Media Lies: Democrat Governors Doing Great Jobs Despite Higher Virus Death Rates

What’s a Republican governor have to do to earn respect from the mainstream media? I’m asking because saving a lot of lives without totally trashing their state’s economy doesn’t seem to do the trick. Meanwhile, certain Democrat governors are portrayed as quietly competent heroes while having the worst infection and death rates in the nation.

AG Hamilton noted on Twitter earlier this morning:

Florida began its reopening process on Governor Ron DeSantis’ orders over a week ago, smartly putting retiree-heavy South Florida on a later, longer schedule. DeSantis also closed Florida much later than other states did — to media howls. Nevertheless, even though Florida has two million more people than New York does, and its population skews older than New York’s, New York has about eight times more COVID-19 cases than Florida has suffered.

Remember the Democrat attack ad from 2012, showing a Paul Ryan lookalike rolling a wheelchair-bound granny off a cliff? All Ryan had done was propose Medicare reforms. Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo got thousands of grannies and grandpas killed with his March 25 directive ordering nursing homes to accept coronavirus patients. Cuomo even forbade nursing homes “from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission.” The result was thousands of needlessly dead.

In a sane world with a nonpartisan media, DeSantis should be enjoying improved poll numbers, while New Yorkers ought to be gathered in front of the governor’s mansion with torches and pitchforks. And yet, Cuomo’s approval rating has shot up to 72% according to the latest from Quinnipiac. DeSantis, on the other hand, has seen his once-strong approval ratings decline over the last few weeks.

Despite Florida’s impressive COVID-19 numbers, compared to New York or New Jersey’s, the Washington Post felt the need to ask two days ago, “Does Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis know what he’s doing?“. If the New York Times gave a damn about its own city, they’d be demanding the heads of Gov. Cuomo and Mayor Bill DeBlasio. Instead, they’re running scare pieces on Florida with headlines like “‘Found Unresponsive at Home’: Grim Records Recount Lonely Deaths.” And Yahoo News felt the need to explain “How the coronavirus undid Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.” The Wuhan Flu didn’t undo DeSantis; the mainstream media did.

Cuomo has recieved almost nothing but fawning press coverage, particularly from the Orange Man Bad crowd. Eddie Scarry wrote on Tuesday for the Washington Examiner:

So how are the media’s COVID-19 governor heroes doing? Daily press briefings by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, are run top to bottom live on cable news outlets, and his performances are cherished by the press. The New York Times last month called Cuomo’s delivery “articulate, consistent and often tinged with empathy.” The paper also likened the briefings to a “tender embrace.”

That soft hug, however, is currently accompanied by the shockingly high death rate of 139 per 100,000 people, a number that was boosted in part by Cuomo’s appalling decision to force nursing homes to accept any elderly person who had been infected with the virus. This directly exposed many high-risk people to the coronavirus and has probably resulted in many deaths.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan is a Republican, but he gets a lot of love from the press because he’s always ready to attack President Trump. His state isn’t doing so hot, either, with a rate of 28 deaths per 100,000. That means Maryland has a death rate more than twice that of Georgia.

New Jersey — where Democrat Phil Murphy is governor — has a population not much less than Georgia’s, yet has four times as many COVID-19 cases. I was unable to find a single negative MSM headline about Murphy in a week’s worth of stories from the mainstream media. The Republican governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, has been given the same treatment as DeSantis, portrayed as a cross between a bumbler and a murderer. Kemp has been accused of “deadly ignorance,” and begged not to “risk virus’ resurgence here.” He even placed on a list of “The Definitive Ranking of the Worst U.S. Government Responses to the Coronavirus.”

But would you rather be a retiree with existing medical conditions in Kemp’s Georgia, or in Phil Murphy’s New Jersey? Would you feel safer on a Florida beach, or in a New York nursing home?

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Republicans increasingly doubt Anthony Fauci but trust Donald Trump

Washington: At the beginning of the novel coronavirus outbreak - and for weeks afterwards - there was one thing Americans could seemingly agree upon: Anthony Fauci.

Today, that's considerably less the case. While Fauci retains the faith of a strong majority of Americans, opposition from Republicans has crept up steadily over the past month or so, as conservative media figures and politicians have increasingly called his advice into question.

Picking up that mantle in a particularly prominent way Tuesday was Senator Rand Paul, who spent his time at a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee grilling Fauci and suggesting he shouldn't oversell his knowledge about what might become of the virus - along with Fauci's role in decisions about the response.

Paul pressed Fauci to admit he wasn't the "end-all" when it comes to the response, particularly when it comes to decisions about whether the economy should be reopened at this point.

Fauci offered a subtly pointed response. While noting that he had never presented himself as the "end-all" - Fauci has made a point to say that others are in charge of economic considerations - he repeated Paul's allusions to using "humility" in offering prescriptions about what might lay ahead.

Particularly, he pushed back on Paul's suggestion that schools could reopen because children suffer many fewer deaths from COVID-19 by saying people should be "humble" about what they don't know about how the virus impacts young people.

But Paul's line of questioning reflects an increasing conservative scepticism of Fauci - a scepticism that has grown over the past month in part thanks to people like him questioning Fauci's advice.

And a new poll this week reinforces that this scepticism is slowly taking hold: The CNN poll suggests a significant decline in GOP regard for Fauci's expertise when measured against other similar polls of Fauci in recent weeks.

While 84 per cent of Republicans said they trusted the information they received from President Donald Trump about the virus, just 72 per cent said the same about the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, while just 61 per cent said the same about Fauci, the CNN poll found.

That split in regard for Trump and Fauci is something that simply didn't exist even a month ago.

A Fox News poll conducted in late March showed very little difference in GOP perceptions between the two. At the time, 85 per cent of Republicans approved of Fauci's handling of the coronavirus, versus just 8 per cent who disapproved. His plus-77 rating was about the same as Trump, for whom 86 per cent approved and 13 per cent disapproved (plus-73).

That gap, though, has progressively widened over the past month.

A Quinnipiac University poll in early April showed Republicans approved of Trump 89-10 and Fauci 77-8 - still sterling numbers for Fauci, but not quite on Trump's level.

By late April, a Gallup poll showed 91 per cent of Republicans approved of Trump on the virus, but just 71 per cent approved of Fauci.

Early this month, Republicans in a Washington Post-University of Maryland survey said Trump had done an "excellent" or "good" job on the coronavirus by a 79-21 margin (plus-58), as compared to 68-25 (plus-43) for Fauci.

And now, the CNN poll shows the biggest gap yet - at least on the narrower measure of trust. While Republicans trust Trump on the coronavirus by a margin of 84 per cent to 14 per cent (plus-70), they trust Fauci by less than half that margin, 61-29 (plus-32).

Trump has thus far declined to clash with Fauci publicly - apart from retweeting a call for his firing at one point in mid-April. But many of his allies in conservative media (and now the Senate) have been happy to pick up that torch and question Fauci's advice, as they push for a more aggressive reopening of the economy than Fauci has advocated.

And it seems to have gradually had the intended effect - even as Fauci, to date, retains a relatively strong image.

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Social distancing not as effective as hoped, Minnesota modelling shows

Minneapolis: New modelling by Minnesota researchers of the COVID-19 pandemic showed that social distancing isn't as effective as initially expected in reducing deaths and infections, but will still help protect the state from a novel and highly infectious coronavirus.

Initial models were based on estimates that Minnesota's statewide stay-at-home order would reduce face-to-face contact and disease transmission by 80 per cent, but the new model released Wednesday showed it only reduced that by 59.5 per cent.

COVID-19 remains a new disease globally, and new understanding is helping to create a more precise model, said Stefan Gildemeister, state health economist, as he unveiled the new modelling results on Wednesday morning.

Initial estimates of the impact of social distancing in Minnesota were based on experiences in China, where the coronavirus first emerged. "Mitigation (in China) was very different from what we were experiencing here," Gildemeister said.

