28 July, 2020

Where the current craziness began


The arrogance of youth

It has long struck me how the Frankfurt School, a collection of Leftist émigrés from Nazi Germany, could have been so successful in dominating the curriculum of the American university and wielding so massive an influence over following generations of students. Its major figures, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse, were the main authors of the political revolution of the 1960s which gradually filtered into the culture to produce the revisionist “narrative” and physical violence we observe all around us today.

The most publically significant spokesperson was Herbert Marcuse, whose One Dimensional Man, Eros and Civilization and his influential, totalitarian-inspired essay “Repressive Tolerance” planted the seeds of political and epistemic subversion in the fertile soil of American academia and, ultimately, in the marl of the cultural and institutional life. Marcuse argued in the essay that we must be “intolerant toward the protagonists of the repressive status quo.” By “status quo,” he meant classical liberal thought with its emphasis on tradition, individual autonomy, civic responsibility, and limited government, which he thought were responsible for deep-rooted social injustice. The narrative he developed was irresistible to his legion of acolytes.

The Frankfurters were the red brigades of the university Left, striving to fill their students’ minds with the doctrine of human and social perfectibility according to the egalitarian principles of their Marxist forbears, in particular the theories and ruminations of the Italian revolutionary thinker Antonio Gramsci and Hungarian Marxist Georg Lukács. The Woke generation now rioting in the streets of Portland, Seattle, and other cities are their unwitting progeny, the shock troops of Antifa and BLM who never read Marcuse, let alone Horkheimer, Adorno, Gramsci or Lukács—and surely would be incapable of doing so with any comprehension. They have succumbed to a political virus of which they are unaware, fallen prey to a toxic narrative developed by the luminaries of the intellectual Left. This is what I would dub trickle-down intellectonomics, how complex thought (however specious) gradually leaks away into howls, bellows, and yawps.

There is no doubt that the crucial figures of the “Western Marxist” movement were brilliant men and erudite scholars, eloquent to a fault. They were right about some things, in particular about the rise of anti-Semitism as a function of a world sinking into barbarism. But how could they have been so wrong about America, working to transform the American Dream into the American Nightmare? Could they not see how their analysis of America’s ills was based not on a thorough and intimate knowledge of American life in all its variety and complexity but on the hoary concept of “commodity fetishism” and a theoretical explication of a mystical force Adorno called “negative dialectics,” an understanding of which could show how American society might be perfected? 

Adorno believed that Western and American society could transcend its fundamental contradictions between labor and capital, between constraint and freedom, the compulsion to dominate both men and nature and the struggle for “unitary existence,” “in view of the concrete possibility of utopia,” as he wrote in Negative Dialectics. (Italics mine.) A “right condition,” he continued, could be freed from the inherent contradiction of “dialectic antagonisms.” Marcuse was much blunter. He was not interested in transcendence but repression—albeit in the name of that convenient Marxist evasion, a harmonious future. It must be said, however, that both men commanded a facility with language, combining complexity, expressiveness, and philosophic range, that few contemporary writers are capable of today. We should resist the temptation to dismiss their language as merely unintelligible or pretentious, yet their linguistic convolution is part of the problem.

Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan put the dilemma in a nutshell. “As men abound in copiousness of language,” he wrote, “so they become more wise, or more mad, than ordinary. Nor is it possible without letters for any man to become either excellently wise or . . . excellently foolish.”

The Frankfurters were excellently foolish, and the majority of our politicians, editors, public intellectuals, and corporate tycoons have imbibed their folly. With respect to the latter, as Rupert Darwall shows in Green Tyranny, “Capitalist wealth has been used to fund the Frankfurt School” to advance its own interests, primarily in the Green environmental industry; capitalists are subsidizing the very people dedicated to bringing them down. But this is true of the entire elitist cartel pushing the wages of intellectual abuse in our universities, media and political class. They have bought into the opiate narrative of the Left.

Social worker Judith Acosta puts the issue neatly when discussing the economic question with socialists young and old, who believe in “sharing the planet,” in doing away with free-market enterprise, in the free distribution of goods and services, and state ownership of the means of production: “They don’t concede that there is even such a thing as human nature, replete with base impulses. To them, humanity is perfectible (with a little government help and a lot of regulation).” She continues: “Human nature is bifurcated and fallen…there will be atrocities and power grabs no matter what economic system we have. The question more appropriately becomes…which economic and social system best deals with the reality of human nature, its innate indolence and selfishness, its ambition and creativity…So far, based on worldwide experience, a gently regulated capitalism seems to produce the most good for the broadest segment of humanity.”

But the Left will not concede to reality in attempting to advance its doctrine with mental sedatives like “social harmony,” “classless society,” “planetary village,” “unitary existence,” and so on. Its apostles and epigones have been thoroughly indoctrinated. And so their folly seems poised to prevail. We need to acknowledge that once in power the Left will enact policy predicated not on promoting the freedom and prosperity of the nation or recognizing the empirics of economic life but on a sweeping “narrative” of human perfectibility ushered in by an all-seeing aristocracy of political authoritarians. The Social Democratic “narrative” is an ideological tissue of unsustainable ideas, no matter how imposingly it may be formulated. Thanks to the Frankfurters and their infecting a generation of impressionable students with the illusion of human perfectibility and the dogmatic assurance of a self-regarding master class, excellent foolishness has become the air we breathe and the order of the day.

SOURCE 

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Biden Vows to Stamp Out 'Islamicphobia'

That means more Islamic proselytizing is coming to American public schools.

The presidential campaign of 2020 has so far unfolded in more of a crisis atmosphere than any campaign in decades. Portland, Oregon and other cities are still engulfed by Antifa violence (as the Democrats side with the violent rioters), coronavirus hysteria is still hamstringing the nation’s economic life and prosperity, social media giants are waging all-out war against the freedom of speech, and America’s history and heritage is under direct and unapologetic assault from Marxists vowing a revolution in America. In the midst of all this, on July 20, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden demonstrated anew the disturbing priorities of his increasingly anti-American party.

Instead of addressing the sharp rise in crime and lawlessness, the demonization of American history and culture, the Left’s assault on the Second Amendment and other basic rights, or any of the other burning issues of the day, Biden chose to address the “Million Muslim Votes Summit,” hosted by Emgage Action, which claims to be is the largest Muslim PAC in the United States. In the course of his rambling remarks, Biden declared: “One of the things I think is important, I wish we taught more in our schools about the Islamic faith.”[1]

In the midst of what could very well turn out to be a second American civil war, or even the end of the United States as a free republic, Joe Biden is preoccupied with getting our schools to proselytize for Islam more intensively than they already do. For make no mistake: that is what Biden means when he says he wishes that our schools taught more about Islam. Schools already teach about Islam as a major world religion. That teaching has already been widely criticized as whitewashing the crimes committed in the name of Islam and in accord with its teachings, and Biden wants even more of that: he thinks the cure for what he repeatedly called “Islamicphobia” (there’s that famous “stutter” again, but you can’t really fault him for getting a word wrong that’s artificial and made-up in the first place) is for American schoolchildren to be relentlessly indoctrinated with the idea that Islam is wonderful, and never mind about all those dead bodies of people killed to screams of “Allahu akbar.”

Biden was in effect adopting a familiar trope of post-9/11 Leftists and Islamic supremacists: that opposition to jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women is “hate,” a hatred that could be eradicated if we redneck yahoo Americans were just made to learn a bit about Islam. And so the public schools, which Democrats have worked for years to cleanse of every trace of Christianity, must be made an arena for teaching Islam. Imagine the uproar if Biden had said: “One of the things I think is important, I wish we taught more in our schools about the Christian faith.” He would have been denounced everywhere and probably would already have been replaced as the likely Democratic Party presidential candidate.

But his far-Left supporters will only applaud his recommendation that the public schools be increasingly devoted to teaching Islam. This is certain, as Biden went on to claim that America was a dark, dangerous place for Muslims, and it was all Donald Trump’s fault. The Islamic education was apparently needed because “under this administration, we’ve seen an unconscionable, an unconscionable rise in Islamicphobia and incidents including kids being bullied in schools and hate crimes in our communities.”[2] President Trump, Biden insisted, has “named people with a history of open Islamicphobia — open, straightforward, who have no business serving in high positions in our government — to key leadership roles in our Department of Defense and the US Agency of International Development.”[3]

“Islamophobia,” which is likely what Biden meant to say when he said “Islamicphobia,” is defined in a New York Post article about his address to Emgage as “prejudice against Muslims.”[4] Prejudice against any group is never justified. All too often, however, the term is used to refer to honest and accurate analysis of the ways in which jihadis use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and make recruits among peaceful Muslims.

