even as some questions remain about the extent of the outbreak in Washington state, Gov. Jay Inslee Wednesday announced he would return to the federal government the field hospital recently assembled in Seattle’s CenturyLink Field Event Center to help the health care system cope with the new coronavirus. With the USNS Comfort still stationed in New York, and the USNS Mercy in Los Angeles, Inslee’s decision could mark the first return of hospital beds to the federal government during the pandemic from anywhere in the nation.”
WOW: Facebook Wanted NSO Spyware to Monitor Users, NSO CEO Claims.
At the time, Facebook was in the early stages of deploying a VPN product called Onavo Protect, which, unbeknownst to some users, analyzed the web traffic of users who downloaded it to see what other apps they were using. According to the court documents, it seems the Facebook representatives were not interested in buying parts of Pegasus as a hacking tool to remotely break into phones, but more as a way to more effectively monitor phones of users who had already installed Onavo.
“The Facebook representatives stated that Facebook was concerned that its method for gathering user data through Onavo Protect was less effective on Apple devices than on Android devices,” the court filing reads. “The Facebook representatives also stated that Facebook wanted to use purported capabilities of Pegasus to monitor users on Apple devices and were willing to pay for the ability to monitor Onavo Protect users.”
Pegasus is weapons-grade stuff.
AMERICA’S PAPER OF RECORD: Biden Cuts Hole In Mask So He Can Still Sniff People’s Hair.
MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Rep Dan Crenshaw Eviscerated Hillary Clinton After Her Latest Attack on Trump.
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