The modelling predicted roughly 1700 deaths in Minnesota by the end of May, but a range of 16,000 to 44,000 deaths over 12 months of the pandemic. That is higher than prior state modelling estimates, Gildemeister said, based on updated understanding of an earlier peak of the pandemic and broader spread of the virus in the state. "We hope these are pessimistic estimates, but it is certainly a plausible outcome," he said.

The latest model also was based on feedback from doctors that 100 per cent of people would die from COVID-19 if they needed ventilator care in hospitals to breathe and didn't receive it.

Minnesota hospitals have worked to increase ventilatory capacity in the past two months, and now have 3702 available - though 858 remain on back order. As of Wednesday, only 562 ventilators were in use statewide by patients with COVID-19 and other patients with medical problems unrelated to the pandemic.

Modelling of different scenarios showed that stay-at-home orders would reduce ventilator demand and deaths. A stay-at-home order through the end of May would cut in half the forecasted number of deaths compared to the state doing nothing at all from the start.

Modelling was instrumental early on in the pandemic for the state's governor Tim Walz, who issued school closures and statewide stay-at-home orders based in part on state-specific forecasts showing that COVID-19 cases would far outstrip the available supply of critical care beds and ventilators in hospitals.

The last model update was publicly unveiled on April 9. Walz has made key policy decisions in the absence of new forecasts - including another two-week extension of the stay-at-home order that is scheduled to end May 18.

More than 83,000 people have died in the US, representing more than one-fourth of global deaths and the world's highest toll. On the planet more than 4.3 million have been infected and about 295,000 have died.

Eager to restart the economy, US President Donald Trump has been urging states to lift restrictions, and many governors are doing so gradually, though consumers remain leery of going back to restaurants, social events and sporting competitions.

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The Left hate us and want us out of the way

There are many on the Right, often with more, er, establishment leanings, who seem to be dismissive of the warnings we have seen from Kurt Schlichter and Dennis Prager, among others, of how much the Left hates grassroots Americans. The Never Trump faction has long been in denial of reality, and it starts with what seems to be misunderstanding the Left.

At the very least, many so-called “progressives” want Patriots to shut up and get out of the way. You don’t need to just take the word of your Patriot Post team; just look at Elizabeth Warren’s campaign platform. For her, it was not enough to pass sweeping restrictions on our Second Amendment rights, punishing millions of law-abiding Americans for crimes and acts of madness they did not commit. She wanted to sic the Internal Revenue Service on the National Rifle Association.

In her mind, the many lawmakers who defend our right to keep and bear arms do so because they are “corrupt” — the notion that another American could look at Second Amendment issues and come to a different good-faith conclusion about what policies should be pursued seems to be completely foreign to her.

Given that her presidential campaign flopped, Patriots might want to breathe a sigh of relief, but she is a top contender to be Joe Biden’s veep. Given what many speculate about Biden’s health, Warren would be a heartbeat away from being president.

Between Operation Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS Tea Party targeting, Wisconsin’s “John Doe” investigations, the efforts by state attorneys general to silence opponents of the “green” agenda, Spygate, and Andrew Cuomo’s jihad against the NRA, there is a clear pattern. When they are in power, Democrats have a proclivity toward using police-state tactics against their opponents.

Worse, the tactics worked. We’ll never know for sure, but those abuses undoubtedly played a part in losses over the years. Even the Supreme Court has not been immune from threats (particularly the chief justice), and in the recent Second Amendment case some justices backed down in the face of pressure.

Also coming as a harbinger of police-state tactics is the fact that, according to a report by Fox News, Department of Defense technology intended to combat radical Islamic terrorist groups is now being turned on domestic political actors — President Donald Trump’s supporters.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency denies it, but after seeing what happened with Lois Lerner, Fast and Furious, and Spygate, can we really believe that denial? Once again, the past misconduct, the bureaucratic usurpation of power, and the lack of accountability raise doubts about the denial.

Given all of this, the situation should be patently obvious to anyone. Leftists have been telling us who they are and what they intend to do. The question is, do those who criticize Trump supporters not believe them, or are they being willfully blind?

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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The lockdowns still aren’t working

A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece for spiked arguing that there is little empirical evidence that regional lockdowns prevent the spread of Covid-19 better than well-done social-distancing measures. The piece received far more of a response than I expected. After literally thousands of email and Twitter comments – mostly positive – I have returned to respond to some of the more common methodological points raised by readers. Once again, I find limited – if any – evidence for the efficacy of lockdowns. My data set is available for anyone to request it via my Twitter.

The most basic response I received was that this could all change in a fortnight. The lockdowns simply needed more time to succeed. This argument has turned out to be false. As of the close of business Friday 1 May, the number of documented Covid-19 cases across the US states and territories ranged from 146 (in Guam) to 315,222 (in New York), with a per-state US average of 20,954. New York State is an outlier, so with that removed from the mix, state caseloads varied between 146 and 121,190 (New Jersey) for a mean average of 15,295.

Unlike most US states, Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, Oklahoma, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming did not issue ‘shelter in place’ orders and have enacted social-distancing measures instead. South Carolina did eventually lock down, but not until 6 April. It was the last state to do so, locking down some three-and-a-half weeks after California and New York. It also allowed major exceptions, such as religious services. The mean for the number of cases across social-distancing states was 3,895. Without South Carolina, the mean was 3,600.

Essentially, there is the same pattern for Covid-19 deaths. On 1 May, deaths nationally ranged from seven in Wyoming up to 24,069 in New York, for a mean of 1,229 deaths per state. With New York removed, the deaths varied between seven and 7,538 (New Jersey). The mean number of cases was 789. In the non-lockdown social-distancing states, the 1 May mean for deaths was 98.9 – falling to 79.3 with South Carolina removed from the analysis.

As before, I next adjusted for population. As of 10pm EST on 1 May, officially tested Covid-19 cases per million state residents in the US ranged from a low of 435 in Montana and Hawaii up to 16,068 in New York. The per-state average was 2,882 cases-per-million, or 2,624 with New York removed. Deaths per million ranged between 11 (Hawaii) and 1,227 (New York) for a mean of 147. Without New York, this falls to 126, with New Jersey (849) as the worst-hit state. In contrast, the non-lockdown social-distancing states averaged 1,704 cases per million and only 34 deaths per million. In other words, the number of deaths in social-distancing states is just 27 per cent that of the lockdown states.

A second suggestion was that I improve my regressions, by (1) re-running them using more up-to-date cases and deaths data for my dependent variables, (2) running them with current active cases as a dependent variable, and (3) adding variables. These new variables include the rate of testing, the date the epidemic started, and even temperature. Even with these adjustments, little has changed.

First, I treated caseload and deaths as of 1 May 2020 as the dependent variables. Population, population density, ‘strategy’ (lockdown or social distancing), median age, median income and diversity (minority-population percentage) were my independent variables. The regression analysis produced results very similar to those I wrote about in my earlier spiked piece. The main difference was that with the more-up-to date figures, population density became more significant as a predictor of caseload and deaths.

Secondly, the results were almost identical when current active cases of Covid-19 were used as a dependent variable. Again, both population and density were significant predictors in the model. But the strategy used by a state to respond to Covid-19 – social distancing or lockdown – was not a significant predictor of Covid cases or deaths.

Third, I added all of the new variables suggested by spiked readers and those in the online modelling community to my regression analyses. I first regressed each of these separately against the ‘cases’ and ‘deaths’ dependent variables. The ‘state temperature’ variable had little influence. However, the ‘testing’ variable – representing the number of Covid tests administered by a state per million residents – was highly significant. The p-value for testing – the probability that its relationship with cases and deaths is down to just random chance – was only .006 for cases and .005 for deaths. The date-of-onset variable (days since the first confirmed in-state Covid death) was also significant against cases and was nearly significant against deaths (p=.026, .064).

