Chinese vaccine looking good

Effect of an Inactivated Vaccine Against SARS-CoV-2 on Safety and Immunogenicity Outcomes: Interim Analysis of 2 Randomized Clinical Trials

Shengli Xia et al.

Abstract

Importance:  A vaccine against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is urgently needed.

Objective:  To evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of an investigational inactivated whole-virus COVID-19 vaccine in China.

Interventions:  In the phase 1 trial, 96 participants were assigned to 1 of the 3 dose groups (2.5, 5, and 10 μg/dose) and an aluminum hydroxide (alum) adjuvant–only group (n = 24 in each group), and received 3 intramuscular injections at days 0, 28, and 56. In the phase 2 trial, 224 adults were randomized to 5 μg/dose in 2 schedule groups (injections on days 0 and 14 [n = 84] vs alum only [n = 28], and days 0 and 21 [n = 84] vs alum only [n = 28]).

Design, Setting, and Participants:  Interim analysis of ongoing randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 1 and 2 clinical trials to assess an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine. The trials were conducted in Henan Province, China, among 96 (phase 1) and 224 (phase 2) healthy adults aged between 18 and 59 years. Study enrollment began on April 12, 2020. The interim analysis was conducted on June 16, 2020, and updated on July 27, 2020.

Main Outcomes and Measures:  The primary safety outcome was the combined adverse reactions 7 days after each injection, and the primary immunogenicity outcome was neutralizing antibody response 14 days after the whole-course vaccination, which was measured by a 50% plaque reduction neutralization test against live severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

Results"  Among 320 patients who were randomized (mean age, 42.8 years; 200 women [62.5%]), all completed the trial up to 28 days after the whole-course vaccination. The 7-day adverse reactions occurred in 3 (12.5%), 5 (20.8%), 4 (16.7%), and 6 (25.0%) patients in the alum only, low-dose, medium-dose, and high-dose groups, respectively, in the phase 1 trial; and in 5 (6.0%) and 4 (14.3%) patients who received injections on days 0 and 14 for vaccine and alum only, and 16 (19.0%) and 5 (17.9%) patients who received injections on days 0 and 21 for vaccine and alum only, respectively, in the phase 2 trial. The most common adverse reaction was injection site pain, followed by fever, which were mild and self-limiting; no serious adverse reactions were noted. The geometric mean titers of neutralizing antibodies in the low-, medium-, and high-dose groups at day 14 after 3 injections were 316 (95% CI, 218-457), 206 (95% CI, 123-343), and 297 (95% CI, 208-424), respectively, in the phase 1 trial, and were 121 (95% CI, 95-154) and 247 (95% CI, 176-345) at day 14 after 2 injections in participants receiving vaccine on days 0 and 14 and on days 0 and 21, respectively, in the phase 2 trial. There were no detectable antibody responses in all alum-only groups.

Conclusions and Relevance:  In this interim report of the phase 1 and phase 2 trials of an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine, patients had a low rate of adverse reactions and demonstrated immunogenicity; the study is ongoing. Efficacy and longer-term adverse event assessment will require phase 3 trials.

SOURCE 

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She's 'Unbeatable?': WSJ Columnist Shreds the Liberal Media's New Kamala Harris Narrative With One Tweet

This is a case of identity poliics redounding in favour of conservatives. Because of identity politics, Biden had to choose a female, even if it was a real one.  Had he been free to choose the most helpful Veep he would have chosen Bernie Sanders and romped in.  Sanders has a huge personal following among the clueless so adding that to the effect of being on the Donk ticket would have probably wiped out Trump

Actually, it’s a series of tweets, but one particular observation from The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel sticks out— and it’s a brutal one. I mean, do these liberal media types don’t know that we can harness the power of Google. These publications have archives like the rest of us. And there is a trove of articles about the collapse of Kamala Harris’ 2020 run.

It wasn’t a little car crash either. It was a thermonuclear explosion. She was wiped out before the California primary. She had no message, no plan, and an organization that was rudderless. It was a s**t show. Yet, now that Joe Biden has decided to pick her, though she was not his first choice, Harris has undergone this rebirth as some master tactician and campaign ace who will inject steroids into the Democrats’ 2020 hopes. Really?

Here’s the observation Strassel noted that’s both true and damning:

Everyone from Julian Castro to Cory Booker to Deval Patrick to Tulsi Gabbard to Elizabeth Warren to Pete Buttigieg, to Amy Klobuchar to Andrew Yang to Tom Steyer to Michael Bennet had more appeal and staying power than Harris. But now we are told she is unbeatable?

Ouch.

Yet, while Strassel notes how Harris is an unremarkable VP pick, could that be also to her advantage. Just playing devil’s advocate here, when you can’t pin down your opponent and define her in an election—isn’t that a problem? Maybe. Though I would say her opening speech when she was first introduced shows a person who cannot go off-script. The speech was terrible to start, loaded with inaccuracies and lies about the Trump White House, and was entirely predictable. It was as if the entire production staff of MSNBC jotted down the annotations.

Strassel added that now more than ever, Harris will be put under the microscope due to Biden’s apparent mental degradation and her “do no harm” checkbox that she supposedly filled when the Biden camp was forced to pick her could open up the Democratic ticket to what engulfed her first campaign: total disaster (via WSJ):

If commentators are now struggling to define Ms. Harris, it’s because she offers little that is truly defining. The party establishment quickly closed ranks around her 2016 Senate race, allowing her to run a standard liberal campaign that the Los Angeles Times described as “carefully orchestrated” and “overly cautious and scripted.” In her 3½ Senate years, she’s done little by way of legislation, preferring to showboat at hearings. The lack of an animating agenda helps a explain a presidential campaign in which she bounced from left to far-left position, whatever she thought most helpful at the moment. She twice called to eliminate private health insurance—and twice reversed herself the next day after backlash. As Vox noted, the “combination of policy reversals and botched rollout . . . undermined faith in her ability to govern on the issue Democrats rate as most important.”

The campaign was a mess, rocked by infighting, leaks, restarts and financial problems. After the campaign announced layoffs in early November, its veteran Iowa operations manager wrote a scathing resignation letter in which she said she’d “never seen an organization treat its staff so poorly” and expressed dismay at its ability to make “the same unforced errors over and over.” Ms. Harris didn’t even make it to the first contest, dropping out—broke and with embarrassing poll numbers—two months before the Iowa caucuses. The only other “top tier” candidate to implode as quickly or spectacularly was Beto O’Rourke. The Washington Post campaign obituary bluntly called Ms. Harris an “uneven campaigner” who was “engulfed by low polling numbers, internal turmoil and a sense that she was unable to provide a clear message.” The Post this week lauded Ms. Harris as “vibrant and energetic” and a “vessel for Democratic hopes.”

Biden watchers insist the nominee fulfilled the cardinal rule of veep picks: First, do no harm. Possibly, but it’s pretty clear it did no good either. Mr. Biden’s biggest concern remains his lagging enthusiasm numbers. Polls consistently show the majority of Democratic voters notably unexcited about his candidacy. One fix would have been a running mate hailed as a fresh and rising Democratic star. Ms. Harris has alienated key elements of her party, in particular progressives who despise her as a “top cop” from her six years as California’s attorney general. In a poll this week by the Economist/YouGov, Ms. Harris was viewed favorably by only half of African-Americans and very favorably by only 26% of liberals. Will that keep people from pulling a Biden-Harris lever? Maybe not, but she won’t likely be a poll driver.

And there’s still a possibility she’ll do harm. Mr. Biden’s age and questions about his mental acuity guarantee an outsize focus on his running mate, who could end up president. Ms. Harris’s own presidential run proves she has a propensity to make mistakes—potentially big ones. The Trump campaign is eager to define her as a Bernie Sanders liberal, and she’s got a track record that helps—having endorsed Medicare for All, the Green New Deal and gun bans. Many Americans will also remember her leading role in the character assassination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, matched only in political theater by Cory “Spartacus” Booker. This has the potential to turn off some suburban and independent voters. Even if they don’t rush into Mr. Trump’s arms; they may simply not vote.

There’s a lot of hype here—no doubt. But I don’t think “top cop” Kamala brings much to the ticket. She’s being buoyed by a lot of media-manufactured hot air, flanked by her friends in the Senate. Let’s see how things go in a few weeks. Maybe she’ll hide in the bunker with Joe to avoid making errors because they’re both two peas in a pod when it comes to that.

SOURCE 

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Depression and anxiety are skyrocketing in young adults amid pandemic

Anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts are skyrocketing amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a new study suggests. The study, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), found that young adults were particularly prone to these increases.

The study researchers analyzed information from more than 5,400 U.S. adults ages 18 and older who completed an online survey in late June.

The percentage of Americans reporting symptoms of anxiety disorder increased about threefold and the percentage reporting symptoms of depressive disorder increased about fourfold, compared with levels seen in a survey conducted around the same period in 2019, the study found.