Biden is vowing to end all that, and effectively criminalize criticism of Islam, including all opposition to jihad terror, something that the Left has been working toward for a long time.

Even worse, the Washington Free Beacon reports that Emgage Action is “a George Soros-backed Muslim group, which cohosts a conference that in recent years drew speakers who called homosexuality a ‘disease’ and defended terrorist groups….Emgage has collaborated with a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated group on events that in recent years attracted speakers who openly opposed LGBT rights and supported terror groups. Last year, Emgage became an official cohost of Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) conferences. ISNA was previously revealed to be part of the Muslim Brotherhood network—though it claims it is no longer associated with the group.”[5]

Biden didn’t hesitate to throw this crowd plenty of red meat, promising: “If I have the honor of being president, I will end the Muslim ban on day one, day one.”[6] There is no “Muslim ban,” but the idea that such a ban does actually exist is not just a product of the candidate’s rapidly deteriorating mental capacity. Islamic supremacists and their Leftist allies insist on calling the Trump administration’s travel bans on nationals from 13 countries a “Muslim ban,” even though five of those countries, Burma, Eritrea, Tanzania, North Korea and Venezuela, are not Muslim countries, and there are 49 other Muslim countries upon which there is no ban at all.

The ban exists because these countries cannot or will not provide accurate information about prospective immigrants. The list of countries was devised during the Obama administration, while Biden was Vice President. But that didn’t stop Biden from casting it in racial terms, declaring: “Muslim communities were the first to feel Donald Trump’s assault on black and brown communities in this country with his vile Muslim ban.”[7] It’s a peculiar “assault on black and brown communities” that leaves untouched scores of countries inhabited by “black and brown communities,” but the Left is working on the gut level of rage and hatred, not rational consideration.

Digging even deeper, Biden declared: “A hadith from the Prophet Muhammad instructs, ‘Whomever among you sees a wrong, let him change it with his hand. If he is not able, then with his tongue. If he is not able, then with his heart.’”[8]

The hadith Biden is quoting is this one: “On the authority of Abu Sa`eed al-Khudree (may Allah be pleased with him) who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah say, ‘Whosoever of you sees an evil, let him change it with his hand; and if he is not able to do so, then with his tongue; and if he is not able to do so, then with his heart — and that is the weakest of faith.'” (Nawawi 34)

What might Muhammad, or whoever put this saying into his mouth, have meant by changing a wrong with one’s hand? One of the hazards of analysis of statements of jihad terrorists is that in an Islamic context, words seldom, if ever, mean what they are taken for granted as meaning by Westerners. This fools mainstream counterterror analysts on a daily basis: when Muslim leaders speak about wanting to establish justice, they think they’re ready to set up free societies, when actually they mean they want to impose Sharia.

So it is with Biden’s favored saying. Fighting and killing infidels is repeatedly commanded in the Qur’an (cf. 2:191. 4:89, 9:5, 9:289, 47:4, etc.), not because Islam is committed to mayhem for its own sake, but because the society of the unbelievers must be swept aside in favor of the rule of Islamic law. The twentieth-century Pakistani political leader and Islamic scholar Syed Abul A’la Maududi taught that Muslims must fight until non-Muslims were not be entrusted with the responsibilities of governing a state – any state. He declared that non-Muslims have “absolutely no right to seize the reins of power in any part of God’s earth nor to direct the collective affairs of human beings according to their own misconceived doctrines. For if they are given such an opportunity, corruption and mischief will ensue. In such a situation the believers would be under an obligation to do their utmost to dislodge them from political power and to make them live in subservience to the Islamic way of life.”[9]

This is the highest activity in which a Muslim can engage: another hadith has a Muslim asking Muhammad: “Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad (in reward).” Muhammad replied, “I do not find such a deed.” (Bukhari 4.52.44)

Biden’s hadith, therefore, was not some Islamic Hallmark card; it was a command to wage war against unbelievers.

Note also Biden’s reference to “the Prophet Muhammad.” It’s standard journalistic practice today to assume that everyone is a Muslim and believes Muhammad is a prophet, so Biden is just following along with the crowd and pandering to his constituency, but it’s still a manifestation of Islamic supremacism. Biden’s handlers would never, ever give him a statement that referred to “our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” But Islam is the Left’s preferred religion, and Islamopandering is the order of the day, so Biden refers without hesitation to “the prophet.”

SOURCE 

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here.  Home page supplement

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Why does the coronavirus sometimes strike young people?

It's usually clearcut.  The virus only strikes people with impaired immune systems -- people who have other ailments.  Old people normally have other ailments so they are very often affected by the virus.

And when young people get it, they are usually ones who are ill already. They too have other ailments.  But how come there are a few cases of young people being infected who seem otherwise healthy? Why does the virus single them out?  Why in their case was being young and healthy not enough to protect them?

The article from a major medical journal below shows why in at least some cases.  It shows that they have a genetic defect that weakens their immune system in crucial ways. That may not be the answer in all cases but it is clearly now an in principle explanation.  The vast majority of young people are safe


Presence of Genetic Variants Among Young Men With Severe COVID-19

Caspar I.van der Made et al.

Abstract

Objective:  To explore the presence of genetic variants associated with primary immunodeficiencies among young patients with COVID-19.

Design, Setting, and Participants Case series of pairs of brothers without medical history meeting the selection criteria of young (age <35 years) brother pairs admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) due to severe COVID-19. Four men from 2 unrelated families were admitted to the ICUs of 4 hospitals in the Netherlands between March 23 and April 12, 2020. The final date of follow-up was May 16, 2020. Available family members were included for genetic variant segregation analysis and as controls for functional experiments.

Main Outcome and Measures:  Results of rapid clinical whole-exome sequencing, performed to identify a potential monogenic cause. Subsequently, basic genetic and immunological tests were performed in primary immune cells isolated from the patients and family members to characterize any immune defects.

Results:  The 4 male patients had a mean age of 26 years (range, 21-32), with no history of major chronic disease. They were previously well before developing respiratory insufficiency due to severe COVID-19, requiring mechanical ventilation in the ICU. The mean duration of ventilatory support was 10 days (range, 9-11); the mean duration of ICU stay was 13 days (range, 10-16). One patient died. Rapid clinical whole-exome sequencing of the patients and segregation in available family members identified loss-of-function variants of the X-chromosomal TLR7. In members of family 1, a maternally inherited 4-nucleotide deletion was identified (c.2129_2132del; p.[Gln710Argfs*18]); the affected members of family 2 carried a missense variant (c.2383G>T; p.[Val795Phe]). In primary peripheral blood mononuclear cells from the patients, downstream type I interferon (IFN) signaling was transcriptionally downregulated, as measured by significantly decreased mRNA expression of IRF7, IFNB1, and ISG15 on stimulation with the TLR7 agonist imiquimod as compared with family members and controls. The production of IFN-γ, a type II IFN, was decreased in patients in response to stimulation with imiquimod.

Conclusions and Relevance:  In this case series of 4 young male patients with severe COVID-19, rare putative loss-of-function variants of X-chromosomal TLR7 were identified that were associated with impaired type I and II IFN responses. These preliminary findings provide insights into the pathogenesis of COVID-19

SOURCE

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New pill that could prevent COVID-19 from entering body cells gets FDA OK for human trials

AI Therapeutics in Guilford received some exciting news from the FDA this week. Their drug, currently being used to treat some forms of cancers, will now go through 60-90 days of human trials at Yale and other locations across the country in an effort to prevent COVID-19.

Entrepreneur and genetics expert Jonathan Rothberg, Ph.D., shared details of the drug, Apilimod’s, promise, so far.

“A Gates Foundation study tested 13,000 compounds AI Therapeutics LAM 2 Apilimod, was the number one compound out of 13,000 tested and it stops the entry of the virus. You stop the virus from getting in the cell, you stop the virus,” says Rothberg.

He says the drug is already being used to treat some cancers.

“We know the drug is safe, it’s been safe in over 700 people but now we have to go from stopping the virus in a petri dish to stopping it in people we love, and that’s what is happening at Yale University.”

He says their goal is to demonstrate that in only a few days the pill is able to stop the effects of the virus and prevent a COVID-19 infection.

“The FDA has just given us approval to test it as a potential cure for COVID-19 and only after we show efficacy will we use it as a chemical vaccine,” says Rothberg.

He explained how COVID-19 enters our body: “The virus uses a mechanism similar to a garbage chute to get into your cell, and we shut it down and by shutting it down the virus has no access to the cell.”

Rothberg is also behind a company mass-producing $30 molecular home COVID tests that do not rely on antibodies. They are awaiting FDA approval. Rothberg came up with the idea in early March and his team went to work quickly.