Next, each of these variables was cycled into my original six-variable linear model. In this multivariate model, the relationships between testing rates and both cases and deaths remained statistically and meaningfully significant. In this model, the relationships between date-of-onset and the two dependent variables fell below statistical significance.

Interestingly, I observed a strong, significant and meaningful correlation between increasing temperature and decreasing Covid-19 caseload (B= -2,065, p=.029) and death totals (B = -169, p=.025). The unstandardised regression coefficient (B) means that, with all other variables adjusted for in the model, each one-degree increase in mean temperature correlated with a 2,065-unit decrease in Covid-19 cases and a 169-unit decrease in Covid deaths.

It should be prudently noted that, while the coefficients for the temperature variable remained consistent in the same direction (B = -900, -74.1), these relationships between temperature and the primary dependent variables did not reach significance (p=.199, .185) in the final model I ran – an ‘all critical variables’ regression which included population, population density, strategy, temperature, rate of testing and date-of-onset. In that model, the only conventionally significant variables were population and testing. However, the relationship between temperature and the fight against Covid-19, which has been the subject of much media speculation, should be explored in the context of data sets larger than mine.

In the context of my fairly small data set, I certainly encourage scholars to add individualised weights to the data (something I have largely resisted doing) and to try out log-linear rather than linear analyses. However, I will point out that my focus variable of government strategy has not proven to be a significant predictor of any of my dependent variables, in any model.

A final claim made against my original model is that I should compare the rates of weekly increase in Covid-19 cases and deaths. Data from day-by-day tracking resources like Covidtracking.com does indicate that, while their overall case numbers are low, states like Wyoming and South Dakota have seen major increases in their death totals during some recent weeks – 250 per cent and 300 per cent respectively.

However, the ‘surges’ we hear of in the social-distancing states tend to be tiny. Wyoming’s ‘250 per cent increase’ was a jump from two total deaths to seven. What is more, Wyoming’s death toll has remained stable at seven total deaths since 23 April – implying a zero per cent increase in death rate over the past week.

Also, other social-distancing states have done quite well against the same week-to-week metrics. Covid Tracking data for Arkansas indicate that the state’s death rate grew only from 37 to 45 between 17 April and 24 April, roughly half the increase of the week before and one of the top three performances among all states.

Finally, the varying dates-of-onset for different states indicate that regions are at different points along their epidemic curves, and this could easily affect rates of new cases and deaths in heartland states versus coastal states, regardless of response strategy.

With all that said, the fact that I have compiled two fairly solid Covid-19 data sets within a two-week period allows me to conduct a more comprehensive test of the effectiveness of lockdowns.

When I wrote my last piece for spiked, the US states overall had an average of 54 Covid-19 deaths per million persons. The social-distancing states, with South Carolina counted as a social-distancing state, had an average of 12 Covid deaths per million. As of today, that figure has jumped to 147 deaths per million for all US states (126 per million minus New York), and 34 per million for social-distancing states. Deaths per million have increased by 22 in the social-distancing states, and by 72 to 93 in the lockdown states, during only the past two weeks. This gap in new, post-lockdown deaths per million people once again suggests that the lockdowns are not working.

This should be a powerful argument for adopting social distancing. While social-distancing measures – like wearing a light medical mask or washing one’s hands 11 times a day – might be annoying, the practical impact of country-wide lockdowns has been utterly devastating. Unemployment in the US is approaching (if not surpassing) Great Depression levels. Thirty million Americans have filed jobless claims since March. Almost eight million small- to medium-sized businesses are at risk of closing permanently.

The original argument for the lockdown policies which have caused all this pain is that they were necessary to avoid an almost unprecedented wave of mass death. Early analyses from the WHO and from serious scientists estimated the infection fatality rate (IFR) for Covid to be between roughly one per cent and four per cent. They projected infection rates of up to 80 per cent, and argued that ‘mitigation’ alone would do little to stop it. Faced with the apparent prospect of corpses littering the streets, entire countries essentially shut themselves down.

Now, however, serological testing tells us that the actual IFR for Covid-19 may well be on the order of 0.3 or 0.4 per cent. Even the WHO is now lauding social-distancing Sweden as an effective model for other nations going forward. Sweden, which never locked down, currently ranks 20th in Europe in terms of cases-per-million and ninth in deaths-per-million – ahead of the locked-down UK in both categories.

None of this means that those making the case against lockdowns should do so glibly. Any human death is a tragedy. It is certainly possible that US states which lift lockdowns could see spikes in Covid-19 cases and deaths – particularly if residents do not embrace voluntary distancing. Press photographs of packed beaches and flag football games in the park are hardly manna for those of us who favour ending the lockdowns (although many of these photos have been taken during lockdowns).

It is also worth noting another unsayable fact at this point: approximately the same number of people have always been projected to contract Covid-19 in most ‘curve flattening’ scenarios. Lockdowns simply spread the deaths out across a longer period of time.

The original argument for locking down to ‘flatten the curve’ was very specifically about stopping patients from entering hospital in a single stream that would overwhelm healthcare resources and cause millions of incidental deaths. Now, however, we know that hospitals have not been swamped on a large scale in any of the non-lockdown US states, nor in nations such as Sweden which never locked down. In fact, more than 200 hospitals in lightly hit areas of both lockdown and social-distancing states have begun to furlough their employees, after cancelling elective procedures in preparation for a Covid wave that simply never arrived.

Much of this result is almost certainly explained by the IFR for Covid-19 being apparently far lower than that originally predicted. The prevalence of the virus among the population is also much higher than expected. And now that we know the hospital system has not been swamped, there is arguably no reason whatsoever to destroy our economies simply to experience roughly the same number of infections later rather than sooner.

Again, there may well be responses to these points. Given the gravity of the situation, some might seriously expect to see a Covid-19 vaccine in three to six months, rather than the usual 12 to 18. But, to be useful, any such assertions must be based on facts, rather than hope and speculation.

No single set of numbers can be perfect, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that numbers, not emotions, must guide the debate about how best to respond to Covid-19. And the numbers just discussed, human and economic, do not make the case for lockdowns.

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Dear Media, Governor Kemp Will Accept Your Apology Now

When Governor Brian Kemp announced that the state of Georgia would make the initial steps toward reopening the economy, the media went on the attack. He was called irresponsible and it was predicted Georgia cases would skyrocket.

Also-ran Stacey Abrams jumped into the fray as part of her audition for Joe Biden’s vice presidential slot. She called Governor Kemp “dangerously incompetent” during a national media appearance with Gayle King. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms also called the governor’s plan reckless and the media trumpeted warnings of a second wave. Even Fox’s Martha MacCallum challenged Kemp on his plan during an interview at the time:

During that interview Kemp was clear. He had worked closely with public health officials to make the decision to begin the reopening process. Kemp made it clear that the state was not given carte blanche to reopen and resume normal operations. He was also clear that the health system was bleeding money because they were empty. The outline for testing and mitigation was also laid out. MacCallum said everyone would be watching Georgia because of his early moves to implement the Phase 1 guidelines. Kemp expressed confidence in the business owners and the citizens to make good decisions and protect each other using the guidelines the state was putting out.

Well, the results are in and the media can now apologize for the savaging of my governor. Since the tentative reopening on April 24, the state has not seen a spike in the percentage of positive cases or hospitalizations. Kemp and his team are measuring this correctly.

The entire purpose of mitigation was to protect the hospital system and ensure those critically ill with COVID-19 could be adequately cared for. Georgia has a more than adequate capacity to deal with a hot spot. Despite increased testing, a lower percentage are testing positive—even with increased mobility and business operations. Given the number of asymptomatic and mild cases we know exist, measuring the results against the capacity of the healthcare system to treat severe cases is the best measure of success. Not new cases.