Overall, in the 2020 survey, about 41% of participants reported symptoms of at least one mental health condition; with 31% experiencing symptoms of anxiety or depression, 13% initiating or increasing use of substances (including alcohol or marijuana) to cope wtih stress tied to the pandemic, and nearly 11% reporting that they had seriously considered suicide in the past 30 days.

The toll was particularly striking among adults ages 18 to 24. In this group, about 63% reported symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorder, 25% reported starting or increasing use of substances, and 25% reported seriously considering suicide in the past 30 days. For comaprision, in a national survey conducted in 2018, about 14% of young adults reported an episode of major depression and 11% reported serious thoughts of suicide in the past year.

The new findings "highlight the broad impact of the pandemic and the need to prevent and treat these conditions," the authors wrote in their study, published Thursday (Aug. 13) in the journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The study could not determine the reason for the rise in mental health conditions, but factors relating to the pandemic, such as social isolation, school and university closures, unemployment and other financial worries, as well as the threat of the disease itself, may play a role, the authors said. Future studies will be needed to determine the specific drivers poor mental health in the pandemic.

Why young adults seem particularly affected by the pandemic is not known. After all, studies have found that young people are less likely to experience serious illness from COVID-19 compared with old adults. But older adults in the study had the lowest prevalence of mental health symptoms: Among those ages 65 and older, 8% reported experiencing symptoms of anxiety or depression, 3% reported starting or increasing use of substances and 2% reported seriously considering suicide in the past 30 days.

One idea is that people's ability to accept uncertainty may be tied to their mental health response, according to The New York Times. "Now there are so many questions, especially for young people, about relative risk, duration of the pandemic and what their futures will look like," study lead author Mark Czeisler, a psychology researcher at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, told the Times. A longer life experienced may help older adults better tolerate these uncertain times.

There is an urgent need to address the mental health consequences of the pandmeic, such as through increased access to resources for diagnosis and treatment of mental health conditions and expanded use of telehealth, the authors said.

SOURCE 

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Rapid economic recovery Trump predicted continues as unemployment claims drop

Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement on the latest unemployment insurance claims published by the Department of Labor:

“President Donald Trump predicted a fast recovery from the COVID-19, and now it is continuing at a rapid clip with fewer than 1 million new jobless claims for the first time since March, and another 624,000 came off continued claims the week of Aug. 1.

“As a reminder, in Feb. 2020, unemployment was at a 50-year low with fewer than 6 million Americans unemployed and it was the unleashing of the Chinese coronavirus that drove those numbers through the roof. Now, the President’s balanced approach to reopening America while continuing to battle the virus has led to an unprecedented recovery, with 9 million to 10 million jobs recovered in the past three months.

“No President has been as focused on private sector job creation in generations, and it stands in stark contrast to the Obama-Biden so-called shovel-ready jobs promise that paid off public employee unions but did little for Americans who were actually out of work.”

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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Paying for an epidemic of stupidity

Some wisdom from Australia: Steve Waterson points out that  daily No. of "cases" tells us little and creates a false sense of urgency

Back in the good old days, the average person used to take pride in having a robust grasp of basic maths: enough mental arithmetic not to be overcharged at the shops, enough skill with pen and paper to make more complex calculations.

Not any more, it seems. Many of our finest minds are infected with a new innumeracy that, in today’s fevered environment, distorts our understanding of, and response to, the coronavirus threat.

In early April, as the disease was just beginning to bite, the team manning the ABC’s coronavirus news website promised to answer questions about the pandemic.

When a reader asked for help in interpreting some infection-rate statistics, it provoked a cheerful response, broadcast to the world: “This just sparked a heated newsroom discussion in which we all outed ourselves as being terrible at maths.” You don’t say.

They’re only — some might say barely — journalists, however. They don’t need the mastery of figures that our leaders display so magnificently. So for a moment of light relief, let’s examine the numbers that currently unnerve them. If we cancelled Victoria’s lockdown immediately, and its cases were permitted to grow at 1000 a day, the whole state would be infected in no time. By “no time”, of course, I mean 18 years.

No wonder they’re frightened: at that rate it could sweep through the entire country in little more than 70 years. Luckily, in recent times we have been adding 1000 people to our population every day. Phew. Dodged a bullet there.

Worldwide, excess deaths from COVID-19 (generously assuming every victim died from, rather than just with, the virus) are around 700,000. Given the roughly 60 million deaths the world records each year, it’s as though 2020 had 369 days in it, rather than 366.

If that thought chills you, congratulations! A lavishly pensioned, undemanding and unaccountable career in politics beckons.

The ultimate showcase of political innumeracy is the quasi-religious ritual of The Reading of the Cases. Witnessed and recorded by the faithful in the media (who love to have their work handed to them on a plate), it has become a farce within this bigger farce.

The sombre, priestly arch-buffoon blesses reporters with fodder for their blog updates, sprinkling them with numbers that look like information but withstand no scrutiny.

Cases, as a moment’s reflection reveals, do not equal sickness, much less hospitalisations. Until we are entrusted with the knowledge of how many are the results of tests on people who show no symptoms, they serve only to strike terror into the innumerate.

Indeed, why do we need to hear these figures at all? We don’t get daily updates for any other diseases. They serve no useful purpose, as we are not given sufficient detail to make our own assessment of their significance, decide on the level of risk they represent and tailor our activities accordingly.

Their primary purpose seems to be to post-rationalise our leaders’ devastating, simple-minded lockdowns and border closures, and to panic people into sporting their masks of obedience should they be sufficiently reckless as to leave their homes.

Perhaps the announcements, if they must continue, could give us real information: “There have been 637 new cases today, but happily 480 were young people who had no symptoms and didn’t know they’d been infected. Oh, and only two of today’s cases were serious enough to need to go to hospital.”

Maybe for context they could dilute their irresponsible scaremongering by including details of the other 450 people who die in Australia each day, including the victims of lockdown: the suicides and those who, too frightened to visit a doctor or hospital, are dying avoidable deaths through lack of screening and treatment (Britain anticipates as many as 35,000 extra deaths in the next year from cancer sufferers presenting late with correspondingly advanced tumours); and the people tumbling into despair, depression and other mental and physical illnesses.

Perhaps the premier could hand over to the state’s treasurer, who would read out the number added daily to the jobless lists, the businesses forced into bankruptcy, the mortgages foreclosed.

Then someone from social services could talk about the growth in homelessness, the “huge increase” in domestic violence reported by victim support groups, the marriage breakdowns.

But they won’t because of a mathematical and behavioural curiosity we’re all familiar with, if not by name: the sunk costs fallacy.

Imagine that last month you bought a ticket for a concert tonight. You’re tired, it’s pouring with rain, and you dread dragging yourself into town. The money’s gone whatever you decide, so logic says you should cut your losses and stay in, but instead you pull on your raincoat and call a taxi. The urge is irrational, but almost irresistible. The whole vile pokies industry is built on it.

Now imagine how much harder to alter course if your investment was enormous and everyone was watching, poised to ridicule you for changing your mind.

Here’s where our politicians find themselves, unable to admit their response to the virus — the ultimate blunt instrument of lockdown, brutally enforced — hasn’t worked, and will never work.

They can’t do so because it would mean all they have done up to this point has been in vain. How could anyone who had wreaked damage on this cataclysmic scale ever admit to themselves, let alone to the nation, that it was all for nothing? Instead, like the pokie addict, they have doubled down to unleash a runaway epidemic of stupidity. They’ve destroyed our economy and put thousands out of work; they’ve refashioned many of our famously easygoing population into masked informers; and we’ve handed control of our lives to a clown car packed with idiots.

If there is a clearer demonstration of the insidious overreach of the nanny state, infantilising and sinister, and the shameful acquiescence of its legions of time-serving bureaucrats, I’m not aware of it.

What’s more insulting, each day we are chastised for “disappointing” our leaders, as though they are our superiors and it is the citizens’ duty to please them. The infected are singled out, vilified and shamed as sinners, their scandalous movements — three pubs on a Saturday night! — tracked and condemned. It recalls the attitude towards AIDS victims in the 1980s, a divine judgment visited on wicked libertines.

But attempt to argue that the cost of our response has in any way outweighed the impact of the virus and expect to be labelled a virus denier. Then expect to be asked, accusingly, how many deaths you would find acceptable. No matter how often or how emphatically you declare “We should protect the vulnerable”, some will hear those words as “Let’s throw the old people to the wolves”.

On April 4 in these pages I wondered when life moved from being precious to priceless. An exaggeration, but more than four months on we’ve set the opening bid pretty high. Turn the question around and ask what we are prepared to pay to protect the elderly with comorbidities. Let’s assume we’d let the disease run its course, as Sweden did, and had suffered the same death rate. We might have lost 10,000 of the old and sick earlier than in a normal year. We’ve kept that figure down, but at what cost?

On this week’s numbers our governments have spent more than $220bn and put 750,000 people out of work; some of that burden would have been incurred whatever path we had followed, but most of it is self-imposed.

Is it callous to suggest that’s too high a price to prolong what in some cases were lives of no great joy? What good might we have done with just a fraction of that $220bn, artfully applied? Would it not have been far better to spend a smaller, but still significant, sum on protecting and caring for the vulnerable and elderly to the very best of our abilities, and then, crucially, offering them the choice whether to accept that care?