Another one of his teams at Butterfly in New Haven created a hand-held ultrasound, revolutionizing patient testing around the world.

As for the drug, Rothberg says it has been tested in Wuhan, China and they have stocked enough compounds to make 5,000,000 pills if and when they receive the proper FDA approvals and clearances.

SOURCE 

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We need a Covid plan that is, dare I say it, sustainable

Comment from Australia, where the issues are similar:

When Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews blamed his own population for spreading the coronavirus, accusing them of flouting self-isolation rules (actually, his health authorities had given them the wrong advice), he threatened an extension of the current lockdown. Quite aside from the ugly blame-shifting by a leader who is yet to account for his government’s mistakes, few people seemed to consider the crucial sustainability question.

Can Victoria really keep going into lockdown? At what point does the balance between public health, economic wellbeing, community needs and individual livelihoods, deserve realistic evaluation? If you keep locking down, there won’t be much to lock down.

The whole country locked down in March and the federal government budgeted an unfathomable $130bn to sustain people through the following six months. They got the numbers wrong in a $60bn mistake that surely would have cost the Treasurer his job if the error had been to the other side of the ledger.

The wage replacement scheme has been extended by six months and $20bn but unemployment is still expected to top 9 per cent.

What if states are still locking down in a year? What if the virus is running rampant so that tourism and hospitality businesses cannot function 18 months from now? Would it be sustainable for wage replacement schemes, additional unemployment benefits and special industry stimulus packages to continue?

Scott Morrison, Treasurer Frydenberg and Health Minister Greg Hunt deserve enormous credit for putting Australia in this position; if an effective vaccine is readily available worldwide within a year, their response will rank as one of the world’s best.

But even if the current Victorian outbreak is suppressed and our national economy can operate relatively freely behind sealed international borders, how will we be placed in a year if the virus continues to run rampant across the world? How long can we continue to close ourselves off from overseas students, tourists and immigrants?

Would we simply be delaying the eventual spread of the virus across our nation? Would all our most drastic and costly measures have been in vain?

What we have done so far has our COVID-19 death rate per million people sitting at less than six, whereas the US is over 400, and in Britain and Spain it is more than 600. How long can we afford the policies that have delivered this staggering success?

We should thank our lucky stars that upwards of 98 per cent of infected people suffer minor symptoms only and the young are virtually impervious to the virus (compared to the Spanish flu which killed infants and healthy young people in their millions). We need ways of dealing with outbreaks that fall well short of closing businesses, crushing livelihoods and banning human interactions.

This is where widespread mask-wearing, social distancing and hygiene, coupled with protections for the vulnerable, offer vastly more sustainable options. We eventually might have to learn to live with the disease.

The economic sustainability of hard borders restricting interstate travel is highly questionable, especially for tourism and hospitality. And these measures hurt socially; communities like Albury-Wodonga and Coolangatta-Tweed Heads are being torn apart; families are being kept from each other.

Our politicians have been too eager to outsource decision-making to medical experts who have a singular focus on preventing infections, which we know can be stopped dead if we cease all human interaction.

This represents the “collapse of government legitimacy”, according to the Manhattan ­Institute’s Heather MacDonald, who has written about this phenomenon in the US.

“For three months, public officials abdicated their responsibility to balance the costs and benefits of any given policy,” she says. “They put the future of hundreds of millions of Americans in the hands of a narrow set of experts who lack all awareness of the workings of economic and social systems, and whose science was built on the ever-shifting sand of speculative models and on extreme risk aversion regarding only one kind of risk.”

MacDonald said the experts were “deaf to the pleas of law-abiding business owners who saw their life’s efforts snuffed out” as these decisions destroyed wealth through arbitrary decision making. This tragic summary sounds gut-wrenchingly familiar.

Secure in their permanent tenure, bureaucrats and publicly funded broadcasters have barracked for ever more draconian measures while the price has been paid by the unemployed and small business owners who have seen their hard-won assets eviscerated. As always, it is for politicians to carefully weigh-up costs and benefits.

Consider how the coronavirus measures have all but eradicated influenza infections this year and, according to the statistics, saved more lives than we have lost to COVID-19. Yet would we suggest imposing these lockdown measures every year, at these costs, to save 150 lives or so from flu? ­Obviously not, or else we would have done it ages ago.

Our leaders have changed their pandemic objectives on us without saying so explicitly. We were told initially that we were locking down to give authorities time to expand capacity within our health system so the pandemic would not overwhelm us.

Authorities tripled the availability of critical care beds nationally from just over 2000 to more than 7500 but, so far, the pandemic has not required more than 100 on any given day and fewer than 50 are being used now. We have ample surge capacity.

According to the original rationale, we ought to be more relaxed about higher levels of infection without shutting down society. So long as our hospitals are not overwhelmed, this might be more sustainable than lockdowns, especially if it is inevitable that we end up in this situation eventually anyway.

Instead, state politicians seem to be taking every infection case within their borders as a political blow. There is an absence of national policy as states ignore urgings from Canberra and shut borders and cities.

State governments seem able to shut down anything, except protests. And they are prepared to implement every pandemic ­response, so long as the federal government funds it.

This is the devolution of the federation; we are not all in this together, each state is in it for ­itself. It is not sustainable.

SOURCE 

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IN BRIEF

Trump ends Obama's socially engineered Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule (National Review)

"People don't make a distinction ... from a South Korean and someone from Beijing": Joe Biden makes racist comments while accusing Trump of being racist (The Federalist)

Biden says America has "never" had a more racist president than Donald Trump. Here are eight. (PJ Media)

Michigan, Minnesota, and Texas: Three races that will decide Senate control (Washington Examiner)

Wall Street Journal boldly vows not to "wilt under cancel culture pressure" or yield to "conformity and intolerance" (UK Daily Mail)

Nailed it: Washington Redskins to use "Washington Football Team" name for 2020 (NBC Sports)

Mayor Lori Lightfoot has Christopher Columbus statues clandestinely removed from Chicago parks (Chicago Tribune)

Reality is enlightening: Democrat Oakland mayor votes down further police budget cuts after vandals defaced her house (The Daily Caller)

In landmark speech, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says China is world's biggest threat (The Washington Free Beacon)

FBI interviewing Chinese visa holders suspected of hiding military ties (Reuters)

186,700 illegal immigrants from 130 nations stopped by coronavirus border closure (Washington Examiner)

Tesla will build its next Gigafactory in tax-friendly Texas (CNBC)

Do as I say, not as I do: DC mayor exempts many city and federal government workers from strict new mask order (JusttheNews.com)

Cancel-culture fallout: Majority of Americans (62%) afraid of expressing political beliefs (The Washington Free Beacon)

Redwood City, California, removed "Black Lives Matter" street painting after request for "MAGA 2020" mural (The Hill)

Policy: Making the stimulus checks count: How Congress can better target a second round of economic impact payments (American Enterprise Institute)

Policy: Executive order on drug price controls would backfire (Forbes)

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here.  Home page supplement

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Major medical journal says Trump was right

The abstract below is from JAMA.  It acknowledges that both dexamethasone and remdesivir combat the coronavirus.  It also fails to mention lockdowns as helpful

Pathophysiology, Transmission, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

W. Joost Wiersinga et al.

Abstract

Importance:  The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, due to the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has caused a worldwide sudden and substantial increase in hospitalizations for pneumonia with multiorgan disease. This review discusses current evidence regarding the pathophysiology, transmission, diagnosis, and management of COVID-19.

Observations:  SARS-CoV-2 is spread primarily via respiratory droplets during close face-to-face contact. Infection can be spread by asymptomatic, presymptomatic, and symptomatic carriers. The average time from exposure to symptom onset is 5 days, and 97.5% of people who develop symptoms do so within 11.5 days. The most common symptoms are fever, dry cough, and shortness of breath. Radiographic and laboratory abnormalities, such as lymphopenia and elevated lactate dehydrogenase, are common, but nonspecific. Diagnosis is made by detection of SARS-CoV-2 via reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction testing, although false-negative test results may occur in up to 20% to 67% of patients; however, this is dependent on the quality and timing of testing.

Manifestations of COVID-19 include asymptomatic carriers and fulminant disease characterized by sepsis and acute respiratory failure. Approximately 5% of patients with COVID-19, and 20% of those hospitalized, experience severe symptoms necessitating intensive care. More than 75% of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 require supplemental oxygen. Treatment for individuals with COVID-19 includes best practices for supportive management of acute hypoxic respiratory failure.