Additionally, like many other states, Georgia has seen a significant portion of the deaths related to coronavirus occur in nursing homes. According to an analysis done by Phil Kerpen and a colleague using state-level data, nursing homes account for 48.2% of coronavirus deaths in Georgia. Governor Kemp ordered 100 National Guard troops to assist in ensuring infection-control procedures and other protocols were being implemented in these facilities to reduce transmission and preserve hospital resources in early April. Nationwide the analysis shows that over 50% of deaths are occurring in nursing home facilities. This should be a major focus for all governors to reduce deaths and save lives.

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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First at-home saliva test for COVID-19 earns FDA approval

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first at-home saliva collection test for COVID-19, which people could use to sample their own saliva and send it into a lab for results.

Developed by RUCDR Infinite Biologics, a biorepository based at Rutgers University in New Jersey, the test received "amended emergency use authorization" from the FDA late on May 7, according to a statement from the university. In April, the lab received emergency use authorization for their saliva collection method, which allowed health care workers to begin testing New Jersey residents at select sites throughout the state, The New York Times reported April 29.

Now, the amended authorization will allow people to collect their own saliva at home and avoid potentially risky contact with people at testing sites. The only other at-home coronavirus test on the market requires users to collect samples using a nose swab, The New York Times reported May 7.

"Collecting a saliva sample at home mitigates the risk of exposure needed to travel to a facility or drive-through and is less invasive and more comfortable and reliable than sticking a swab up your nose or down your throat," Andrew Brooks, chief operating officer and director of technology development at RUCDR, said in the statement.

When compared with swab tests for the coronavirus, which rely on samples collected from the nose and throat, the saliva-based test generated fewer false-negative results in severely infected people, meaning it was more reliable at confirming an active infection, according to the Times report published April 29. The rate at which COVID-19 swab tests deliver false-negative results has raised concerns among health care professionals, Live Science previously reported; saliva-based tests could provide consistency where these other tests have faltered.

In the same comparison, the saliva tests garnered no false-positive results, either.

During collection, a person would spit into a container holding a preservative liquid developed by the medical equipment manufacturer Spectrum Solutions, according to the Rutgers statement. The exact recipe for the solution remains a secret, but the ingredients are readily available, the Times reported. Like swab tests, however, the saliva-based test relies on PCR machines to process sampled genetic material; specific chemical reagents are needed to run the machines and could present supply chain problems, Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University, told the Times.

That said, the at-home saliva test could address "many critical issues associated with large-scale screening that is required to get people back to their normal daily lives," Brooks said. During the month of April, the Rutgers lab processed nearly 90,000 tests conducted at their in-person testing sites and planned to increase their testing capacity to 30,000 tests a day, Brooks told the Times. At the time, test results could be delivered back to patients within 72 hours, but the turnaround time could be cut down to only a few hours with all the right infrastructure in place, according to the Times report.

Now that people can collect their own samples remotely, the Rutgers lab could feasibly process "tens of thousands of samples daily," according to the statement.

SOURCE 

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Coronavirus pandemic takes staggering toll on mental health

By Jean Twenge

When the novel coronavirus roared into the U.S., mental health took a back seat to physical health. The number one priority was making sure hospitals wouldn’t be overwhelmed and that as many lives as possible could be saved.

Schools closed, remote work became the norm, restaurants shuttered and getting together with friends was no longer possible. The news cycle spun with story after story highlighting the ever-increasing number of cases and deaths, while unemployment soared to levels not seen since the Great Depression.

Any one of these shifts could be expected to cause an increase in mental health issues. Put together, they created a a perfect storm for a crisis.

Experts speculated as much, and polls showed that many people seemed to intuitively grasp the mental toll of the pandemic. However, data on mental health metrics was scant; we didn’t know the magnitude of any changes in mental health issues, nor did we understand which groups of people were suffering more than others.

So I decided to collect data on mental health during the pandemic and compare it to data from before all of this happened. The differences were even worse than I anticipated.

A generational divide

On April 27, I surveyed 2,032 U.S. adults using a standard measure of mental distress that asks, for example, how often a respondent felt sad or nervous in the last month. I compared the responses with a sample of 19,330 demographically similar people in a 2018 government-sponsored survey of U.S. adults that asked the same questions.

The results were staggering: The 2020 participants were eight times as likely to screen positive for serious mental illness – 28%, compared to 3.4% in the 2018 survey. The vast majority of the 2020 participants, 70%, met criteria for moderate to serious mental illness, compared with 22% in 2018.

Clearly, the pandemic has had a devastating effect on mental health.

Yet some people are suffering more than others. Younger adults ages 18 to 44 – mostly iGen and millennials – have borne the brunt of the mental health effects. They’ve experienced a tenfold increase in serious mental distress compared with 2018. Meanwhile, adults 60 and older had the smallest increases in serious mental health issues.

Why might this be the case? After all, the virus has far more dire health implications for older people.

It could be because older people are more protected from the economic disruptions of the pandemic. Younger adults were more likely to lose their jobs as restaurants and stores closed and were more likely to be in a precarious financial position to begin with. The youngest adults were also already struggling with mental health issues: Depression among 18- to 25-year-olds surged from 2012 to 2017, possibly because young adults spent less time interacting with others in person than they used to, a situation only exacerbated by the pandemic.

Parents under pressure

The other group in distress won’t be a surprise to parents: those with children under 18 at home. With schools and daycares closed during the pandemic, many parents are trying to do the near-impossible by working and supervising their children at the same time. Sports, scouting, music classes, camps and virtually every other activity parents rely on to keep their kids occupied have been canceled. Even parks were closed for weeks.

This trend didn’t occur just because people with children at home are younger. Even among 18- to 44-year-olds, those with children at home showed larger increases in mental distress than those without kids.

In 2018, parents were actually less likely to be experiencing mental distress than those without children. But by the end of April 2020, parents were more likely to be in distress than their childless peers.

Where do we go from here?

The findings of this study are preliminary. The 2020 and 2018 samples, though very similar in age, gender, race and region, came from different sources and thus might differ in other ways.

However, there are also other indications that mental health is suffering during the pandemic. For example, calls to mental health hotlines appear to have surged.

SOURCE 

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

Isolation Is Also Deadly

Isolation is the key to social or physical distancing aimed at curbing the transmission of COVID-19. But isolation of both the ill and symptomatic along with the well also intensifies problems with mental health, like depression. It’s impacting one key aspect of those in recovery from addictions, not to mention the deaths and diseases of despair.

Healthy social interactions range from the mundane of encountering smiling faces in our daily comings and goings to individuals who partner with a group or a counselor to overcome addictions through accountabilities. These human touches and encounters are needed in our lives for our own purpose, self-worth, camaraderie, and identity.

With the prolonged isolation of both sick and well, positive COVID cases with hospitalizations are not the only numbers that have to be considered. Deaths of despair will soon be part of the death count, though there won’t be extra COVID funding coming for those lives.

Forced unemployment in double digits has placed Americans who would never in their lives expect to receive a government unemployment check out of work. Wait, they’re told, on the population centers to stabilize their case counts and hospitalization rates. Wait on some authority to allow “nonessential businesses” — the estimated 30.2 million sole proprietors or authentic small businesses that make up more than 98% of all businesses in the U.S. — to resume operations.

Remember the opioid epidemic? Deaths of despair were characteristic of the opioid crisis, because there is a a correlation between economic instability or collapse and the increase in illicit drug use and addiction. Hence, the opioid epidemic had part of its roots in economic distress. According to the National Institutes of Health, in 2017, there were 70,000 deaths due to opioid overdoses. America didn’t close its economy but there was a mounted response to intervene and reverse course, which happened to include improved economic opportunities for millions.

Yet today, some push a straw argument in efforts to marginalize the opposition in order to keep everything locked down. It goes like this: If you want to reopen the economy, you’re greedy and want people to die. Rhetorically, the question is posed, “How many deaths are too many before it’s time to close businesses again?”