We could allow them, like sentient adults, to make a simple calculation: do I live a little longer in safe but miserable isolation, or do I spend my remaining days at some risk but embraced by the warmth of family and friends?

That’s not a decision for any politician, even a wise one, to make. It’s a matter of choice for the individual, or, if incapacitated, for those responsible for them.

Governments don’t exist to tell us how or when we can die; but if life is measured only by length, not quality, this is where we end up: imprisoned, supposedly for our own good, on the basis of flawed statistical modelling and even worse interpretations of that modelling.

Undismayed by the models’ failure to predict the future when the virus first appeared, self-styled experts have now contorted their fears into absurd, illogical predictions of a parallel present: if we hadn’t acted as we did, they say, then tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands more would have died. How can anyone possibly know?

As the statistics, and yes, bodies, pile up around the world, we are getting a clearer picture of the virus’s course and virulence, and the more data we have, the more similar the curves appear. If we accept Australians are not exceptional in their resistance to disease, then it appears we have some heartbreak ahead of us, no matter how hard we try to avoid it.

New Zealand is lauded as the perfect example of how to crush the virus, but would anyone be surprised if it too has to pay the price somewhere down the line? Four new cases locked down the 1.6 million inhabitants of Auckland this week in a monstrously excessive overreaction that would be comical were it not so destructive.

Meanwhile, the rest of New Zealand has shut down so completely it has effectively removed itself as a nation from the international community. It’s as though the country had never existed. Soon it will be reduced to a fading Cheshire Cat image of its Prime Minister’s saintly sad face.

Let’s hope for the Kiwis’, and everyone else’s, sake a vaccine is found soon, although the World Health Organisation now warns we may never have one. It’s a tired line to repeat, but even after 40-odd years of searching we don’t have one for HIV-AIDS.

Which, if anyone needs reminding, still kills 2600 people a day.

SOURCE 

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That COVID-19 vaccine Russia approved? It's only cleared for use in a small group of people

This week, Russian president Vladimir Putin announced that the country had approved a coronavirus vaccine, seemingly for widespread use. But the vaccine has actually been approved only for use in "a small number of citizens from vulnerable groups," according to Science Magazine.

Although Putin announced that the vaccine had been approved, presumably for widespread use, the registration certificate issued by Russia's Ministry of Health actually covers only a small group including health care workers, according to Science Magazine. The certificate also states that the vaccine cannot be approved for widespread use until Jan. 1, 2021.

Russian minister of health Mikhail Murashko said that the country will soon begin a mass campaign to distribute the vaccine, and that medical workers and teachers will be prioritized to receive it first, according to The New York Times.

A phase 3 clinical trial of the vaccine, which will assess safety and efficacy more thoroughly, is scheduled to begin this week, Dmitriev told reporters, according to The Associated Press.

SOURCE 

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IN BRIEF

"Things are moving along at the proper pace": Attorney General William Barr says John Durham "development" coming Friday (Washington Examiner)

Major breakthrough: Israel and United Arab Emirates agree to full normalization of relations (NBC News)

Nancy Pelosi says no coronavirus relief talks until Republicans agree to a massive $2 trillion price tag (Fox News)

Mitch McConnell announces Senate will adjourn until September 8 unless a stimulus deal is struck (Axios)

Trump plans to deliver Republican National Convention speech on White House lawn (New York Post)

Joe Biden calls for a spurious nationwide mask mandate: "Every single American should be wearing a mask when they are outside" (The Daily Wire)

Dr. Anthony Fauci: No reason why we shouldn't be able to vote in person (The Washington Times)

Oregon State Police pull out of protecting Portland courthouse after city refuses to "prosecute this criminal behavior" (The Daily Wire)

UC-Berkeley study: At least 15,800 essential workers would not have contracted COVID if California had stockpiled enough masks and PPE (UK Daily Mail)

Thirteen states make contact tracing data public. Here's what they're learning. (NPR)

More than a quarter aged 18-24 have "seriously considered suicide" in past 30 days, according to the CDC (The Daily Wire)

Temporary layoffs becoming permanent job losses, as 62% of employers don't plan to hire (Washington Examiner)

American Airlines prepares to drop some service to smaller cities as expiration of federal aid nears (CNBC)

"Only the Supreme Court may revise its precedent": 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds male-only military draft (American Military News)

NSA and FBI expose Russian intelligence hacking tool (Reuters)

Non compos mentis: 9/11 "Tribute in Light" memorial in NYC canceled supposedly over COVID-19 concerns (New York Post)

Georgia governor to drop lawsuit over Atlanta mask mandate (AP)

Policy: Why the war on nuclear threatens us all: America's energy policies are pushing its allies into the embrace of undemocratic rivals (City Journal)

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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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UK: Sweden’s success shows the true cost of Britain's arrogant, failed establishment

So now we know: Sweden got it largely right, and the British establishment catastrophically wrong. Anders Tegnell, Stockholm’s epidemiologist-king, has pulled off a remarkable triple whammy: far fewer deaths per capita than Britain, a maintenance of basic freedoms and opportunities, including schooling, and, most strikingly, a recession less than half as severe as our own.

Our arrogant quangocrats and state “experts” should hang their heads in shame: their reaction to coronavirus was one of the greatest public policy blunders in modern history, more severe even than Iraq, Afghanistan, the financial crisis, Suez or the ERM fiasco.

Millions will lose their jobs when furlough ends; tens of thousands of small businesses are failing; schooling is in chaos, with A-level grades all over the place; vast numbers are likely to die from untreated or undetected illnesses; and we have seen the first exodus of foreigners in years, with the labour market survey suggesting a decline in non-UK born adults.

SOURCE 

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Sweden: Still some doubters

It’s the country that was heavily criticised for deciding to do things differently when it came to coronavirus – to ignore lockdown and keep bars and schools open.

And it paid a price with at least 5700 deaths putting it in the top 10 of nations in terms of coronavirus deaths per million.

But, as time goes on, Sweden’s controversial approach to tackling COVID-19 is winning over some sceptics.

The Swedish economy has shrunk less than other nations and cases have fallen dramatically, deaths have essentially dried up and no significant second wave has occurred. In fact, right now, Sweden looks better than Australia.

However, some virus watchers have warned that Sweden’s success could be a mirage. That a Scandinavian trait could be behind the low current numbers and the real test could come in as little as one month’s time.

When the world was locking down, Sweden, conspicuously, did not. Sweden’s chief epidemiologist, Dr Anders Tegnell, created and drove a unique national COVID-19 strategy.

Pubs, most schools and other workplaces remained open. When people in Sydney were banned from supping a beer in a bar, residents of Stockholm were enjoying sundowners with their mates.

That’s not to say there were no restrictions on the nation’s 10 million citizens. People were barred from going to aged care homes, joining large gatherings and Swedes were encouraged to social distance – which it seems they did almost as much as everyone else.

“As a society, we are more into nudging: continuously reminding people to use measures, improving measures where we see day by day the that they need to be adjusted,” Dr Tegnell told the journal Nature in May.

Initially, the plan seemed to backfire. At one point Sweden had more deaths per population than any other country.

So far, Sweden has suffered around 5800 deaths – far smaller than the US’ 167,000 deaths or the UK’s almost 50,000 fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus resource centre

But compared to its Scandinavian neighbours, Sweden’s experience is grim. It has recorded 10 times the deaths of Denmark and 20 times that of Norway, both of which locked down harder.

Yet, since a peak of 115 deaths a day in early April, Sweden’s numbers have tracked consistently downwards.

It’s now seeing a seven day average of 226 cases, lower than Victoria in Australia. Deaths are around one per day. There has been no detectable second wave, unlike in many other countries including in Scandinavia

The BBC reported that while Sweden’s economy shrank a dire 8.6 per cent between April and June, that’s lower than the European Union average of 11.9 per cent. However, its economy is only a touch better off then Denmark.

Dr Tegnell has consistently said Sweden’s pre-vaccine approach to dealing with COVID-19 is more sustainable and preferable to rolling lockdowns and re-openings which he has labelled “disastrous in many ways”.

Sweden’s consistency in its restrictions has led it to be in the now bizarre position of having more in place than many other countries which dropped lockdowns as soon as cases started falling.

Last month, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven threw his weight behind Dr Tegnell’s strategy. “We can see (coronavirus) is clearly going down. The number of seriously ill people in need of intensive care is declining, the number of fatalities is declining,” he told newspaper Aftonbladet. “But of course, over 5000 people have died. I wish it had never happened.”

Mr Lofven said the strategy was about protecting health but also mitigating consequence for employees and companies. “That strategy is right; I am completely convinced of that.”

Misha Gajewski, a contributor to Forbes magazine, said Mr Lofven’s faith in Sweden’s plan “could be right”. But, she warned, it was still too early to tell pointing to a recent report by the Royal Society of Medicine. “The authors note it likely won’t be until as many as two years after the pandemic that we will be objectively able to say which method was the most effective.”