Emerging data indicate that dexamethasone therapy reduces 28-day mortality in patients requiring supplemental oxygen compared with usual care (21.6% vs 24.6%; age-adjusted rate ratio, 0.83 [95% CI, 0.74-0.92]) and that remdesivir improves time to recovery (hospital discharge or no supplemental oxygen requirement) from 15 to 11 days.

In a randomized trial of 103 patients with COVID-19, convalescent plasma did not shorten time to recovery. Ongoing trials are testing antiviral therapies, immune modulators, and anticoagulants. The case-fatality rate for COVID-19 varies markedly by age, ranging from 0.3 deaths per 1000 cases among patients aged 5 to 17 years to 304.9 deaths per 1000 cases among patients aged 85 years or older in the US. Among patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit, the case fatality is up to 40%. At least 120 SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are under development.

Until an effective vaccine is available, the primary methods to reduce spread are face masks, social distancing, and contact tracing. Monoclonal antibodies and hyperimmune globulin may provide additional preventive strategies.

Conclusions and Relevance:  As of July 1, 2020, more than 10 million people worldwide had been infected with SARS-CoV-2. Many aspects of transmission, infection, and treatment remain unclear. Advances in prevention and effective management of COVID-19 will require basic and clinical investigation and public health and clinical interventions.

SOURCE 

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Medical journal says rinsing your nose out with salt water may fight the coronovirus

Benefits and Safety of Nasal Saline Irrigations in a Pandemic—Washing COVID-19 Away

Nyssa F. Farrell et al.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has ignited interest in viral transmission and prevention owing to the significant morbidity and mortality associated with the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Investigations into SARS-CoV-2 pathophysiology suggest that, similar to other viral upper respiratory infections, infection occurs primarily in the nasal and nasopharyngeal mucosa with high viral loads early in disease.1 Within the otolaryngology–head and neck surgery community, recent reports of viral transmission through endoscopic endonasal surgical procedures have caused increased concern regarding how nasal biology affects viral transmission. Further questions have arisen on the possible therapeutic role of commonly used topical nasal therapies. Nasal irrigations may play a role in reducing viral severity and further transmission. However, it is not yet clear whether topical nasal saline irrigations provide viral mitigation effects or conversely have a potentiating effect on viral transmission. Additionally, there are concerns about the consequences of topical adjuncts, such as nasal corticosteroids, for viral nasal infections. In this Viewpoint, we have briefly reviewed the current evidence regarding the association of nasal saline irrigations and their adjuncts with viral upper respiratory illnesses.

The nasal lining serves an important role in the innate immune system, providing a primary defense against inhaled viruses, bacteria, and other particulates. This lining, consisting of a superficial mucus layer atop an aqueous base, traps inhaled particulates that are then propelled by underlying cilia into the nasopharynx. They are ultimately driven into the gastrointestinal system, where they are destroyed.2 Topical nasal rinses take advantage of this secretory lining in multiple ways. First, nasal rinses physically disrupt the viscous surface layer, removing the mucus and its associated particulate matter. Additionally, the presence of nasal saline helps to increase hydration of the deeper aqueous layer, simultaneously improving the underlying ciliary beat frequency and reducing local inflammatory mediators. This can be particularly helpful during a viral respiratory infection, in which there is resultant mucociliary dysfunction and mucostasis that occurs secondary to the inflammatory response.2

While the benefit of topical nasal saline has been well established, optimal saline tonicity has been debated within the literature. There is supportive evidence for both isotonic saline and hypertonic saline (HS) efficacy in vivo.2 Isotonic saline consists of a 0.9% wt/vol sodium chloride solution, which is close to the physiologic salt concentration of the body. Conversely, HS solutions are greater than 0.9% wt/vol. It has been theorized that HS, which has higher osmolarity, pulls water out of cells resulting in increased hydration of the aqueous portion of the mucus layer. This improves mucociliary clearance while also decreasing epithelial edema. Additionally, there is evidence that the presence of HS can result in calcium efflux from epithelial cells, stimulating ciliary function and improving mucociliary clearance. Although in vitro studies have demonstrated these effects, some in vivo studies raised the concern of local adverse symptoms, including nasal burning, paradoxical nasal blockage, and rhinorrhea, which would limit the use of HS. A recent meta-analysis evaluating both isotonic saline and HS rinses for all sinonasal diseases concluded that HS, with a concentration less than 5% sodium chloride, was more beneficial than isotonic saline for the management of sinonasal pathology.2 Additionally, a recent randomized clinical trial evaluating the utility of HS for mitigation of the common cold demonstrated HS reduced duration of illness, over-the-counter medication use, transmission to household members, and viral shedding.3

Steroid compounds, such as budesonide or mometasone, are commonly added to saline irrigations for control of inflammatory mediators in chronic rhinosinusitis. In acute viral upper respiratory illnesses (URIs), corticosteroid use is less well understood. A Cochrane systematic review of 3 double-blind, randomized clinical trials of intranasal steroids (fluticasone or beclomethasone) for management of URIs found no evidence that intranasal steroid sprays improved URI symptom severity or duration.4 Their review did not identify significantly different rates of adverse events regardless of intranasal steroid use. So, while nasal steroids did not significantly alter URI symptom control, no significant harm was detected in this review. Although these trials did not look specifically at steroid use in an irrigation delivery, the effect can be extrapolated to steroid irrigations given the similar mechanism of action.

Betadine and other iodine derivatives have also been proposed to reduce viral load in the nasal cavity. In a recent review by Parhar et al,5 the role in povidone-iodine, a common surgical preparation, was evaluated. While they did not find many clinical trials, there was significant evidence of povidone-iodine resulting in substantial coronavirus reduction in in vitro studies. They identified 3 different studies of prior coronavirus epidemics in which topical application of povidone-iodine resulted in significant viral titer reduction.5 Furthermore, a prospective trial of 0.08% diluted povidone-iodine rinses in 29 patients demonstrated safety and tolerance by patients.6 There is concern regarding ciliotoxicity of iodine-based rinses; however, in diluted form these effects may be negligible. While the use of povidone-iodine rinses certainly requires additional review in future randomized clinical trials, it may serve as a useful adjunct to decrease viral transmission.

While there is evidence to support topical therapies for viral transmission mitigation, the potential risks must also be considered. Like other respiratory infections, SARS-CoV-2 is likely transmitted via physical contact with the virus through direct or indirect transfer to the upper aerodigestive tract mucosa or exposure to infected respiratory droplets.1 Transmission of the virus is high, especially because infected persons have shown evidence of viral shedding during the incubation period, asymptomatic infection, and even after evidence of recovery.1 As such, there is concern that performing irrigations of the nasal cavities may increase viral shedding, and thus transmission. Additionally, there is concern about viral contamination of the nasal rinse bottle itself, leading to increased transmission through contact-induced infections. Rhinovirus is detectable in nasal lavage, suggesting that viral contamination of surfaces may occur via rinsing.4,7 This surface contamination is important to recognize, because evidence has suggested that SARS-CoV-2 is stable on plastic and can be detected more than 72 hours after exposure.1 However, it is also important to note that there are many ways to inactivate viral particles on those surfaces, such as through the use of diethyl ether, 75% ethanol, chlorine, UV light, or heat (56 °C for 30 minutes).1

SARS-CoV-2 is a highly virulent respiratory virus with significant presence in the nasal and nasopharyngeal mucosa. Hypertonic nasal saline, which facilitates mucociliary clearance, likely decreases viral burden through physical removal. Other additives, such as povidone-iodine, may aid in eliminating viral particles within the nasal cavity and nasopharynx prior to active infection. Given available evidence, saline irrigations with or without indicated additives may be safe to use in the presence of COVID-19. This is critical to communicate for patients who already use these therapies for rhinosinusitis management. Importantly, the lavage fluid, rinse bottle, and surrounding surfaces may become contaminated and serve as a source of infection in the future. Thus, patients should practice good hand hygiene and decontaminate the surrounding surfaces (eg, sink, counters) and plastic rinse bottle to prevent subsequent infection. Given the safety profile of these therapies, HS nasal irrigations should be encouraged for patients and health care workers especially. For our patients with chronic rhinosinusitis, continued use of steroid irrigations should be encouraged. Emerging research is expected to shed further light on saline irrigation’s protective and therapeutic effect on COVID-19.