It’s not just the out-of-work adults facing despair. The Wall Street Journal’s James Freeman records several reports of increased volume at the teen suicide hotline as a result of social and physical isolation combined with family pressures within the home.

Social determinants and adverse childhood events are buzzwords in the academic community, with massive efforts to reconstruct environments to end destructive behaviors into more favorable and thriving situations. Yet the harsh polarizing defenses employed to keep strict closures and the quarantine of all — well, vulnerable, sick, and healthy — runs counter to the very foundations of these priorities when addressing children and youth in physical and mental health by addressing a variety of factors, including family income and socialization.

There was a need to understand this virus — its transmission and presentation — and to have a temporary intervention to contain and mitigate its spread. This virus from Wuhan is here to stay. But keeping businesses closed, workers unemployed, and government printing and borrowing money is neither sustainable nor healthy for adults, teens, or families. Yes, isolation kills. But it kills more than the viral transmission of a pathogen. It also kills an individual’s well-being through work, self-reliance, community, and ability to support a family.

The poison of political hatred, however, will cause a significant truth to be missed or dismissed: There’s a mountain of data and research demonstrating a wealth-health connection tying economic growth and work directly to better health and well-being.

SOURCE 

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

FDA Grants Emergency Use Authorization to First Coronavirus Antigen Test

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued the first emergency use authorization to a coronavirus antigen test. The Trump administration has been working to quickly expand testing abilities, and the antigen test represents a new category of testing that can rapidly detect infections of the Wuhan coronavirus.

Public health experts have said widespread testing is paramount to safely reopening the country, and the FDA's emergency use authorization to diagnostic health care manufacturer Quidel's new coronavirus antigen test is part of that effort.

Antigen tests have the potential to test millions of Americans per day and are cheaper to produce than polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests. Expanded testing will allow infected individuals to be quickly identified and quarantined to help stop the virus from spreading.

According to CNBC, the new tests can quickly detect protein fragments belonging on or within the virus by testing samples collected through naval cavity swabs. The test results are returned in minutes, and while the new tests can't detect all active infections, the positive test results are highly accurate. Negative test results may require additional PCR tests to confirm the subject is negative for the virus. PCR tests are more accurate but take longer to analyze.

SOURCE 

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

IN BRIEF

Attorney General William Barr's office shreds NBC's Chuck Todd for "deceptive editing" of Barr's comments (The Daily Wire)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is reportedly drafting a $750 billion bill to aid state and local governments; Republicans aren't happy (Fox News)

Office of Special Counsel blocks removal of HHS whistleblower Dr. Rick Bright to investigate claim of "political retaliation" (National Review)

Encouraging illegal aliens to remain in the U.S. is a crime, the Supreme Court rules unanimously (The Daily Caller)

Rhode Island becomes first in Northeast bloc to lift stay-at-home order (Fox News)

Field hospitals stand down, most without treating any coronavirus patients (NPR)

Joe Biden's virtual rally in Tampa goes hilariously wrong (The Daily Wire)

Policy: The left is at war with the Little Sisters of the Poor (American Enterprise Institute)

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

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

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

Government's short-sighted strategy to COVID-19 pandemic destroying America

Would you agree to buy a new motor vehicle without knowing the price? Of course not. Your options are many — sedan, convertible, sports car, SUV, minivan, pickup truck, etc. in many different sizes with different features, including different safety features. Most people do not buy the “safest” vehicle because of both price and the fact that other vehicles may have features they value more.

Yet, when it comes to options regarding how to deal with the COVID-19 virus, most governors give the people no or, at best, few options. People voluntarily engage in all sorts of risky sports — many of which are much more likely to kill anyone under 65 than COVID-19 (as I described in my column last week). Less than 100 people (out of a population of 328,000 million Americans) under age 24 have died from the virus. It is much more dangerous for them to ride an electric scooter or walk across the street, yet the government has shut down almost all schools in the United States for a virus that is not going to kill the students.

We can see the lives lost to the virus. Every night on TV we are shown people being taken to the morgue. What is rarely mentioned is that the average age of death of the victims is well into the 80s.

What is not seen are all the lives lost to the restrictions being placed on the people — the careers destroyed, the damage from students not being in school, the damage to people who have spent decades building businesses that are now being destroyed by government mandate, the psychological damage from people being cooped up and unable to have normal human interactions with friends, family, business colleagues or even dating, etc. What price do we put on the loss of freedom?

The great French economist Frederic Bastiat (1801-50) had many important insights, and one of his most famous works was titled “That Which is Seen and That Which is Not Seen.” Bastiat was a master at making a point by telling a story. A store owner’s young son accidentally broke a window, and the store owner then paid a glazer to fix it.

Those who can see only the first-order effect say: “This is good because it gave the glazer a job and income.” Those who can see beyond the first order understand that the shop owner will now have less income to buy other goods such as a new pair of boots, thus depriving the cobbler of a job. The glazer, if not employed repairing the broken window, most likely would be spending his time putting windows in new structures — thus creating new wealth.

Those who say we can offset the cost of the government mandated shutdown of productive economic activity by just giving business people and individuals money to replace their losses stemming from the shutdown fail to understand that passing out money without creating wealth, over the long run, makes everyone poorer by debasing the currency.

In my fantasyland, I would make it a requirement that all of those who demand expenditures and restrictions on our behavior to mitigate the virus detail precisely the long-run cost of each restriction or proposed expenditure. If America had a better educated, less ideological and more responsible media, they would be insisting on such information rather than accepting what can be immediately seen as the only fact.

An old friend and fine economist, Jack Albertine, who among other things was executive director of the Joint Economic Committee of the Congress, sent me a note regarding my column of last week, parts of which I repeat here:

The data is clear, the U.S. lockdown did not measurably change the mortality rate in the United States. In addition, the models were wrong, period. Their predictions failed empirically. “Elective” medical procedures were banned so as to allow hospitals to have the capacity to deal with the avalanche of COVID-19 admissions. This was again in response to the models’ predictions. First, “elective” medical procedures are called elective because they are not required to stave off immediate death. They, however, are critically important to maintain the health of the population.

Additionally, the longer elective procedures are put off, the more they become not elective at all. So, we endangered the health of millions of people and to what purpose? The predicted avalanche never came. Hospitals have much unused capacity, and, as one who served for nine years on a hospital board, elective surgery and other procedures are huge money makers for hospitals. So now we have a financial crisis in hospitals.

In Texas, 67 percent of the counties have no COVID-19 virus deaths (which may be typical of many states). New York has suffered 88 deaths per 100,000 people, while Texas has suffered only 2.3 deaths per 100,000. So, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is sensibly, rapidly eliminating unnecessary restrictions and getting his state back to normal, as are a number of other governors — while those who cannot think beyond stage I and who neither understand nor appreciate the importance of economic growth and liberty are depriving their citizens of both.

SOURCE 

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

Is India a COVID-19 Anomaly?

The world's second-most-populated country has hardly been touched by the virus. Why?  Because the virus overwhelmingly targets the frail elderly.  Very few Indians live that long

As of this writing, the total number of confirmed cases of China Virus in India sits at less than 50,000 with about 1,700 deaths attributed to the COVID-19 virus. With the second-most populous nation on the planet still classified as a developing country, many are wondering why India’s pandemic numbers are so low.

One would think that, in a nation that struggles with high poverty rates and low levels of healthcare access, the spread of the virus would be rampant and widespread. However, that does not appear to be the case.

Some claim that India’s rapid social distancing and stay-at-home mandates are the reason. Yet in a country as densely populated as India, with notoriously massive poverty slums, such massive lockdown measures are near impossible. If anything, one would expect to see deadly virus hotspots in these slums. Even so, the numbers suggest otherwise.

Could it be that many COVID-19 deaths have simply gone unreported? That’s a plausible theory, as roughly only 22% of all deaths in India are ever certified by a doctor. However, the trouble with this theory is that if it were so, one would expect to see a sudden spike in the number of overall deaths across the country — but that has not occurred. So, even if there has been underreporting of COVID-19 deaths, the overall number of deaths has not seen any significant increase.