The potential by-product of Sweden’s lack of lockdown – herd immunity – is also taking longer to achieve. It had been thought that by now as many as 60 per cent of Stockholm’s residents might have virus antibodies. In all likelihood, perhaps only one-in-five residents actually do. And even that may not lead to total resistance.

One of the main factors in the current Swedish success however could be simply because it’s August. That’s the month when much of the country comes to a halt. It’s a time when Swedes desert the cities and head to their secluded summer homes to spend the day diving in lakes, sweating in saunas and drinking copious amounts of schnapps. That’s a worry because the second wave could be an unwanted welcome back to work gift.

It could be some way into September before Sweden knows if lower numbers of new cases and deaths is a long-term trend. Prof Collignon said the nervous wait could be even longer.

“A big factor in how this transmits is how much you are indoors. In northern Europe, it’s likely this was being spread in crowded indoor spaces and no one knew it,” said Prof Collignon. “The big test will be the next winter in northern Europe when it may tick up.”

Dr Tegnell is positive on Sweden’s strategy, but cautious.  “It will be very difficult to achieve any kind of really clear-cut answer as to what was right and what was wrong,” he told UK newspaper The Observer.

“I think we’re talking years into the future before we can get any kind of consensus on how to deal with this in the best possible way.”

SOURCE 

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Janice Fiamengo calls out Kamala Harris for sexual exploitation

Canadian men’s rights activist Janice Fiamengo has just released a brilliant video exposing Joe Biden’s newly announced Vice-President running mate, Kamala Harris, as an identity politics ideologue, the perfect match for Biden.

Fiamengo points out Biden was architect of the Violence Against Women Act, and is a man who has done more than any other politician to destroy due process protections for accused men.

But Kamala Harris has also been in the thick of all the recent identity politics issues, a proud feminist who proclaimed she’s never met a #MeToo survivor she didn’t believe, including those women who claimed to have been inappropriately touched by Jo Biden!

Fiamengo also reveals an intriguing aspect of Harris’ personal history. At age 29 the newly graduated litigator had an affair with the then 60-year-old Democrat House Speaker for the Californian State Assembly, Willie Brown. During the two years the two were in a relationship, Brown appointed Harris to two high-profile, well-paid government positions – jobs she was unlikely to have achieved on her own merits.


That's Harris with Brown above.  She is clearly as white as can be there. You can't just spray that on.  It looks like her present brown skin is some sort of spray tan.  See here.  What a crook she is!

Fiamengo calls this out as “sexual exploitation,” describing as the “female side of sexual harassment” this process of a woman using her sexual power to extort political or other favours from a man.

“The question is if men are to be condemned for exploiting their power for sexual access supposedly because it hurts all women and warps workplace cultures, then why are women held guiltless when they exploit their sexual power for political and other access? Do their actions not also corrupt workplace cultures breeding favouritism, resentment, mistrust, apathy and rancour?”

It’s an excellent point but don’t expect it to get much play in a culture where any deviation from the feminist narrative is firmly suppressed by our captured mainstream media. 

Email from Bettina Arndt -- bettina@bettinaarndt.com.au

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IN BRIEF

Budget deficit hits $2.81 trillion in just 10 months and is on track to be far more than double the $1.4 trillion all-time record set in 2009 (UK Daily Mail)

"I'm the boss," eh? Far Left melts down after Democrats severely limit AOC's speaking role at convention (The Daily Wire)

"Not a great fit out here": Republicans say Harris harms Biden in crucial Rust Belt (Washington Examiner)

Facebook's CCP-linked "fact-checker" is censoring articles about CCP influence in the U.S. elections (The National Pulse)

Murder rate spikes in 20 major American cities (The Daily Caller)

More homicides than COVID deaths in Kansas City (KCTV)

Chicago looters smash the doors to Ronald McDonald House while 30 frightened families huddled inside the children's charity

Georgia clothing store called racist for waiving fee for non-white customers (Fox News)

"We're going to have huge problems": U.S. general warns of long-term ISIS resurgence (The Washington Times)

Wrong kind of war: Federally funded nuclear weapons lab made white male employees participate in racial reeducation training (The Washington Free Beacon)

NBC, ABC, CBS, and CNN show zero results for reports on the five-year-old white child allegedly executed by black 25-year-old neighbor (Washington Examiner)

DC mayor orders "defund the police" mural removed, the timing of which coincides with the veep selection of former top cop Kamala Harris (The Post Millennial)

Nevada governor fines banned church for holding service in opened casino (The Federalist)

Paul Howard ousted after serving more than two decades as Fulton County DA (Fox 5 Atlanta)

Workers file under a million jobless claims for first time since March (New York Post)

After losing both her in-laws to COVID-19, Janice Dean is calling for an investigation of New York (The Daily Signal)

Policy: In a second term, Trump could build on his foreign policy successes (Hudson Institute)

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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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Anti-Lockdown Dr. Scott Atlas Joins Coronavirus Task Force: Is Fauci Finally Out?

President Trump announced Monday that Dr. Scott Atlas is joining the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Dr. Atlas is a former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center and a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. Before joining the team, Atlas penned an op-ed in The Hill that showed his approach to the coronavirus outbreak is much different than that of Anthony “Chicken Little” Fauci, who favors draconian lockdowns and now wants people to wear goggles to avoid getting a virus that most people recover from easily.

Here are some excerpts of the piece Atlas wrote, titled “The data is in -stop the panic and end the isolation.”

The tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be entering the containment phase. Tens of thousands of Americans have died, and Americans are now desperate for sensible policymakers who have the courage to ignore the panic and rely on facts. Leaders must examine accumulated data to see what has actually happened, rather than keep emphasizing hypothetical projections; combine that empirical evidence with fundamental principles of biology established for decades; and then thoughtfully restore the country to function.

Five key facts are being ignored by those calling for continuing the near-total lockdown.

Fact 1: The overwhelming majority of people do not have any significant risk of dying from COVID-19. The recent Stanford University antibody study now estimates that the fatality rate if infected is likely 0.1 to 0.2 percent, a risk far lower than previous World Health Organization estimates that were 20 to 30 times higher and that motivated isolation policies.

Fact 2: Protecting older, at-risk people eliminates hospital overcrowding…Dr. Leora Horwitz of NYU Medical Center concluded “age is far and away the strongest risk factor for hospitalization.” Even early WHO reports noted that 80 percent of all cases were mild, and more recent studies show a far more widespread rate of infection and lower rate of serious illness. Half of all people testing positive for infection have no symptoms at all. The vast majority of younger, otherwise healthy people do not need significant medical care if they catch this infection.

Fact 3: Vital population immunity is prevented by total isolation policies, prolonging the problem…In this virus, we know that medical care is not even necessary for the vast majority of people who are infected. It is so mild that half of infected people are asymptomatic, shown in early data from the Diamond Princess ship, and then in Iceland and Italy. That has been falsely portrayed as a problem requiring mass isolation. In fact, infected people without severe illness are the immediately available vehicle for establishing widespread immunity. By transmitting the virus to others in the low-risk group who then generate antibodies, they block the network of pathways toward the most vulnerable people, ultimately ending the threat. Extending whole-population isolation would directly prevent that widespread immunity from developing.

Fact 4: People are dying because other medical care is not getting done due to hypothetical projections…An estimated 80 percent of brain surgery cases were skipped. Acute stroke and heart attack patients missed their only chances for treatment, some dying and many now facing permanent disability.

Fact 5: We have a clearly defined population at risk who can be protected with targeted measures…it is a commonsense, achievable goal to target isolation policy to that group, including strictly monitoring those who interact with them. Nursing home residents, the highest risk, should be the most straightforward to systematically protect from infected people, given that they already live in confined places with highly restricted entry.

It’s a relief that someone with common sense may be taking a bigger role in combatting the panic response to COVID-19 that has taken over the nation. Many of us, who are not even doctors, have been saying that we need to target the elderly population for protection while the rest of us go back to reality. We were totally ignored. But Atlas is now in a position of authority to tell someone who will listen to what the right thing to do is. It isn’t more lockdowns and more isolation.

Strictly protect the known vulnerable, self-isolate the mildly sick and open most workplaces and small businesses with some prudent large-group precautions. This would allow the essential socializing to generate immunity among those with minimal risk of serious consequence, while saving lives, preventing overcrowding of hospitals and limiting the enormous harms compounded by continued total isolation. Let’s stop underemphasizing empirical evidence while instead doubling down on hypothetical models. Facts matter.

This would mean that schools should be open immediately at regular capacity since children are not in the high-risk category and never have been. Not only that, but they are the ones for whom the virus is the least severe and they can help us achieve herd immunity much easier and faster than older populations.

I hope this development means that we will not see Dr. Fauci or the scarf-obsessed Dr. Birx for the foreseeable future. But could we get that lucky in 2020? Somehow, I doubt it.