SOURCE 

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IN BRIEF

More than 280 Wall Street Journal cancel-culture warriors sign a letter protesting "misinformation" in the paper's conservative opinion pieces (UK Daily Mail)

Senator Tom Cotton — whose New York Times op-ed absurdly culminated in firings and reassignments — rips the Times for running China scientist's op-ed slamming U.S. virus response (Fox News)

House Democrats futilely vote to repeal Trump travel ban, as Senate is unlikely to vote on it (The Hill)

Joe Biden either forgets or ignores history, says Trump is America's first "racist" president (National Review)

Joe Biden'sBernie Sanders's plans near $10 trillion price tag (Fox News)

Is Kamala Harris planting evidence on her VP rivals? (The Washington Free Beacon)

Houston, we have a problem: Chinese consulate closed by Trump administration was "a hot bed of spying" (UK Daily Mail)

Meanwhile, China is harboring military-linked biologist fugitive at San Francisco consulate (Fox News)

Taiwan fears growing threat of attack by China (Washington Examiner)

For the record: The big surge in coronavirus deaths is a media-fed myth (Issues & Insights)

One-third of U.S. museums — which average 850 million visitors annually — may not survive the year, survey finds (NPR)

Gun purchases are up an unprecedented 95%, ammo 139% (Washington Examiner)

Predictably, gender-confused woman sues Catholic hospital for refusing to remove her uterus (Washington Examiner)

Patricia Mccloskey's gun didn't work, so a prosecutor ordered it reassembled and then declared it lethal (Hot Air)

The Sierra Club is disowning its cofounder over racist comments he made over 100 years ago (The Daily Caller)

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here.  Home page supplement

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How Sweden Faced COVID-19 Without Lockdowns

Coronavirus deaths have slowed to a crawl in Sweden. With the exception of a single death on July 13, no deaths in this nation of 10 million have been reported since July 10.

But the debate over Sweden’s approach to the COVID-19 pandemic, which relied on individual responsibility instead of government coercion to maintain social distancing, is far from over.

Last week, The New York Times labeled Sweden’s approach to the pandemic a “cautionary tale” for the rest of the world, claiming it “yielded a surge of deaths without sparing its economy from damage.”

To be accurate, Sweden has outperformed many nations around the world with its “lighter touch” approach and was one of the few nations in Europe to see its economy grow in the first quarter of 2020.

Meanwhile, Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s top infectious disease expert, continues to defend his nation’s approach to the pandemic.

“I’m looking forward to a more serious evaluation of our work than has been made so far,” Tegnell said in a recent podcast published by Swedish public radio before taking a scheduled vacation. “There is no way of knowing how this ends.”

Sweden’s Actual Pandemic Performance

Sweden has become a global lightning rod, but this has less to do with the results of its policies than the nature of its policies.

While Sweden’s death toll is indeed substantially higher than neighbors such as Finland, Norway, and Denmark, it’s also much lower than several other European neighbors such as Belgium, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Spain.

Indeed, a simple comparison between Belgium and Sweden —nations with rather similar populations— reveals that Belgium suffered far worse than Sweden from the coronavirus.

The reason Sweden is a “cautionary tale” and Belgium is not is because Belgium followed the script. Early in the pandemic, Belgian officials closed all non-essential business and enforced strict social distancing rules.

All non-emergency workers were told to stay home. Shopping was limited to a single family member. Individuals could leave for medical reasons or to walk a pet or get a brief bit of exercise—so long as social distancing was maintained.

These lockdown protocols, the BBC reported, were strictly enforced by Belgian police using “drones in parks and fines for anyone breaking social distancing rules.”

A More Suitable ‘Cautionary Tale’

Sweden clearly endured the pandemic better than Belgium, which had nearly twice as many COVID-19 deaths despite its economic lockdown.

Yet the Times chose Sweden as its “cautionary tale” because Sweden chose not to institute an economic lockdown. Sweden took such an approach for two reasons. First, as Tegnell has publicly stated, there is little to no scientific evidence that lockdowns work. Second, as evidence today shows, lockdowns come with widespread unintended consequences: mass unemployment, recession, social unrest, psychological deterioration, suicides, and drug overdoses.

Even if Sweden has seen its death toll rise more sharply than Scandinavian neighbors such as Finland and Norway, it’s strange that the Times would go thousands of miles across an ocean and continent to find a “cautionary tale.” A far better cautionary tale can be found right under the Grey Lady’s nose.

A simple comparison between New York and Sweden shows the Empire State has suffered far worse from COVID-19 than the Swedes. Yinon Weiss, an entrepreneur and founder of Rally Point, recently compared Sweden and New York using data from the COVID Tracking Project.

The first thing one notices about the comparison is that Sweden was able to “flatten the curve,” so to speak. Though the phrase is largely forgotten today, flattening the curve was originally the entire purpose of the lockdowns. To the extent that there was a scientific basis for lockdowns, it was in the idea that they were a temporary measure designed to help hospitals avoid being overwhelmed by sick patients.

Dr Robert Katz, founding director of the Yale‐Griffin Prevention Research Center, observed that by flattening the curve “you don’t prevent deaths, you just change the dates.” But a temporary lockdown could at least prevent everyone from getting sick at once, which would be catastrophic.

If flattening the curve was the primary goal of policymakers, Sweden was largely a success. New York, on the other hand, was not, despite widespread closures and strict enforcement of social distancing policies.

The reason New York failed and Sweden succeeded probably has relatively little to do with the fact that bars and restaurants were open in Sweden. Or that New York’s schools were closed while Sweden’s were open. As Weiss explains, the difference probably isn’t related to lockdowns at all. It probably has much more to do with the fact that New York failed to protect the most at-risk populations: the elderly and infirm.

“Here’s the good news: You can shut down businesses or keep them open. Close schools or stay in session. Wear masks or not,” says Weiss, a graduate of Harvard Business School. “The virus will make its way through in either case, and if we protect the elderly then deaths will be spared.”

This is precisely the prescription Dr. John Ioannidis, a Stanford University epidemiologist and one of the most cited scientists in the world, has advocated since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Like Tegnell, Ioannidis early on expressed doubts about the effectiveness of lockdowns and warned they could produce wide-ranging unintended outcomes.

“One of the bottom lines is that we don’t know how long social distancing measures and lockdowns can be maintained without major consequences to the economy, society, and mental health,” Ioannidis wrote in a STAT article in March. “Unpredictable evolutions may ensue, including financial crisis, unrest, civil strife, war, and a meltdown of the social fabric.”

Sadly, many of the adverse consequences Ioannidis predicted have since come to pass, as he has acknowledged.

Is Sweden Truly a ‘Cautionary Tale’?

Tegnell and Swedish leaders have mostly stood by their lighter touch approach, although there is a recognition that they, too, could have more effectively protected at-risk populations.

“We must admit that the part that deals with elderly care, in terms of the spread of infection, has not worked. It is obvious. We have too many elderly people who have passed away,” Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Löfven said in June.

Yet it’s a mistake to label Sweden’s approach a failure. As noted above, Sweden is being criticized less because of the results of their public health policies and more because of the nature of them.

By embracing a much more market-based approach to the pandemic in lieu of a centrally planned one, Sweden is undermining the narrative that millions and millions of people would have died without lockdowns, as modelers predicted.

Without Sweden and a few similar outliers, it would be far easier for central planners to say, Sure, lockdowns were harsh and destructive. But we had no choice.

In the wake of the most destructive pandemic in a century, there will be considerable discussion as to whether the lockdowns, which stand to trigger a global depression in addition to other psychological and social costs, were truly necessary.

In a sense, the disagreement over the pandemic largely resembles a much larger friction in society: should individuals be left free to pursue their own interests and weigh risks themselves or should they be guided, coerced, and protected by planners who want to do all this for them.

As Ludwig Von Mises noted long ago, modern social conflict is largely a struggle over who gets to design the world, individuals or authorities. Mises saw few things more dangerous than central planners seeking to supplant the plans of individuals with plans of their own, which they see as a preeminent good.

When Mises speaks of the “pre-eminence of his own plan,” it’s hard not to think of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who in March sounded downright indignant when a reporter asked about nursing homes objecting to his plan of prohibiting them from screening for COVID-19.

“They don’t have the right to object,” Cuomo answered. “That is the rule, and that is the regulation, and they have to comply with it.”

Cuomo clearly saw his central plan as superior to that of individuals acting within the marketplace.

The policy of forcing nursing homes to take COVID carrying patients, which was adopted by numerous US states with high virus death tolls, is a stark contrast to Sweden’s market-based approach that trusted individuals to plan for themselves.

“Our measures are all based on individuals taking responsibility, and that is … an important part of the Swedish model,” Hakan Samuelsson, the CEO of Volvo Cars, observed in April.

Sweden’s approach of encouraging social distancing by giving responsibility to individuals may very well explain why the Swedes fared so much better than New York, where authorities disempowered individual actors and prevented nursing homes from taking sensible precautions.

SOURCE 

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Were the lockdowns effective at all?