Maybe India’s hot weather can be attributed with slowing the spread of the virus, though many experts note there is no evidence yet supporting such a conclusion. Can this apparent anomaly be attributed to environmental, genetic, or cultural differences, or a combination of all three? Whatever the reason(s), what this anomaly does show is that there is much yet to be learned about this novel virus.

SOURCE 

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

Flawed Models Show Why COVID-19 Policies Must Consider Total Mortality

Policymakers need to scrutinize their epidemiological models.

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the federal government has been heavily influenced by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation’s computer model, which has projected from 60,000 to 240,000 COVID-19 deaths in the U.S.

This epidemiological model is now being criticized as flawed and misleading as a source of public information and for government decision-making. Besides the institute’s model, all other COVID-19 models are grounded in important assumptions about which there is currently little knowledge.

Approaches other than models are needed to properly understand this pandemic.

One approach that has not been explored in any detail is the examination of deaths from all causes in addition to deaths from COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

Two major databases that track COVID-19 cases and deaths in the U.S., but not total mortality, are WorldOMeters and the Johns Hopkins University Hub. These trackers show major variation in COVID-19 mortality risk.

For example, as of April 22, WorldOMeters showed 47,681 COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. (50 states and the District of Columbia) with a rate of 144 deaths per 1 million people.

However, note that 71% of the deaths have occurred in six high-risk states (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Louisiana, and Michigan) with 17% of U.S. residents and a death rate of 624 per million.

Ten percent have occurred in five medium-risk states (Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Maryland, and Indiana) and the District of Columbia with 12% of U.S. residents and a death rate of 124 per million, and 19% have occurred in the remaining 39 low-risk states with 71% of U.S. residents and a death rate of 40 per million.

It remains to be determined, however, whether these COVID-19 deaths have actually increased the total U.S. deaths this year. The best data on both COVID-19 deaths and total deaths in the U.S. come from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention‘s National Center for Health Statistics.

During the five weeks ending Feb. 1 through Feb. 29, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 282,084 total deaths, which were 96% of the expected deaths based on concurrent 2017-2019 deaths. During the five weeks ending March 7 to April 4, the CDC reported 273,798 total deaths, which were 96% of the expected deaths.

Of the 9,474 COVID-19 deaths reported during these 10 weeks, 78.5% were among people over age 65, 21.4% were between the ages of 25 and 64, and only 0.1% were ages newborn to 24 years.

Those death counts through the end of March are preliminary, but they do not indicate that the total number of deaths in 2020 is greater than the comparable number of deaths during each of the three prior years.

Once the number of COVID-19 deaths and total deaths during the entire month of April are known, it will be clear whether there has been an increase in the total number of U.S. deaths this year.

One reason there may not be an increase in total deaths is because some deaths are being classified as COVID-19 deaths even when COVID-19 is not the underlying cause.

Normally, mortality statistics are compiled in accordance with World Health Organization regulations specifying that each death be assigned an underlying cause based on the current 10th revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases (ICD-10).

However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that COVID-19 deaths are being coded to ICD-10 code U07.1 when COVID-19 is reported as a cause that “contributed to” death on the death certificate, but is not necessarily the “underlying cause.” Also, some of those deaths do not have laboratory confirmation of COVID-19 infection.

Thus, it’s possible that the focus on COVID-19 deaths has resulted in a lower number of deaths from seasonal flu, pneumonia, and other causes, compared with the number that would normally occur this year.

The CDC has stated that the number of flu hospitalizations estimated for this season is lower than total hospitalization estimates for any season since the CDC began making these estimates.

Furthermore, it’s possible that the lethality of COVID-19 is no greater than that of the seasonal flu.

A new Stanford University survey indicates that the population prevalence of COVID-19 in Santa Clara County, California, ranges from 2.5% to 4.2% and that the number of infected persons is 50 to 85 times the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases.

This preliminary finding suggests that at most 0.1% of infected persons will die from COVID-19, comparable to the seasonal flu death rate. Several other new studies indicate similarly lower fatality rates for COVID-19.

Americans need clarity. The federal government response to the coronavirus pandemic should not be based on flawed models, but rather on a localized public health approach that focuses on the high-risk areas of the United States and also on the high-risk elderly and those with comorbid conditions.

The emphasis should be on changes in personal behavior, such as staying at home for work or school if ill, covering coughs or sneezes, hand-washing, and avoiding those with respiratory symptoms.

Above all, the pandemic and COVID-19 deaths must be put in proper perspective, given the unprecedented societal and economic disruption of the current national lockdown.

SOURCE 

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

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

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

Two thirds of cases are missed, app expert says

The British government’s data on coronavirus cases is nonsense and two thirds of cases in Britain are undiagnosed, a leading epidemiologist has claimed.

Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, has criticised the British government’s refusal to class common symptoms as official indicators.

The government has listed a high temperature and a new, continuous cough as the primary symptoms of COVID-19. There is evidence, however, that a loss of taste or smell is a common sign of infection. Other countries, including the US, have recognised this as a symptom on more detailed lists.

The Australian Department of Health lists fever, coughing, sore throat and shortness of breath as possible symptoms.

Professor Spector has collected data from three million Britons on his team’s symptom-tracking app.

“The reason that we got a bit stuck in this country is we took the data from China and just instantly said, ‘OK, the disease only has two symptoms: it’s fever or it’s persistent cough.’ That meant we were missing about 60 per cent of cases,” he said.

“Only people with those two symptoms got tested and ended up on the statistics. All this governmental data on confirmed cases and how many people have recovered, it’s all nonsense.”

In partnership with the British Department of Health and Social Care, 10,000 app users are being sent COVID-19 tests each week, within the first day or so of developing symptoms.

Clear patterns have emerged from the data in the six weeks since the app went live and the team are close to being able to plot how the disease will progress, depending on the symptoms someone has on day one.

According to the data the virus may have arrived in Britain at the new year as many users reported symptoms in January. At the peak one in 10 people had the virus. The team estimated that at the end of April there were more than 300,000 symptomatic cases, a fall from a peak of more than two million at the start of the month.

Professor Spector said: “We’re able to allocate people into five or six groups at the moment that follow different patterns of symptoms at different time points. It’s not random.”

In one group are those whose symptoms are a sore throat and muscle pains, which then develop to include diarrhoea, stomach pains and fatigue.

People in another group start with a headache, which progresses to a cough and fatigue, then the cough gets worse, they develop shortness of breath and may need to go to hospital. This classification is important in determining which patients are high risk.

Alan McNally, professor of microbial genomics at the University of Birmingham, agreed that there were many other possible signs of coronavirus infection. “There are myriad less common symptoms attached to COVID: things such as COVID toe [a rash on the feet] and loss of appetite,” he said.

He defended the decision by the government to concentrate on a few, however, saying: “I don’t see where on earth you draw a line on symptoms and whether or not they are COVID.”

Users of the COVID Symptom Study app in Britain log how they feel daily, even if they are healthy. The most useful loggers are people who were in good health when they first logged on to the app and have since developed symptoms.

SOURCE 

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

Flawed Models Show Why COVID-19 Policies Must Consider Total Mortality

Policymakers need to scrutinize their epidemiological models.

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the federal government has been heavily influenced by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation’s computer model, which has projected from 60,000 to 240,000 COVID-19 deaths in the U.S.

This epidemiological model is now being criticized as flawed and misleading as a source of public information and for government decision-making. Besides the institute’s model, all other COVID-19 models are grounded in important assumptions about which there is currently little knowledge.

Approaches other than models are needed to properly understand this pandemic.

One approach that has not been explored in any detail is the examination of deaths from all causes in addition to deaths from COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

Two major databases that track COVID-19 cases and deaths in the U.S., but not total mortality, are WorldOMeters and the Johns Hopkins University Hub. These trackers show major variation in COVID-19 mortality risk. 