SOURCE 

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The Washington Post’s ‘Fact Checker,’ Not Pence, Deserves the 4 Lying ‘Pinocchios’

Glenn Kessler, the so-called “fact checker” at The Washington Post, this week called out Vice President Mike Pence’s answer to an interview question about election fraud. But it’s Kessler, not Pence, who deserves four “Pinocchios” for many of the misleading claims he makes about it in his column.

Pence said: “Make no mistake about it. The reality of voter fraud is undeniable. We’ve seen case after case around the country where there have been prosecutions.”

Kessler concentrates on a case in Indiana that the vice president—a former governor of that state—mentioned in passing, and the dispute is over the timing and exact details.

Fraudulent voter registrations were submitted by 12 individuals working for the Indiana Voter Registration Project, which, according to Kessler, was “associated with Patriot Majority USA.”

Pence characterized the case as “falsifying ballots.” Charges were eventually dismissed against one of the defendants; two pleaded guilty to perjury, but were given probation and no jail time; and nine agreed to pretrial diversion deals, in which they admitted their wrongdoing and, according to Kessler, “the cases were dismissed without prosecution.”

Kessler tries to characterize all of this as a minor incident because no one served any jail or prison time. All that demonstrates is that all too often, defendants who commit election fraud are treated too lightly by judges and prosecutors.

He also doesn’t seem to understand what a pretrial diversion program is when he says the prosecutions were “dismissed,” as though that means prosecutors really didn’t have a case against them. 

What Kessler gets wrong is this: There was a prosecution. He acknowledges that the defendants admitted their wrongdoing.

According to the IndyStar, they were given the privilege of participating in a pretrial diversion program in which they paid court costs, completed community service, and stayed out of legal trouble in “return for having the charges dismissed.” 

There was no conviction of these nine defendants, but there certainly was a prosecution. The fact that the defendants were in a diversion program doesn’t erase the fact that they committed voter registration fraud and were prosecuted for it.

Kessler also tries to minimize this fraud by claiming it is not really voter fraud and that no fraudulent ballots were submitted as a result of these fraudulent registrations.

But that’s only because election officials caught these false registrations before they could become effective.

That doesn’t make this type of fraud any less serious, since numerous cases show that election officials don’t always initially catch false registrations.

Kessler even cites The Heritage Foundation’s Election Fraud Database, claiming we only categorize voting under a false registration as “voter fraud.” No, voter registration fraud is election fraud.

And the term “voter fraud” covers all types of election fraud, whether it is committed by a voter or committed against a voter by others resulting in the dilution or theft of that voter’s vote.

Pence might have gotten the year this occurred wrong—it was 2016, not 2012—and ballots may not have been falsified. But voter registration forms were falsified, and that could have led to falsified ballots if the improper registration forms had not been caught by election officials.

Kessler also ignores the other cases of proven election fraud listed in Heritage’s database for Indiana, where false registrations that were not initially detected did, in fact, lead to fraudulent ballots being submitted.

That includes one Jerome Kesler (who I’m sure is no relation) who was convicted in 2017 of voting in Indiana from an Indiana address, even though he was a resident of Illinois. There are more than 40 other instances of convictions in Indiana for false registrations where defendants voted in precincts where they didn’t live.

In fact, there have been almost four dozen election fraud cases in Indiana (some with multiple convictions) since 2003, including numerous prosecutions in East Chicago, Indiana, over a Democratic mayoral primary that year.

That election was overturned by the state Supreme Court due to “voluminous, widespread, and insidious” absentee ballot fraud. That case also included convictions of voters who were voting in precincts where they didn’t actually reside.

The East Chicago case demonstrates one of the unfortunate aspects of absentee ballot fraud; namely, the voters who are often preyed upon and whose votes are stolen, altered, forged, and forced.

Those targeted in East Chicago in “a predatory pattern” were “first-time voters or others less informed or lacking in knowledge of the voting process, the infirm, the poor, and those with limited skills in the English language.”

That’s an important fact to keep in mind, given the current unwise push for all-mail elections.

Kessler even tries to minimize the perjury charges that two of the defendants pleaded guilty to for lying on the state-required affidavit, in which they affirmed under oath that they accepted the completed voter registration form from an applicant.

He says there would “have been no basis for a perjury charge” if the defendants had used the federal voter registration form instead of the state form because the federal form “does not have the same affidavit.”

Really? Kessler seems to be unaware that it is a felony under federal law, 52 U.S.C. § 20511, for individuals like the staff of the Indiana Voter Registration Project to procure or submit “voter registration applications that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent.” There is a similar provision in the Voting Rights Act, 52 U.S.C. § 10307.

Whether they were using the state or federal voter registration form, they were breaking the law. These two defendants are lucky that local prosecutors went after them, not federal prosecutors, because it’s highly likely they would not have gotten away with only probation, no jail time, or pretrial diversion programs.

The vice president is correct when he said that “the reality of voter fraud is undeniable” and that “we’ve seen case after case around the country where there have been prosecutions.”

In fact, Heritage’s database is up to almost 1,300 proven cases of election fraud. And the database is by no means comprehensive; it is just a sampling of cases.

There are many vulnerabilities in our system that too many people ignore. If you don’t look for something, you are not likely to find it, and that is the case with respect to too many officials pursuing election fraud cases.

As the U.S. Supreme Court said in 2008 when it upheld Indiana’s voter ID law, “Indiana’s own experience with fraudulent voting in the 2003 Democratic primary for East Chicago Mayor … demonstrate[s] that not only is the risk of voter fraud real, but that it could affect the outcome of a close election.”

I guess, according to The Washington Post’s standards, the Supreme Court would get four “Pinocchios” for that recognition of reality.

SOURCE 

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IN BRIEF

Trump signs executive actions after Congress stalls on COVID relief (Washington Examiner)

Ethics Committee orders Rep. Rashida Tlaib to return campaign funds she paid herself (The Washington Free Beacon)

Following Joe Biden's mea culpa, CNN and MSNBC defend former VP after virtually ignoring latest gaffes (Fox News)

Postal Service leader sets substantial reorganization amid scrutiny over mail ballots (The New York Times)

Chicago rocked by widespread looting after police-involved shooting (Fox News)

Riot declared after Portland "protesters" set police union building on fire (Washington Examiner)

New York City bloodshed: Shootings this year nearly double those during same time period in 2019 (Washington Examiner)

Trump administration penalizes 11 Hong Kong ChiCom officials for crackdown on protesters (The New York Times)

Germany pushes to end 2% GDP commitment to NATO (The Washington Free Beacon)

Agents discover "most sophisticated tunnel in U.S. history" connecting Mexico and Arizona (Washington Examiner)

New study finds Sweden's refusal to lock down saved the economy without sacrificing lives (The Federalist)

Economy added 1.8 million jobs in July, adding to record gains in wake of pandemic destruction (Washington Examiner)

Trump payroll tax executive order likely worth $1,200 per worker, says Larry Kudlow (Fox Business)

Unemployment fraud is rising thanks to $600 bonus (Washington Examiner)

Unemployment claims plummet after Arizona retools process to deter fraud (Washington Examiner)

Jerry Falwell Jr. taking indefinite leave of absence from Liberty University after uploading racy picture to Instagram (National Review)

NRA fights back, files its own suit against New York attorney general unlawfully seeking to disband organization (Fox News)

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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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Australian doctor may have breakthrough coronavirus cure

Imagine if a renowned Australian gastroenterologist invented an effective, cheap, readily available treatment for COVID-19 and his own country ignored him.

That’s what has happened to Professor Thomas Borody, who is famous for inventing a cure for the bacterial infection which causes peptic ulcers, saving millions of lives around the world.

This time Dr Borody, of Sydney’s Centre for Digestive Diseases, has found a promising treatment for COVID-19 using Ivermectin, a drug that has been used safely to treat parasitic infections for half a century. He combines it in a “triple therapy” with zinc and the antibiotic Doxycycline to attack the virus from multiple angles.

Clinical trials on his Ivermectin ­triple therapy are underway in 32 countries and are about to start in California. Dr Borody says the trick is “treating patients very early”, within seven days of onset, before the virus spreads through their organs and makes them sick.

Already results using the drug off-label have been promising.

In Bangladesh, 400 patients with mild to moderate symptoms were treated and 98 per cent cleared the virus within four to 14 days.

In the Dominican Republic, in 1300 patients the average duration of infection fell from 21 days to 10 days.

Mortality in already sick patients at Broward County Medical Centre in Florida dropped by 48 per cent. The results have been so remarkable that the government of the most populous Indian state, Uttar Pradesh, last week approved the use of Ivermectin for COVID-19 patients and also as a prophylactic for health workers.

Dr Borody calls Ivermectin a “wonder drug”. But ever since he ­received the positive preliminary ­results of the overseas trials, he has been banging his head against a brick wall trying to get someone in Australia to take notice.

He has sent letters to the Morrison government and the Victorian government, urging them at least to make Ivermectin available to high-risk patients and as a preventive dose for frontline workers. “I wrote to the federal and state governments,” he said on the weekend.

“I wasn’t even responded to … It got to a certain level of the fortress, but I don’t think it got to the decision- makers. You can see how frustrating it is, whereas a big state of India says let’s use it. If nothing else, make it available in aged care homes immediately. Our elderly are at the highest risk and this is a very safe option, ­especially when we have nothing else except ventilators.”