With a lot of the country either locking down again or getting close to the brink, worth noting a study published yesterday in The Lancet. I know, The Lancet has been badly politicized and unreliable in recent years (and months), but it does still pull great weight with the establishment, so our public health Faucists should know about it at least.

The study bears the typically dense academic-style title, “A country level analysis measuring the impact of government actions, country preparedness and socioeconomic factors on COVID-19 mortality and related health outcomes.” Here’s the beginning of the long abstract describing what the researchers did:

A country level exploratory analysis was conducted to assess the impact of timing and type of national health policy/actions undertaken towards COVID-19 mortality and related health outcomes. . . We built a country-level model, incorporating data from 50 different countries, to assess country-specific socioeconomic factors and healthcare capabilities on COVID-19-related outcomes such as new case burden, critical cases, and mortality. . .

To our knowledge, no published articles have used a country-level analysis, pooling data across multiple countries, to report the impact of population health interventions, country-specific socioeconomic factors, and healthcare capacity on overall COVID-19 cases (recovered or critical), and associated mortality.

Now there’s a bombshell hidden in the dry prose typical of such studies about their findings—see the boldface sentence below:

Increasing COVID-19 caseloads were associated with countries with higher obesity, median population age and longer time to border closures from the first reported case. Increased mortality per million was significantly associated with higher obesity prevalence and per capita gross domestic product (GDP). Reduced income dispersion reduced mortality and the number of critical cases . Rapid border closures, full lockdowns, and wide-spread testing were not associated with COVID-19 mortality per million people. However, full lockdowns and reduced country vulnerability to biological threats (i.e. high scores on the global health security scale for risk environment) were significantly associated with increased patient recovery rates.

Translation: Lockdowns had little effect on the course of severe COVID-19 cases, with the exception of helping with recovery rates, which ratifies the “flatten the curve” logic so as not to overwhelm hospitals. More important were social distancing practices, and bans on foreign travel. (Or as the authors put it in the main body of the study, “government actions such as border closures, full lockdowns, and a high rate of COVID-19 testing were not associated with statistically significant reductions in the number of critical cases or overall mortality.” My emphasis.) This means that if what we care about most is mortality risk rather than mere infection rate, total lockdowns should be viewed skeptically.

But as the full study makes clear, much more important in the outcomes were underlying demographics and health co-morbidities, and the general economic profile of the country—essentially another ratification of Aaron Wildavsky’s shorthand axiom that “wealthier is healthier.” (Hard to believe such a common sense idea needs empirical demonstration.) Although richer countries experienced a higher rate of infection for reasons the study explains, they tended to have better recovery rates, as one would expect of wealthier countries that have more robust health care resources.

SOURCE 

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IN BRIEF

Trump signs legally contentious memo preventing illegal immigrants from being counted in congressional redistricting (Washington Examiner)

Jews back Biden even as anti-Semitism rears its head on the Left (Washington Examiner)

Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four others arrested in $60 million nuclear power plant bribery case (Cincinnati Enquirer)

Defense secretary says U.S. is considering "adjustments" to troops in South Korea as the Pentagon strategizes against China (AP)

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seeks U.S.-UK coalition against "disgraceful" Chinese Communist Party (Washington Examiner)

Biden stays silent as Catholic churches and statues are burned and vandalized in string of targeted attacks (The Federalist)

More than a dozen people shot near Chicago funeral home, yet the mayor ironically says: "Under no circumstances will I allow Donald Trump's troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents" (The Daily Wire)

As crime and murders skyrocket in New York City, mayor has 27 officers a day guarding Black Lives Matter "mural" (Law Enforcement Today)

Finally getting the message on Margaret Sanger: Planned Parenthood of Greater New York to remove founder's name from flagship office over support for eugenics (National Review)

The awokening comes for American classical music: The New York Times's chief critic has launched a campaign to end the merit-based "blind audition" hiring process for orchestras (National Review)

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here.  Home page supplement

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Coronavirus drug hailed as game-changer after trial finds it cuts chances of severe illness

Treatment from biotech firm Synairgen uses interferon beta protein, which body produces when it gets a viral infection

A "game-changing" treatment for coronavirus could cut the chance of serious illness by 80 per cent, research suggests.

Trials using an inhaled protein, commonly used to treat multiple sclerosis, found patients who were given it were more than twice as likely to recover during the treatment period than those given a placebo.

Stays in hospital were cut by one third, according to the study of Southampton hospital patients.

The treatment, from biotech firm Synairgen, uses a protein called interferon beta, which the body produces when it gets a viral infection. The drug, known as SNG001, is inhaled using a nebuliser in order to stimulate an immune response.

Richard Marsden, the chief executive of the company, said: "We couldn't have expected much better results than these."...

SOURCE 

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Socialism: The Way It Was — And Never Should Be Again

As a young Army lieutenant, I looked at the East German and Russian soldiers through my binoculars and quickly figured out they were not 10 feet tall as I had learned through the American press as a college kid. Indeed, they were hardly as tall as I was; most were shorter. They appeared to be a bleak lot. As I “glassed” the town they occupied up against the East-West German border, the whole place looked sad, uninviting, and lackluster. The soldiers had guns, so indeed they were the enemy, but they sure didn’t look motivated. I remember very clearly that my first thought was, “This communist and socialist stuff is not all it’s cracked up to be. We can beat these guys.”

Twenty-plus years later as an Army colonel and right after the fall of the “Iron Curtain” — the reunification of Germany and liberation of Eastern Bloc countries — I visited that very village and some larger formerly East German towns and cities nearby. The communists had just departed. The drab of 20 years earlier had given way to disrepair and the citizens seemed numb. Yet in talking with them they displayed hope that the new democratic and free society of Germany into which they had just reunited would somehow give them renewed opportunity and turn around a dispirited communist existence. Every one of them had a glint in their eyes that spoke of a yearning for freedom and future opportunity.

Now retired from the Army after a 39-year career of helping defend my nation from, among other challenges, the false hope and promises of communism and socialism, I am near tears as I watch the proven failed socialist dogma infiltrate America and dominate the thoughts of many of our citizens. Democrats have turned into progressives who are increasingly turning into full-blown state-sponsored Marxist socialists. They believe that the promise of a utopian collective rule will provide America with a quality of life and happiness that is otherwise unachievable in Western democratic and capitalist countries. They’ve been taught this false promise in school.

Well, I’ve seen socialism up close around the globe, and here’s what I know to be true:

Socialism destroys the individual work ethic, dispirits the human dimension, and kills innovation — always. Under socialism, human productivity plummets and the state is faced with distributing fewer and fewer resources until the pie is too small to sustain the population, much less motivate it to achieve.

Socialism terminates and destroys, by design, all belief in any sort of supernatural God-like Heavenly entity in deference to the supremacy of the state. For Christians like myself, that means for Marxist socialism to succeed, Jesus Christ must be stricken from public belief and discourse. In all fully socialist states, Jesus Christ and God our Father are among the first enemies of the state and thus become brutalized victims of the state’s control apparatus.

Finally, socialism requires the destruction of the nuclear family. Indeed, it sees the family as a competitor that must be terminated. After all, the state assumes responsibility for all citizens’ health and welfare and thus any pushback or desired redirection by the family is fair game for the state’s wrath. That yields collective work groups and youth educational camps, etc.

So, if you’re interested in a socialist United States, then be ready for a dismal and marginally productive work environment, a state cap on your ability to achieve, worshiping at the altar of the state instead of God, and having the state tell you explicitly how to raise, educate, and discipline your family and children. Be ready to have your family separated to venture forth to collective state-run work groups. My sense is that we are near a tipping point of no return toward a society buying into the utopian dream and the follow-on guaranteed broken promises of a socialist/Marxist state. Buy into socialism if you will, but you’ll condemn our next generations to a Venezuelan-like existence — guaranteed.

On the other hand, if you, like me, cherish individual freedom, economic opportunity, the guarantees of our Bill of Rights, being the master of your own destiny, having the freedom to worship the God of your choice, and loving the age-old concept of a values-driven nuclear family, then it’s time for you — indeed all of us — to stand up and fight for America!

Don’t surrender to the false promises of a utopian socialist state. Fight right now for the same dream our Founders fought for and won — freedom, democracy, liberty, private-property ownership, and the right to dream amazing yet achievable dreams in an environment where you set your own course with a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. That’s the America I fought for!

SOURCE 

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De-Unionize Police and All Other Public-Sector Employees

Such unions inherently put public employees at odds with the people they ostensibly serve.

In light of the furor surrounding George Floyd’s death, it’s time to examine the one entity in every big city that incentivizes mediocrity at best and outright failure, sometimes criminal failure, at worst: Public-service employee unions.