For example, as of April 22, WorldOMeters showed 47,681 COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. (50 states and the District of Columbia) with a rate of 144 deaths per 1 million people.

However, note that 71% of the deaths have occurred in six high-risk states (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Louisiana, and Michigan) with 17% of U.S. residents and a death rate of 624 per million.

Ten percent have occurred in five medium-risk states (Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Maryland, and Indiana) and the District of Columbia with 12% of U.S. residents and a death rate of 124 per million, and 19% have occurred in the remaining 39 low-risk states with 71% of U.S. residents and a death rate of 40 per million.

It remains to be determined, however, whether these COVID-19 deaths have actually increased the total U.S. deaths this year. The best data on both COVID-19 deaths and total deaths in the U.S. come from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention‘s National Center for Health Statistics.

During the five weeks ending Feb. 1 through Feb. 29, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 282,084 total deaths, which were 96% of the expected deaths based on concurrent 2017-2019 deaths. During the five weeks ending March 7 to April 4, the CDC reported 273,798 total deaths, which were 96% of the expected deaths. 

Of the 9,474 COVID-19 deaths reported during these 10 weeks, 78.5% were among people over age 65, 21.4% were between the ages of 25 and 64, and only 0.1% were ages newborn to 24 years.

Those death counts through the end of March are preliminary, but they do not indicate that the total number of deaths in 2020 is greater than the comparable number of deaths during each of the three prior years.

Once the number of COVID-19 deaths and total deaths during the entire month of April are known, it will be clear whether there has been an increase in the total number of U.S. deaths this year.

One reason there may not be an increase in total deaths is because some deaths are being classified as COVID-19 deaths even when COVID-19 is not the underlying cause.

Normally, mortality statistics are compiled in accordance with World Health Organization regulations specifying that each death be assigned an underlying cause based on the current 10th revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases (ICD-10).

However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that COVID-19 deaths are being coded to ICD-10 code U07.1 when COVID-19 is reported as a cause that “contributed to” death on the death certificate, but is not necessarily the “underlying cause.” Also, some of those deaths do not have laboratory confirmation of COVID-19 infection.

Thus, it’s possible that the focus on COVID-19 deaths has resulted in a lower number of deaths from seasonal flu, pneumonia, and other causes, compared with the number that would normally occur this year.

The CDC has stated that the number of flu hospitalizations estimated for this season is lower than total hospitalization estimates for any season since the CDC began making these estimates.

Furthermore, it’s possible that the lethality of COVID-19 is no greater than that of the seasonal flu. 

A new Stanford University survey indicates that the population prevalence of COVID-19 in Santa Clara County, California, ranges from 2.5% to 4.2% and that the number of infected persons is 50 to 85 times the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases.

This preliminary finding suggests that at most 0.1% of infected persons will die from COVID-19, comparable to the seasonal flu death rate. Several other new studies indicate similarly lower fatality rates for COVID-19.

Americans need clarity. The federal government response to the coronavirus pandemic should not be based on flawed models, but rather on a localized public health approach that focuses on the high-risk areas of the United States and also on the high-risk elderly and those with comorbid conditions.

The emphasis should be on changes in personal behavior, such as staying at home for work or school if ill, covering coughs or sneezes, hand-washing, and avoiding those with respiratory symptoms.

Above all, the pandemic and COVID-19 deaths must be put in proper perspective, given the unprecedented societal and economic disruption of the current national lockdown.

SOURCE 

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

Coronavirus treatment: Antibody that blocks infection discovered

Researchers from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, as well as the Erasmus Medical Centre and the company Harbour BioMed (HBM), identified it as a potential method of neutralising COVID-19.

And while the team’s discovery was made on human cells grown in the laboratory, they are hopeful it will produce the same results in patients.

The breakthrough offers hope of a treatment or a vaccine for the deadly virus, which has infected more than 3.6 million worldwide and killed over 250,000 people.

Study co-lead author Professor Berend-Jan Bosch said the antibody targets the deadly bug’s infamous ‘spike protein’.

The virus hooks onto a locking point on human cells to insert its genetic material, make multiples copies of itself and spread throughout the body.

“Such a neutralising antibody has potential to alter the course of infection in the infected host, support virus clearance or protect an uninfected individual that is exposed to the virus,” Prof Bosch said

It could lead to a therapy that would be given to somebody immediately after they become infected or exposed.

The antibody binds to an enzyme called ACE2 which has been identified as the receptor COVID-19 latches onto when it attacks the body.

In tests, the monoclonal antibody neutralised SARS-CoV-2 – however, further studies are planned to see if the findings translate to the clinic.

Prof Bosch and his colleagues identified it from 51 cell lines from mice that had been engineered to carry human genes.

When they were exposed to different coronaviruses they produced antibodies to the spike protein.

Only one, named 47D11, destroyed both SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2. It was then turned into a human version.

Prof Bosch said: “This cross-neutralising feature of the antibody is very interesting and suggests it may have potential in mitigation of diseases caused by future emerging related coronaviruses.”

The study, published in Nature Communications, offers potential for “prevention and treatment of COVID-19,” said Prof Bosch.

It builds on almost two decades of work by the same team since the first SARS epidemic of 2002 which killed almost 800 people and infected over 8000.

Prof Bosch said: “Using this collection of SARS-CoV antibodies we identified an antibody that also neutralises infection of SARS-CoV-2 in cultured cells.”

“The antibody used in this work is ‘fully human’ – allowing development to proceed more rapidly and reducing the potential for immune-related side effects.”

Conventional therapeutic antibodies are first developed in other species and then must undergo additional work to ‘humanise’ them.

The therapy is being developed by Massachusetts-based global tech giant Harbour BioMed.

SOURCE 

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

IN BRIEF

Federal judge orders officials to restore New York primary, drawing cheers from Sanders camp (The Washington Post)

Gov. Gavin Newsom's office refuses records request on "murky" $1 billion mask deal with Chinese company (Fox News)

In 1991, Joe Biden voted to block creation of Senate office that handles sexual-harassment complaints (The Washington Free Beacon)

Nothing to see here — move along! Obama's office condemns Senate investigation into Ukraine, Biden (The Washington Post)

San Francisco police chief bans "thin blue line" face masks (PoliceOne)

Policy: Tom Cotton is right about restricting Chinese student visas (The Federalist)

Policy: Washington must preclude a flood of tort claims that threaten to kneecap the economy even further (City Journal)

Justice John Roberts and leftist colleagues wary of exemptions to birth-control mandate — an issue that shouldn't even exist in a country that cherishes religious liberty (The Washington Free Beacon)

Supreme Court reverses fraud convictions of Chris Christie aides in New Jersey "Bridgegate" scandal (CNBC)

The EU is facing its worst-ever recession; economy projected to shrink by 7.4% (The New York Times)

Health workers that volunteered to come to New York during pandemic have to pay state income tax, says socialist Governor Cuomo (PIX11)

Policy: Blame the federal government for militarized police crackdowns on citizen protests (Washington Examiner)

Policy: America needs to rediscover civics in education (E21)

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

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

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

Simple arithmetic demonstrates that the epidemic, outside nursing homes, is essentially over

Daniel Horowitz

We are weeks past the peak of coronavirus hospitalizations, yet the reported national death numbers keep rising 2,000 or more every single day. It made no sense to anyone who has followed the curves in any other country, but now we have our answer. The Hartford Courant reported that 90% of all deaths in Connecticut last week were in senior care facilities. This explains why these increased deaths don’t make sense with the reality of empty hospitals in most places.