He points out Ivermectin is on the on the World Health Organisation’s list of essential medicines, and has been safely used since 1975 to treat parasitic infections such as river blindness and head lice.

In fact, US President Donald Trump uses Ivermectin in cream form to treat the skin condition rosacea, ­according to his White House health records.

Dr Borody says he may absorb enough through his skin to protect him, despite people around him at the White House becoming ill.

But despite the drug’s proven ­safety record and promising results on COVID-19, “the government in Australia — and the US — does not have a curative plan”. It’s all about lockdowns and vaccines.

And because no “no large company is pushing it,” says Borody, the government won’t listen.

“Not only is it too good to be true, it’s cheap” he says. An Ivermectin tablet can cost as little as $2. “This isn’t going to make money for anyone. It just needs a doctor to write a script,” he said.

And therein lies the problem. The pharmaceutical industry doesn’t like cheap off-patent drugs such as Ivermectin because they don’t reap huge profits in the way that new drugs and vaccines do.

The demonisation of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine is a case in point.

After President Donald Trump ­described it as a promising treatment, “maybe a game-changer” for COVID-19 at a March 19 press conference at the White House, the media derided him as a quack and discredited the drug.

The negative publicity played into the hands of Big Pharma, who stand to make tens of billions from vaccines and new drugs. Hydroxychloroquine’s main competitor is the new antiviral Remdesivir, developed by pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences, which charges $US3120 per ­treatment.

Trump also praised Remdesivir at that press conference. Yet all the ­attacks afterwards were against ­hydroxychloroquine, while Remdesevir got a free pass. And, of course, the drug companies had the financial ­incentive to discredit hydroxychloroquine and the lobbyists to advance their interests.

Dr James Todaro, one of a group of rebel physicians calling themselves America’s Frontline Doctors, points out that Gilead’s stock plummeted after Trump’s press conference, wiping $21 billion off its market cap. The share price only recovered six weeks later after a promising clinical trial.

The jury is still out on hydroxychloroquine. But the campaign against it has been ferocious. Doctors can’t get results of studies published, and social media censors mention of the drug.

A flawed study on a small sample of very sick US Veterans ­Affairs patients received enormous publicity before it was debunked. Positive studies were buried. Two prestigious medical journals, The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine, had to retract a paper which used bogus data supplied by a shadowy company to discredit the drug.

The damage was done. Clinical trials stopped. WHO temporarily withdrew support for the drug.

In New York, hydroxychloroquine is banned for COVID use.

In Switzerland, where it was banned from May 27 until June 11, ­Politico reports this week that daily COVID fatalities jumped markedly during that period.

Dr Borody is anxious that Ivermectin doesn’t meet the same fate.

Without any institutional backing, he has joined forces with California researcher Dr Sabine Hazan, founder of Ventura Clinical Trials, to fund trials themselves, at around $3500 per patient.

Dr Hazan said on Sunday that she is “hopeful this is going to be a gamechanger for COVID-19”. But she is at pains to point out there is no “one pill solution” for everyone.

If the trials go well, with expedited FDA approval, the Ivermectin triple therapy could be on the market in blister packs before Christmas. That’s for patients in America. Australia will have to wait.

SOURCE 

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Kamala Harris got ‘destroyed’ by Tulsi Gabbard in Democrat debates, dropped out before primaries – and now might be president

California Senator Kamala Harris crashed and burned early in the Democrat primary process, never recovering from the debate drubbing she took from Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. She became Joe Biden’s running mate anyway.

“Tulsi” was trending on social networks shortly after the announcement that Harris would be Biden’s choice for vice president should Democrats win in November. That’s not surprising, since their famous clash from July 2019 was one of the most memorable moments of Harris’ short-lived presidential bid, widely credited with sinking her candidacy.

That day, Gabbard calmly took Harris to task over her prosecutorial past, pointing out that she was responsible for getting thousands of African-Americans locked up on draconian drug sentences, even as Democrats clamored for criminal justice reform and racial justice.

Harris tried to brush that off, insisting she was a top-tier candidate while Gabbard was a nobody polling in single digits. Yet her ratings never recovered, and she called her campaign off by early December – long before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary – citing lack of funds.

With polls showing Democrats favored to win the White House – though they also showed that in 2016, and things turned out differently – the identity of Biden’s running mate was a hot topic. Biden himself is 77 and even Democrat operatives have been content to keep him hidden“in the basement” and speak as little as possible. He is on the record as saying he would not seek a second term, if elected – and is considered unlikely to serve out the first.

Given all that, it was widely understood that Biden’s running mate would be the Democrats’ actual candidate for the top job. Though Biden had already said it would be a woman, advocates of racial identity politics absolutely insisted that it be a person “of color” as well.

As part-Jamaican and part-Indian, Harris checks off those boxes – although her claim to be African-American failed to sway black voters during the Democrat primaries.

The viral video of the August 2019 takedown of “Kamala the cop” appeared to be the perfect balm for progressives frustrated by her elevation, coming at a time when Democrats have widely embraced the calls to “defund the police.”

That radical idea arose from the weeks of protests and violent riots following the May death of George Floyd, an African-American man, in Minneapolis. Soon Democrat-led cities across the US were declaring that police were irreparably and systemically racist, and needed to be replaced by social workers or something yet to be “reimagined.” 

With Harris’ entire political career as a prosecutor, it was clear on Tuesday that the mainstream media machine would have to work overtime to make her fit into that narrative. Denouncing any criticism of Harris as “racist” or “sexist” will be just the start.

SOURCE 

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IN BRIEF

New evidence from nearly three dozen Somalis reveals a probable spree of felonies by Ilhan Omar (The Blaze)

Half of Democrats don't think Joe Biden will serve all four years of his term if elected (UK Daily Mail)

FEC commissioner: "Substantial chance" 2020 results won't be known on election night due to pandemic-induced changes (Washington Examiner)

"That is reparations": Black Lives Matter holds rally in Chicago to support those arrested after looting and unrest (Fox News)

Seattle City Council votes to scale back police department funding; police chief resigns (Washington Examiner)

Russia's approval of virus vaccine greeted with alarm (AP)

New U.S. cases drop to the lowest in a month as spread slows in Sunbelt states (UK Daily Mail)

Scientists discover fleece neck gaiters multiply infectious droplets while N95s and cotton masks work best (UK Daily Mail)

Three great pieces of coronavirus news we should be talking about (The Resurgent)

Without proper context, leaked COVID-19 data is worse than misleading (The Daily Signal)

Proving Pelosi right: DNI report shows China and Iran trying to sabotage the Trump campaign (The Washington Free Beacon)

China sanctions 11 Americans in retaliation for U.S. action against Hong Kong officials (Bloomberg)

Gig-economy earthquake: California judge orders Uber and Lyft to consider all drivers employees (NPR)

Scramble to save college football season from COVID (Washington Examiner)

"Corruption is bigger than the state": Lebanese PM and his cabinet resign over explosion that killed 160, saying he has faced a brick wall trying to bring in reforms (UK Daily Mail)

Hong Kong arrests pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai (The New York Times)

Protests in Belarus turn deadly following sham election (Axios)

Half a million incorrect absentee ballot applications sent across Virginia, including to dead people (JusttheNews.com)

Policy: Why Trump's WeChat ban is much more important than his TikTok ban (The Federalist)

Policy: China's emerging Middle Eastern kingdom (Hudson Institute)

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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

**************************

‘Dangerous’ to think masks will stop virus: Swedish epidemiologist

The epidemiologist in charge of Sweden’s coronavirus response has dismissed the scientific evidence for mask-wearing as “astonishingly weak”.

Anders Tegnell said it was “very dangerous” to believe that masks alone could control the spread of the disease.

He has steered a different course from those plotted by most European countries, leaving bars, restaurants and most schools open throughout the pandemic. His public health agency has maintained that there is no need for Swedes to wear masks even in crowded spaces, although they are recommended in most large airport terminals.

This contrasts with nations such as the UK and Germany, which slowly came to the conclusion that masks helped to limit transmission, and Spain and Poland, which for a time made them compulsory outside the home.

Dr Tegnell said these decisions were not grounded in solid science. “The findings that have been produced through [the use of] face masks are astonishingly weak,” he told the newspaper Bild. “I’m surprised that we don’t have more or better studies showing what effect masks actually have. Countries such as Spain and Belgium have made their populations wear masks but their infection numbers have still risen. The belief that masks can solve our problem is in any case very dangerous.”

The Swedish strategy follows two central principles: that the pandemic will last longer than any lockdown and that the only answer is to trust people to make sensible decisions.

As of Monday Sweden had recorded 5,763 COVID-19 deaths, but the number of new infections is declining.

SOURCE 

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Progressivism restricts freedom; conservatism seeks to expand freedom, which can be expanded only if a society is virtuous

During these tumultuous times, as practically every American institution comes under attack from the far left and its allies, two of our most essential values seem to be especially targeted in an effort to “transform America.”