Let’s begin with a reality check. Broad-brushing entire police forces in a given area, or law-enforcement officers in general, as trigger-happy bigots is a monstrous lie that anyone with an ounce of integrity would thoroughly denounce. Unfortunately for the Democrat Party and its equally repugnant progressive cheerleaders — for whom the acquisition and maintenance of power by any means necessary is all that matters — integrity left the building a long time ago. Their capitulation to the worst elements of our society, from allowing their own cities to be burned and looted to the establishment of a de facto country in the midst of American city, epitomizes sheer cowardice inspired by ideological bankruptcy.

Cowardice that makes one thing abundantly clear: A vote for the Democrat Party is a vote for anarchy presented as “social justice.”

Ironically, it is those same Democrat-controlled cities and states where public-service unions, including police unions, flourish most. So much so that states like New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and California are facing catastrophic funding shortages for the simplest of reasons — no one represents the public’s interest at the bargaining table. On one side there is the union representative. On the other is the politician more than willing to serve that union’s interests in return for the votes of its members and union campaign contributions.

This budget-busting dynamic has been the status quo for decades.

More important, public unions are anathema to the public interest by definition. A union exists solely to serve the interests of its members. Thus, even under the best of circumstances, what the public wants comes second, if it comes at all.

And it’s not just police unions where the status quo is a serious problem. As Walter Williams explains, “Democratic-controlled cities have the poorest-quality public education despite their large, and growing, school budgets.”

How poor? Williams cites the devastation in cities like Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Detroit, where the overwhelming majority of students are incapable of reading or doing math at grade levels. “It’s the same story of academic disaster in other cities run by Democrats,” he adds.

It isn’t hard to understand why. The two largest teachers’ unions, National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), have given Democrats at least 94% of the funds they’ve contributed to candidates and parties since at least 1990.

That the same kids who are shortchanged are the ones likely to view society with the kind of contempt that could precipitate anti-social behavior or rank criminality? Democrats and teachers’ unions apparently view this tragedy as a reasonable tradeoff for maintaining their unholy alliance.

The same dynamic applies to police unions. In a paper for the Stanford Law Review, scholar Katherine Bies explains that the increasing political power of police unions beginning in the 1970s has engendered a lack of public unaccountability. “Police unions have established highly developed political machinery that exerts significant political and financial pressure on all three branches of government,” Bies writes. “The power of police unions over policymakers in the criminal justice context distorts the political process and generates political outcomes that undermine the democratic values of transparency and accountability.”

As a result, punishment of excessive force is rare. A 2017 report by the American Constitution Society reveals that 54 officers nationwide “were criminally charged after they shot and killed someone in the line of duty” from 2005 to 2017. Of those 54, only 13 officers were “convicted of murder or manslaughter for a fatal, on-duty shooting.” As of April 2015, 21 of those officers had been acquitted, 11 were convicted, and the other 22 cases were pending or filed as “other.”

The report added that the “high acquittal rate is perhaps even more troubling given that in 80 percent of these cases, one of the following occurred: there was a video recording of the incident, the victim was shot in the back, other officers testified against the shooter, or a cover-up was alleged.”

Video recordings, usually by cellphone, “are game changers,” according to Andy Skoogman, executive director of the Minnesota Chiefs of Police. “They weed out the bad apples. Video is definitely the key in this case as it is in so many other cases in this day and age.”

Yet as columnist John Fund reveals, “Jim Pasco, the 73-year-old executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police union, with 342,000 members, is a clear obstacle to transparency. Pasco believes that it should be illegal for someone to record cops with their cellphones.”

Pasco’s rationale? “At some point, we have to put some faith and trust in our authority figures,” he told Reason magazine in 2010.

Which authority figures would those be? As Americans have learned in the last three years alone, corruption extends to the highest levels of federal law enforcement and the judiciary. And until the public sees accountability for what is arguably the biggest scandal in our nation’s history, Americans’ cynicism with regard to “faith and trust in our authority figures” will remain unchecked — among all ethnicities on both sides of the political divide.

How do we fix the problem of rogue cops? “The first big step toward individual accountability is to break the power of police unions over the investigation and discipline of individual officers,” columnist Dan MacLaughlin asserts. “Conservatives have long argued that unions in general tend to hamstring employers in distinguishing between good and bad employees, and ultimately lead to collective rather than individual responsibility.”

Jody Armour, a law professor at the University of Southern California, echoes that sentiment. “There are so many terms and conditions in the collective bargaining agreements that insulate police from accountability and transparency,” she explains. “Can we know who the bad police are? Are there public records? A lot of times, that is squelched in collective bargaining.”

There are some conservatives who believe defunding or eliminating police unions would cede the last supposed bastion of conservatism to the Left. Yet as this graph from OpenSecrets.org reveals, more Democrats than Republicans received campaign contributions from police officers, police unions, and law-enforcement PACs. Moreover, other public-sector unions overwhelmingly support Democrats.

Getting rid of all public-sector unions would go a long way toward restoring sanity and balance in a nation besieged by leftist propaganda. Even better, it poses a serious conundrum for a Democrat Party that wants to defund police forces, even as it would be decimated without those unions’ campaign contributions.

Merit and competence matter. Public unions are the antithesis of both

SOURCE 

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IN BRIEF

The New York Times joins the AP in capitalizing "Black," adding it to the "euphemism treadmill" (Washington Examiner)

"Incitement to violence against my family": Tucker Carlson blasts The New York Times for plans to write story about location of his new home (The Daily Caller)

Never forget? Joe "Trump Is Islamophobic" Biden: "I wish we taught more in our schools about the Islamic faith" (Fox News)

Joe Biden unveils $775 billion plan to fund universal child care and in-home elder care (CNBC)

ChiComs use Uyghur forced labor to produce masks (The Washington Free Beacon)

Trump administration adds 11 companies to sanctions list over Uighur oppression (Fox News)

UK suspends extradition treaty with Hong Kong (BBC)

Trump to send more federal law enforcement to cities like Chicago and New York (White House Dossier)

Trump pushes mask wearing and says he'll resume White House briefings amid spike in cases (USA Today)

Wave of promising study results raises hopes for vaccines (Reuters)

Vast majority of patients have antibodies for at least three months, though the study has yet to be peer-reviewed (Fox News)

Major League Baseball strikes out by defending anthem kneeling (Breitbart)

Fear of infection keeps patients away from emergency rooms, augmenting hospital bankruptcies (Washington Examiner)

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here.  Home page supplement

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Coronavirus: Oxford University researchers claim positive results from COVID-19 vaccine trials

Research published in the journal Lancet claims an experimental vaccine — labelled ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 — was tested on more than 1000 people and prompted a protective immune response in those aged 18 to 55. “The vaccine was safe and tolerated,” researchers wrote.

“Preliminary results from a phase 1/2 trial involving 1077 healthy adults found that vaccine induced strong antibody & T cell immune responses up to day 56 of the ongoing trial,” the Lancet wrote when announcing the breakthrough on social media on Monday night.

“These responses may be even greater after a 2nd dose, according to a sub-group study of 10 participants.”

The director of the Jenner Institute Oxford University, Dr Adrian Hill, said the results were hugely promising.

“What this vaccine does particularly well is trigger both arms of the immune system,” Dr Hill said.

He claimed the vaccine causes a reaction in the body’s T-cells which help to fight off the coronavirus and that a partnership was already underway with a drug manufacturer to produce millions of doses.

The trial took place between April 23 and May 21. Half of the 1077 participants were given the experimental vaccine.

The scientists wrote that “preliminary findings show that the candidate vaccine given as a single dose was safe and tolerated”.

“No serious adverse reactions ... occurred. The majority of adverse events reported were mild or moderate in severity, and all were self-limiting.

“We show that a single dose of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 elicits an increase in spike-specific Antibodies by day 28 and neutralising antibody in all participants after a booster dose.

“Further studies are required to assess the vaccine in various population groups including older age groups, those with comorbidities, and in ethnically and geographically diverse populations.

“We will also evaluate the vaccine in children, once sufficient safety data have been accumulated in adult studies. Phase 3 trials are now underway in Brazil, South Africa, and the UK and will evaluate vaccine efficacy in diverse populations.”

The BBC reports that the vaccine is made from a genetically-engineered virus found in chimpanzees that was altered to resemble the coronavirus.

The research is based on the theory that the immune system can learn how to attack the coronavirus when presented with a virus that resembles it.

SOURCE 

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Bankruptcies have already reached 2008 levels, and leftists want another shutdown

Americans are getting a trial run of socialism right now.

