COVID-19 Update for March 18th
Some links upfront:
For my Georgia audience, here’s the county by county map
Please go read this thread on what the Imperial College found and how its simulation research has led the United States and other countries to shut down.
See this thread from a 39 year old and how debilitating COVID-19 was to him.
This story is behind a pay wall, but the opening can be read and is disturbing:
Chinese laboratories identified a mystery virus as a highly infectious new pathogen by late December last year, but they were ordered to stop tests, destroy samples and suppress the news, a Chinese media outlet has revealed.
A regional health official in Wuhan, centre of the outbreak, demanded the destruction of the lab samples that established the cause of unexplained viral pneumonia on January 1. China did not acknowledge there was human-to-human transmission until more than three weeks later.
The detailed revelations by Caixin Global, a respected independent publication, provide the clearest evidence yet of the scale of the cover-up in the crucial early weeks when the opportunity was lost to control the outbreak.
Censors have been rapidly deleting the report from the Chinese internet.
Relatedly, this piece in the Washington Post is a necessary must read as reporters in the United States continue to push communist propaganda against the Trump Administration.
I’m sorry, but it is not racist to use the phrase “Wuhan virus” or “Chinese virus.” These are the phrases the media used until the Chinese communists complained. Here is a letter from a Chinese pastor in Wuhan who called it the “Wuhan virus.”
The Media Focus
It should bother everyone tremendously that the President of the United States and his taskforce set up to fight this virus released a massive amount of news today and the media focused on the “Chinese virus” phrase and its purported racism.
China has been propping up American media outlets for some time with massive spreads in newspapers, etc. I’m starting to wonder if they are making cash payments to reporters.
About that news
The President announced he is using military powers to get manufacturers to make critical healthcare supplies for the United States.
He is ending all HUD related evictions and foreclosures.
He is leaning towards $2000 cash payments to Americans and an airline bailout.
He has agreed with Canada to close the border between the countries.
The White House task force is pointing out that millennials in Europe are suffering terribly from the disease. The initial reports that young people will not be badly affected appear true, but half of those in ICU in France and Italy are 20 and 30 somethings. That’s big news.
Lastly…
I do a morning radio show that is in syndication over iHeart Media’s satellite system. Basically, if your local radio station can get Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck, they can get me. I’m making my show available freely to any station anywhere in the country that wants it. I’m regularly interviewing experts and public officials and trying to keep people up to date with honest, accurate news. Certainly, I’m a conservative and my world view is Christian, but I also think there’s more to news/talk than throwing red meat. Right now, I want to help as best I can.
For those who understand what it means, local stations get 17 minutes of local programming time and never have make-goods or affidavits to run my program. If you have a local talk station that needs programming very relevant right now, please reach out and I can get you set up. The show is live at 9 am to noon each weekday and can be run in delay.
You can get the podcast here, but the show handles so much breaking and current news that it is best to listen live. I am also doing my evening show on WSB Radio in Atlanta and you can always tell your smart device “Hey Google/Hey Siri/Alex play WSB Radio” between 4pm and 6pm ET to hear me.
The Corona statistics suggest that those under 60 have a low risk of death, as perhaps they have a high recovery rate with modern medical treatment. But that doesn't necessarily mean that those under 60 have a low risk of getting seriously ill, as the recovery/fatality rates are not necessarily constant with age and severity risk may be the same for Corona patients of all ages (so millennials beware, even if you don't care about the risk you present to older people). The EU countries are also triaging patients because of limited ICU equipment, and younger healthier people may have priority, partly explaining their higher ICU ratios.
The reality of EU socialized medicine is that they contain cost by limiting equipment/doctors. This may work well for normal circumstances where everything runs at maximum capacity with long waiting lines. But it may be a disaster for emergency situations like Corona. This is not to say that the US may also have similar problems. But the threshold at which shortages become acute may be far higher in the US than in Italy/France.