Those values are faith and family, the two essential pillars that serve as true stabilizing factors in any society.

The attacks on faith and family seem to be relentless.

In Nevada, amid the COVID-19 crisis, casinos are open, but churches are told they must remain closed. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom told churches that their congregants no longer could sing worship songs, even though they are wearing protective masks while doing so. In Portland, Oregon, radicals not only are burning the flag but Bibles as well. And tragically, in the same vein, vandals are targeting churches.

So, how did we get to this point? It didn’t happen overnight.

It is not a coincidence that our current cultural condition, and the turn to hard-left progressivism, began in the late 1950s and into the 1960s, as these values started to erode and lose influence in American society.

Those on the far left actively were launching attacks—sometimes stealthily—through seizing all the major corridors of cultural and political influence.

When these pillars of faith and family—both of which are key components of the Judeo-Christian principles upon which our nation was founded—started to come under attack, all other principles such as fiscal restraint, freedom of conscience, and limited government came under assault as well.

Regarding the family, several factors led our nation down the progressive path and away from conservatism. The social engineering of President Lyndon Johnson’s liberal Great Society of the mid-1960s devastated the family, as fathers no longer had to accept fiscal responsibility for the children they bore.

Legalized abortion greatly devalued human life and further enabled personal irresponsibility and selfish, rather than selfless, behavior. No-fault divorce made it easy for either spouse to walk away from the commitment of “until death do us part,” leaving a trail of broken children behind.

And attacks on the fundamental beliefs of the faithful created a culture where those beliefs not only were mocked but increasingly criminalized. One example: the persecution of those who do not wish to use their skills to participate in facilitating abortions.

On the faith front, many mainline denominations swapped out the Gospel for social justice and the abandonment of absolute truth. This left a spiritual vacuum for progressive thought—which sought governmental, rather than faith-based, solutions—to fill. Lost were the virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance—all of which are needed for society to thrive.

Thus, once the pillars of faith and the family were weakened, the rest of the house started to collapse, just as Abraham Lincoln warned the nation in 1858 that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”

With the gap that was left by the removal of these two pillars of faith and family, progressives were able to introduce policies that destabilized rather than stabilized society. One such policy: encouraging single parenting, which has led to the tragic loss of fathers—an essential individual in every child’s life—in ever-increasing numbers.

Progressives attacked religious freedom and the role churches play in creating a “safety net” that government never could—by feeding both the body and the soul.

Much of the current out-of-control government spending is tied to government takeover and destruction of both these institutions, which taught self-reliance and personal responsibility.

We wrote at length about this in our book “American Restoration: How Faith, Family, and Personal Sacrifice Can Heal Our Nation,” which provides a conservative, faith-based response to our nation’s various ailments.

The breakdown of the family has been a primary factor in the societal chaos we are experiencing. It has led to massive government spending that enables the very behaviors that continue a cycle of despair and destabilization.

The decreased role of faith has led to the breakdown of community, neighbors helping neighbors, and the other societal supports that government cannot recreate but tries to—again through more massive spending, which only perpetuates problems instead of solving them.

The disregard for—and eventual mocking of—religious faith and the values of selflessness and personal responsibility it instills have led to a nation that values its privileges over its principles.

And the result of that, as President Dwight Eisenhower warned us in his 1953 inaugural address, is that a nation “soon loses both.”

Why? Because both family and faith go to the essence of what makes a healthy society. A functional, healthy family provides for and equips the next generation to be self-reliant citizens, not dependent upon government programs for their sustenance. It provides the next generation with the tools and the confidence to succeed in life.

In addition, a young boy who grows up with a strong father as a role model—a father who leads by example of how to love his wife, shepherd his children, and make sacrifices that benefit both—likely will follow in his father’s footsteps. A young boy without that model will try to figure it out on his own—often with disastrous results.

In the same way, a young girl who knows what it is to be valued and loved by a man will make good decisions regarding future relationships. Those good decisions will result in less need for government intrusion and taxpayer support.

In many ways, the church does this as well. It provides a moral framework that teaches that all people are worthy of dignity and respect as they have been created Imago Dei—in the image of God.

For the principles of limited government and a republican government to succeed, morality must be part of the equation. John Adams, signer of the Declaration of Independence and the second president of the United States, recognized this fact when he wrote to the Massachusetts Militia in 1798: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Or as Benjamin Franklin wrote: “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”

Progressivism is a master that restricts freedom; conservatism seeks to expand freedom, which can be expanded only if a society is virtuous.

Thus, with a moral framework in place, people are more self-reliant, more likely to make healthy decisions that benefit society rather than poor ones that result in dependence on government. With healthy families, children will thrive and make positive contributions to society. With a strong faith, and the virtues it instills, society will flourish.

And, sadly, when those values are attacked and weakened, society suffers and descends into personal and corporate chaos. The result is the antithesis of what the left professes it seeks to advance, which is unity (on its terms) and progress. Instead, all we are left with is the bitter fruit of division and descension into cultural darkness.

The battle to overcome this darkness is daunting, but it can be won if we stand up to these attacks on faith, family, and conscience rather than slink away in retreat. As our Founding Fathers wrote, only a moral, righteous, and virtuous people can be free.

If future generations are going to enjoy the freedoms we have cherished, we must return to the moral framework that made these freedoms possible in the first place. Once that moral foundation is rebuilt, America’s house once again can stand strong, united against any storm it may face.

SOURCE 

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Nightmare. More Than 200,000 Nevada Ballots Found to Be 'Undeliverable'

A report by the Public Interest Legal Foundation, an election integrity group, found that more than 200,000 ballots mailed to voters in Clark County, Nevada, were designated by the post office as “undeliverable.”

Clark is the most populous county in Nevada, containing the Las Vegas metro area. It has nearly 75 percent of the state’s population.

The county sent 1.3 million ballots to voters.  The undeliverable ballots accounted for 17 percent of all ballots mailed to registered voters. Since Nevada has gone to all mail-in ballot elections, that means that 17 percent of the county’s 1.3 million registered voters are effectively disenfranchised.

J. Christian Adams, a longtime PJ Media columnist, recently wrote about the perils of mail-in voting and why the argument that it works in other states doesn’t pass muster.

Washington Free Beacon:

“These numbers show how vote by mail fails,” said J. Christian Adams, PILF’s president and general counsel. “New proponents of mail balloting don’t often understand how it actually works. States like Oregon and Washington spent many years building their mail voting systems and are notably aggressive with voter list maintenance efforts. Pride in their own systems does not somehow transfer across state lines. Nevada, New York, and others are not and will not be ready for November.”

“The addresses that we used were provided by the voters when they registered,” Dan Kulin, a spokesman for Clark County, told the Washington Free Beacon. “If they no longer reside at the address they provided to us, then we would expect that mail to be returned to us, which is what happened.”

The Trump campaign is suing Nevada for their mail-in voting procedures. Most states that are urging mail-in voting are sending applications for absentee ballots. But Nevada was sending actual, legal ballots to every registered voter. The Trump campaign wants it to stop.

The new figures come as Nevada takes center stage in a debate over mail-in voting. President Donald Trump’s campaign sued the state over its plans to mail ballots to every registered voter for the November election. As Democrats across the country push for mail-in voting amid the coronavirus pandemic, critics have said the practice can lead to a number of problems such as lost ballots. Recent reports also showed that 84,000 mail-in Democratic primary ballots cast in New York City were disqualified.

PILF communications director Logan Churchwell said the Clark County elections department asked the county commission not to send ballots to every registrant on file, cautioning that it would be “a costly exercise of sending mail to addresses that were sure to bounce any parcel.” The county sent out the ballots despite the election department’s warning.

“Nevada’s voter rolls aren’t maintained to the standard required for an all-mail experience like Oregon or Washington,” Churchwell said. “The Nevada governor is foolish to think he can replicate his regional neighbors’ years of development and practices with mail voting in a matter of months with a weekend emergency bill.”

Left-wing groups have been challenging “purging” dead, moved, duplicate, and inactive voters from registration rolls for years. Now they want an election based on mail-in ballots for every registered voter?

No one is ready for this. This is why mail-in voting will be an epic failure.

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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World’s Top Epidemiologists – Masks Don’t Work!

Denmark boasts one of the lowest COVID-19 death rates in the world. As of August 4, the Danes have suffered 616 COVID-19 deaths, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.

That’s less than one-third of the number of Danes who die from pneumonia or influenza in a given year.

Despite this success, Danish leaders recently found themselves on the defensive. The reason is that Danes aren’t wearing face masks, and local authorities for the most part aren’t even recommending them.

This prompted Berlingske, the country’s oldest newspaper, to complain that Danes had positioned themselves “to the right of Trump.”

“The whole world is wearing face masks, even Donald Trump,” Berlingske pointed out.

This apparently did not sit well with Danish health officials.  They responded by noting there is little conclusive evidence that face masks are an effective way to limit the spread of respiratory viruses.

“All these countries recommending face masks haven’t made their decisions based on new studies,” said Henning Bundgaard, chief physician at Denmark’s Rigshospitale, according to Bloomberg News.