Businesses have been told whether they can or cannot open and at what capacity they may operate by governments. Trillions of dollars have been spent, put into the hands of workers, business owners, and those who fell victim to the destruction of jobs from the COVID-19 shutdowns. With enhanced unemployment, the Paycheck Protection Program, and other “pandemic supplements,” the reality is setting in.

When capitalism is shelved and state-run economies prevail, Americans don’t thrive and businesses close — permanently.

Bankruptcies are up to the same level of the 2008 financial crisis, with almost 3,500 in Chapter 11 protection already this year. Worse, there are almost certainly more to come, especially if leftists achieve their desired second shutdown.

A survey published by the National Federation of Independent Businesses reveals that 46% of small businesses that received government assistance anticipate a continued need over the next year in the current environment of uncertainty. Restaurants and small businesses are particularly impacted with not only forced shutdowns and slow reopenings but with a reduced capacity despite much of the overhead and expenses remaining fixed. These statistics and trials will only grow and worsen with a deliberately socialist agenda, global pandemic or not.

Our small foray into socialism is exactly what Marxist Democrats want for our nation. They understand that this election cycle is about capturing power to make policies, controlling the very principles that govern our key institutions, education, the family, entertainment, mass media, and the various sectors of our economy. The current crises are serving as a springboard for what could, with a Democrat-led government, become the fulfillment of their desires — the death of capitalism entirely.

The socialist Left would have Americans choose between Liberty and safety — the ability to earn a living and dependence. Patriots are being asked to sacrifice life, liberty, and pursuits of happiness along with private property and wealth.

As November approaches, observe the contrast between those invested in dread, dismay, and destruction and those encouraging renewal, rebuilding, and results. Democrats are invested in failure, economic collapse, and government dependence. Republicans aim to quickly return to the economic expansion that marked the three years preceding COVID-19. What will voters choose?

SOURCE 

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Democrats: Make Illegal Immigration Great Again

Despite the economic devastation borne by Americans, Dems are pushing for illegals.

The United States Department of Labor revealed last Thursday that more than 1.3 million Americans filed initial unemployment claims the previous week, marking the 17th consecutive week such claims have topped one million. Since the pandemic began, approximately 51 million people have filed for unemployment benefits. One might think such numbers would engender an all-hands-on-deck response to help those Americans. Unfortunately, one would be totally wrong as far as Democrats are concerned. The party that has long prioritized the needs of immigrants, refugees, and “migrants” remains wedded to that agenda — this time on steroids.

Presidential candidate Joe Biden leads the way, and the recently released Biden-Sanders unity policy recommendations are indicative. They promise Democrats will “rescind President Trump’s fabricated ‘National Emergency’” that allocated $3.6 billion from military construction projects toward the construction of the wall on our Southwest border. Democrats will put an end to building the wall because it is “unnecessary.”

The Biden-Sanders plan also embraces catch-and-release for illegals, promoting such efforts as “community-based alternatives to detention.” That even The Washington Post admits 44% of illegals never show up for their immigration court appointment — the same courts it characterizes as “under a mountain of backlogged cases” because “hundreds of thousands of Central Americans continue to arrive at the border each year”? That the same plan would further enhance catch-and-release by rescinding the Trump administration’s Supreme Court-approved Migrant Protection Protocols that required some asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico while their claims were being processed? That the plan would expand ObamaCare to cover DACA illegal aliens? That all of these efforts incentivize illegal immigration and would undoubtedly swell the ranks of what might be as many as 22 million illegals already here?

The real agenda is laid bare, with the plan stating, “Democrats believe it is long past time to provide a roadmap to citizenship for the millions of undocumented workers.”

Not undocumented workers. Illegal aliens. Illegal aliens Democrats are more than willing to exploit in their pursuit of unassailable power, even when that pursuit hurts millions of Americans forced to compete with illegals for jobs. Jobs that have become exponentially harder to secure during the pandemic.

And just like Democrat politicians who sit idly by while their cities are looted and burned by “protesters,” party leaders wish to reward the wholesale lawbreaking that mass amnesty represents. Biden himself will also sit idly by, as the plan promises to halt all deportations during his first 100 days in office. And while such a halt is occurring, Democrats intend to reward employers who hire illegal aliens. The plan promises to “end workplace and community raids.”

Merit-based immigration is also on the chopping block as the plan promises to “immediately halt enforcement of and rescind the Trump Administration’s un-American immigrant wealth test.” Wealth test is Demo-speak for self sufficiency — as in the party has no problem whatsoever with immigrants coming to America and immediately accessing our welfare state. Moreover, Democrats also remain committed to chain migration policies that vastly expand the number of family members who can come here.

That chain migration has quadrupled the 250,000 immigrants coming to America per year in the 1950s and 1960s to more than one million annually since 1990? The more the merrier, self-sufficient or not, and the millions of Americans forced to deal with the consequences — even when their own backs are against the wall — be damned.

Refugees are part of the agenda as well. The Biden-Sanders plans would raise the current cap from the 18,000 that Trump approved for fiscal 2020 to a whopping 125,000 per year.

When one looks at those who lead Biden’s immigration task force, such policies should come as no surprise. One member is Javier Valdes, an executive director of Make the Road, an open-borders group that supports abolishing ICE — and letting illegal aliens vote in state elections. Another is Marisa Franco, who ran the organization Not1More Deportation. It advocated a complete moratorium on deportations, and it currently wants to abolish ICE. The immigration task force’s cochair is Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, which also champions amnesty. It is partially funded by open-borders champion George Soros.

House Democrats are also hard at work promoting the causes of immigrants, even as the pandemic rages and Congress is forced to consider another round of relief checks necessitated by the lockdowns and wholly arbitrary definitions of what constitutes an “essential job.” Thus, the party is demanding another round of funding cuts for ICE, while aiming to undo key Trump policies that helped mitigate last year’s border surge. In short, the aforementioned new standards for asylum-seekers and deals made with Mexico and Central American nations that slowed down the massive flow of people toward our border are on the chopping block.

North Carolina Democrat Congressman David Price insisted such efforts were necessary to push back on the administration’s “cruel and arbitrary immigration policies.” He added, “We haven’t seen anything like this before.”

Oh yes we have. When the initial $3 trillion coronavirus relief package was being negotiated, Democrats demanded job protections for “essential” illegal-alien workers and the employers that hire them. They also insisted that the next round of stimulus checks should include those who file taxes via an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) rather than just a Social Security number, because that would enable illegal aliens excluded from round one to receive one in the second round.

How any of this helps Americans, who are enduring one of the most trying times in our nation’s history, is anyone’s guess. But as one of the final provisions in the plan reveals, to question Democrat motives is to embrace “systemic racism.” It states, “Democrats believe that our fight to end systemic racism in our country extends to our immigration system, including the policies at our borders and ports of entry, detention centers, and within immigration law enforcement agencies and their policies and operations.”

“These proposals would break the back of American workers and reduce much of the population to welfare status,” warns columnist Daniel Greenfield. “They represent the worst attack on the American working class in history.”

SOURCE 

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IN BRIEF

"I am tolerating chemotherapy well": 87-year-old Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg battling cancer again (USA Today)

Lawmakers are far apart on a new coronavirus relief bill. The sticking points are direct payments, liability reform, aid for state and local governments, school reopenings, and small-business relief. (NPR)

Trump expediently demands payroll tax cut while GOP eyes benefit cuts for unemployed (The Washington Post)

Pentagon bans Confederate flag in a sly way to avoid Trump's wrath (AP)

China expands its amphibious forces in challenge to U.S. supremacy beyond Asia (Reuters)

CDC test kits generate 30% false positive and 20% false negative results, peer-reviewed findings confirm (Business Wire)

"Strike for Black Lives": Tens of thousands to walk off job today to protest nonexistent "systemic racism" (AP)

Federal Trade Commission is considering deposing top Facebook executives in antitrust probe (Reuters)

Lawlessness-enabling Portland mayor accuses Trump of "absolute abuse" of federal law enforcement, demands officers leave as city's nightly violence continues (National Review)

Seattle rioters damage and loot stores while injuring 12 police officers (Fox News)

Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D) implicated in massive bribery scandal (The Blaze)

Bubba Wallace booed at NASCAR race as Confederate flags fly (Washington Examiner)

Less than 30% of Americans say Redskins should change their name (The Federalist)

The family that owns The New York Times were slaveholders (New York Post)

Nearly 50% of Americans believe mail-in voting is vulnerable to significant levels of fraud. The other 50% is delusional. (The Daily Caller)

GOP gallery of nightmares: 10 policies Biden and Democrats would ram through after axing filibuster (Washington Examiner)

Vandalizing American history: A list of 64 toppled, defaced, or removed statues (The Daily Signal)

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here.  Home page supplement

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