Denmark is not alone. Despite a global stampede of mask-wearing, data show that 80-90 percent of people in Finland and Holland say they “never” wear masks when they go out, a sharp contrast to the 80-90 percent of people in Spain and Italy who say they “always” wear masks when they go out.

Dutch public health officials recently explained why they’re not recommending masks. “From a medical point of view, there is no evidence of a medical effect of wearing face masks, so we decided not to impose a national obligation,” said Medical Care Minister Tamara van Ark.

Others, echoing statements similar to the US Surgeon General from early March, said masks could make individuals sicker and exacerbate the spread of the virus.

“Face masks in public places are not necessary, based on all the current evidence,” said Coen Berends, spokesman for the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment. “There is no benefit and there may even be negative impact.”

In Sweden, where COVID-19 deaths have slowed to a crawl, public health officials say they see “no point” in requiring individuals to wear masks.

“With numbers diminishing very quickly in Sweden, we see no point in wearing a face mask in Sweden, not even on public transport,” said Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s top infectious disease expert.

For the average person, it’s confusing and frustrating. It’s also a bit frightening, considering that we’ve seen people denounced in public for not wearing a mask while picking up a bag of groceries.

The truth is masks have become the new wedge issue, the latest phase of the culture war. Mask opponents tend to see mask wearers as “fraidy cats” or virtue-signalling “sheeple” who willfully ignore basic science. Mask supporters, on the other hand, often see people who refuse to wear masks as selfish Trumpkins … who willfully ignore basic science.

There’s not a lot of middle ground to be found and there’s no easy way to sit this one out. We all have to go outside, so at some we all are required to don the mask or not.

It’s clear from the data that despite the impression of Americans as selfish rebel cowboys who won’t wear a mask to protect others, Americans are wearing masks far more than many people in European countries.

Polls show Americans are wearing masks at record levels, though a political divide remains: 98 percent of Democrats report wearing masks in public compared to 66 percent of Republicans and 85 percent of Independents. (These numbers, no doubt, are to some extent the product of mask requirements in cities and states.)

Whether one is pro-mask or anti-mask, the fact of the matter is that face coverings have become politicized to an unhealthy degree, which stands to only further pollute the science.

Last month, for example, researchers at Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy responded to demands they remove an article that found mask requirements were “not based on sound data.”

The school, to its credit, did not remove the article, but instead opted to address the objections critics of their research had raised.

SOURCE 

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Common colds train the immune system to recognize COVID-19

This existing immune system "memory" may explain why some people have milder COVID-19 infections.

Previous infections with common cold viruses can train the immune system to recognize SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, according to a new study.

The study, published Aug. 4 in the journal Science, found that immune cells known as T cells that recognize common cold coronaviruses also recognize specific sites on SARS-CoV-2 — including parts of the infamous "spike" protein it uses to bind to and invade human cells.

This existing immune system "memory" may explain why some people have milder COVID-19 infections compared with others; however, the authors stress that this hypothesis is "highly speculative" and requires more research to confirm. That's because it's unknown exactly how big a role T cells play in fighting COVID-19 — T cells are just one part of a complex menagerie of molecules and cells that makes up our immune system.

"We have now proven that, in some people, preexisting T-cell memory against common cold coronaviruses can cross-recognize SARS-CoV-2, down to the exact molecular structures," study co-lead author Daniela Weiskopf, assistant professor at La Jolla Institute for Immunology in La Jolla, California, said in a statement.

It's possible that this "immune reactivity may translate to different degrees of protection" against COVID-19, study co-lead author Alessandro Sette, a professor at La Jolla Institute for Immunology, said in the statement. "Having a strong T-cell response, or a better T-cell response may give you the opportunity to mount a much quicker and stronger response."

Previous studies have shown that upwards of 50% of people never exposed to COVID-19 have T cells that recognize SARS-CoV-2. This ability has been seen in people around the world, in the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom and Singapore. Scientists hypothesized that this existing immunity could be due to previous infections with other coronaviruses, specifically those that cause common cold infections.

In the new study, the researchers analyzed blood samples collected from people between 2015 and 2018, well before COVID-19 first emerged in Wuhan, China.

These blood samples contained T cells that reacted to more than 100 specific sites on SARS-CoV-2. The researchers showed that these T cells also reacted to similar sites on four different coronaviruses that cause common cold infections.

"This study provides very strong direct molecular evidence that memory T cells can 'see' sequences that are very similar between common cold coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2," Sette said.

In addition to binding to the spike protein, the T cells  also recognized other viral proteins beyond the spike.

Currently, most COVID-19 vaccine candidates target the spike protein, but the new findings suggest that including other proteins in a vaccine, besides the spike, might harness this T cell cross reactivity and potentially enhance the vaccine's potency, the researchers said, although much more research would be needed to show this.

The authors note that their findings of cross-reactivity with T cells are different from what has been seen with neutralizing antibodies — another weapon of the immune system that blocks a pathogen from infecting cells. Neutralizing antibodies against common cold viruses are specific to those viruses and don't show cross-reactivity with SARS-CoV-2, according to previous studies, the authors said.

SOURCE 

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Kudlow Says Another Lockdown Would Have ‘Enormous’ Human and Economic Cost

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow firmly opposes the idea of a hard lockdown to suppress another COVID-19 surge, telling Fox Business in an Aug. 4 interview that the health and economic toll on Americans would be “enormous.”

Kudlow said he doesn’t think any form of lockdown is a good idea, and people should instead rely on precautions such as social distancing, mask-wearing, and sanitizing to stem the outbreak, while allowing businesses and schools to stay open.

“This idea of more lockdowns, people just throw this out willy-nilly, forgetting the enormous human cost as well as the enormous economic cost,” Kudlow said. “The country can’t take that.”

He argued that the risk to Americans comes not just from the direct threat of infection but from the impact of heavy-handed mitigation.

“It’s also our well-being, it’s also our psychological well-being, it’s our personal well-being,” Kudlow said. “I think we should do everything we can, everything humanly possible, with safety and security, to keep the stores open, to keep the schools open, to keep the economy open.”

Arguing that the current COVID-19 mitigation efforts appear to be working, Kudlow said: “Let’s get America moving again. You’ll get your 20 percent; the V-shaped recovery, I think, is still in place.”

Kudlow’s reference to “20 percent” relates to an earlier comment he made about the Atlanta Fed’s latest estimate of U.S. economic activity for the third quarter of this year. The Atlanta Fed’s third-quarter-growth prediction stands at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 19.6 percent, updated on Aug. 3, according to a so-called nowcast statistical model that uses high-frequency economic data-points to estimate the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Prompting Kudlow’s remarks was a request by the interviewer for comment on a statement made by a top Federal Reserve official on Aug. 2, who argued that the U.S. economy could benefit if the nation were to “lock down really hard” for 4 to 6 weeks.

“I hate to even suggest it,” said Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari, in remarks on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“People will be frustrated by it. But if we were to lock down hard for a month or six weeks, we could get the case count down so that our testing and our contact tracing was actually enough to control it the way that it’s happening in the Northeast right now,” Kashkari said.

He said the economy, which in the second quarter suffered its biggest blow since the Great Depression, would be able to mount a robust recovery, but only if the virus were brought under control.

“If we don’t do that, and we just have this raging virus spreading throughout the country with flare-ups and local lockdowns for the next year or two, which is entirely possible, we’re going to see many, many more business bankruptcies,” Kashkari said.

“That’s going to be a much slower recovery for all of us.”

Reinforcing Kudlow’s perspective, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters at a briefing on Aug. 4 that the administration wasn’t considering a lockdown.

“The president is not considering a national lockdown,” she said. “What he is encouraging is mitigation efforts like wearing a mask, which is patriotic; like social distancing; and engaging in these really commonsense, safe measures to safely reopen and avoid the health consequences of a lockdown.”

McEnany cited a series of negative outcomes that she linked to lockdowns, including a surge in drug overdoses and suicides.

“Overdoses do go up, suicides do go up, cancer cases are missed, as Dr. Scott Atlas has pointed out that, ‘In the U.S. alone, there are 150,000 new cancer cases that arise every month among patients … most have not been seen.’ And that was referring to the lockdown,” she said.

SOURCE 

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Trump's Covid boast is nearer to the truth than his opponents would like to admit

Given that enlightened opinion now pretty well defines itself against whatever Donald Trump says, it is hardly surprising to hear the US president being excoriated for saying in a television interview that the US figures for deaths per cases of Covid were “lower than the world, lower than Europe”.   

That people laugh at him whenever he opens his mouth on Covid-19 – or anything else for that matter – doesn’t change the fact that technically he is correct. He was clear that he was referring to the ratio of deaths to recorded cases of Covid 19 – a metric technically known as the Case Fatality Ratio (CFR). 

Sure enough, the US currently has a CFR of 0.033 – which is lower than the world as a whole (0.037) and lower than in the larger European countries. Britain’s CFR is currently 0.15, Italy’s 0.14 and Germany’s 0.043.

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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