This revelation should change everything we know about the current state of affairs with coronavirus. Governors are justifying the continued lockdown by pointing to rising deaths, sometimes significantly, in many states and counties. But it now appears, using simple arithmetic, that in most states, the overwhelming majority of deaths are in nursing homes, and in some states and counties, nearly every new death is in a senior facility. And in fact, even in nursing homes, it appears that while numbers are being recorded now, the actual deaths occurred earlier during the peak. Nothing else matters until this fact comes to life.

80%-90% of new deaths, 50%+ total deaths are in senior care facilities

As I reported yesterday, not only do deaths in nursing homes now compose more than 50% (and in some states as high as 80%) of total deaths from the beginning of the entire epidemic, that percentage is sharply increasing in every state day by day. This means that nearly all the new deaths, depending on the state, are occurring in nursing homes.

Every state has a recorded death count that you can track by date, but the recording of the subcategory of nursing home deaths is pretty new in most states, and there is no cumulative tally by date. Nonetheless, using news reports and data from previous dates, we can easily see how many of the new total deaths since then were from nursing homes.

Phil Kerpen has recorded these numbers in his Twitter account, and I have independently verified them by going to each state’s database.

Those are some state numbers of the total nursing home deaths in a respective state’s overall deaths since the beginning of the epidemic. But then you have Virginia, where there have been new recorded nursing home deaths that are higher than the entire total from the past week.

What this demonstrates is that not only are most new deaths occurring in nursing homes, some of them are also being backfilled into the count now that states are beginning to focus on nursing homes as an important demographic data point. This means that depending on the state, either some of the deaths weren’t originally recorded at all during the peak weeks, or they were recorded in the state’s total but because the patient died in a hospital, they weren’t initially listed as a nursing home death, even though the patient came from such a facility.

I’m seeing the same thing in my home state of Maryland. There have been 317 new recorded deaths in Maryland from April 28 through May 6, and 333 from nursing homes! Again, clearly, not only are there few coronavirus deaths outside nursing homes any more, but even some of the nursing home deaths are either being added retroactively to the state’s overall total or having the effect of revising the previously reported non-nursing home subtotal down because they are now researching past hospital deaths of nursing home patients.

For example, in Baltimore County, 124 of 149 total deaths occurred in these facilities. That is 83% of all deaths. But if you tally the numbers since April 29, there are 59 new nursing home deaths, even though the total county deaths only went up by 55.

Different states and counties have varying numbers. In Minnesota, for example, 89 percent of the new deaths recorded on Tuesday were in nursing homes. Some might not be quite as dramatic, but they tell the same story. The curve has long been flattened, the deaths have nearly stopped in most areas of the country outside nursing homes, and even in nursing homes, some of the numbers are being backfilled, and there are serious questions about the data and criteria for coding these deaths.

This is why some counties in Pennsylvania are asking the state to be transparent and separate out nursing home deaths from other deaths per day. They are being told they cannot open up because there are still people dying, but the question of whether the tragedy is largely confined to nursing homes or whether it’s widespread makes a huge difference. Most counties in Pennsylvania are seeing upwards of 80% of deaths occurring in nursing homes in recent days and weeks. The government of Livingston, New Jersey, is making the same request because 80% of all recorded deaths are occurring in long-term care facilities, and the growth of that share of the pie is accelerating every day.

I have checked over 30 states that produce data on nursing home deaths and have found that in each one, the share of deaths that nursing homes compose of the statewide total has dramatically increased to varying degrees over the past 1-3 weeks.

The implication is that there is no excuse whatsoever not to open up the country and throw all our resources at protecting nursing homes. But it also raises questions as to what is going on with the count in nursing homes.

A scary national death tally built on questionable nursing home data

Fox News reported on Tuesday regarding the New York numbers: “Exactly how many nursing home residents have died remains uncertain despite the state’s latest disclosure, as the list doesn’t include nursing home residents who were transferred to hospitals before dying.”

At least during the peak time, that could have been a large number, if not the majority of nursing home deaths. This could shed light on what is going on now. Could it be that the numbers aren’t surging quite as much as the toplines suggest, but that some states are now recording more prior deaths as nursing home deaths? The implication of this would mean that even the states that have less than 50% of deaths recorded from nursing homes, such as New York (it’s about 36%) might wind up all being over 50%. The Washington Post already predicts that more than half of the nation’s total deaths are in nursing homes. That would mean that no more than 36,000 deaths so far were ever from non-nursing home patients and that nearly none of them are now.

Then there is also the issue of reliability of the data. There are concerns overall that too many people who tested positive for COVID-19 but died of “a clear alternate cause,” to quote Illinois Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike, are being added to the count. However, this concern is magnified now that most of the numbers are coming from nursing homes. We know that once the virus gets into nursing homes, the overwhelming majority, if not all, of residents will test positive for the virus, as we’re seeing in other confined spaces, such as ships and prisons. While it is very deadly and dangerous for them, clearly not all who die in nursing homes are dying of COVID-19. People die fairly suddenly in nursing homes every day, probably more so than anywhere else.

Take New York’s nursing home death data, for example. States and counties began adding “presumptive” deaths to the overall fatality count in recent weeks. But usually the presumptive deaths are only a fraction of the confirmed deaths, and with New York’s overall total deaths, that fact is no different. Now, take a look at these numbers in New York just for nursing home deaths:

Confirmed: 2418

Presumed: 2585

There are actually more presumed deaths than confirmed deaths among the nursing home demographic. That is astounding. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to smell something fishy.

Remember, roughly 20%-24% of all deaths in America every year occur in nursing homes, and studies have shown that most die from dementia (36%), cardiovascular issues (30%), or pulmonary issues (23%). It’s very easy to see how, now that they are testing everyone in these homes, and most are likely testing positive, any typical death would be coded as a COVID-19 death.

Then there is the question of how many nursing home patients are dying now as a result of decisions by governors to force nursing homes to take back patients from hospitals after they tested positive for the virus. We know this had devastating results in the tristate area around New York City, and now Governor Gavin Newsom is doubling down on the same policy in California.

We need transparency

With our entire way of life destroyed because of false arithmetic and false science, what is the CDC doing with the tens of billions of dollars we gave it? At a minimum, they should publish a breakdown every day of the following:

How many nursing home residents died, as distinct from those who died among the general population, along with a state-by-state breakdown.

How many deaths occurred on the day they were recorded vs. how many were backfilled.

How many of the nursing home deaths are confirmed as having died as a result of the virus, as opposed to just having tested positive (like tens of millions of Americans who likely had the virus but didn’t get a severe case).

How many coronavirus patients were admitted straight from hospitals to nursing homes, broken down by state.

The results of any antibody serology tests the CDC has conducted (there’s no way they haven’t, and if they didn’t, that would be criminal) and a full breakdown of the real fatality rate, stratified for each cohort of age, gender, race, and health status. If they don’t have this data, then what is the purpose of throwing tens of billions at them?

A definitive national and state-by-state number of how many of the 72,000+ deaths were in long-term senior care facilities.

The reason we need independent conservative writers like me to investigate what should be the most publicized data ever is because our overlords do not want us to discover what these results would reveal.

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Herd immunity

Because of its virulence, wide spread and the many asymptomatic cases it causes, Covid-19 cannot be contained in the long run, and so all countries will eventually reach herd immunity. To think otherwise is naive and dangerous. General lockdown strategies can reduce transmission and death counts in the short term. But this strategy cannot be considered successful until lockdowns are removed without the disease resurging.

The choice we face is stark. One option is to maintain a general lockdown for an unknown amount of time until herd immunity is reached through a future vaccine or until there is a safe and effective treatment. This must be weighed against the detrimental effects that lockdowns have on other health outcomes. The second option is to minimise the number of deaths until herd immunity is achieved through natural infection. Most places are neither preparing for the former nor considering the latter.

The question is not whether to aim for herd immunity as a strategy, because we will all eventually get there. The question is how to minimise casualties until we get there. Since Covid-19 mortality varies greatly by age, this can only be accomplished through age-specific countermeasures. We need to shield older people and other high-risk groups until they are protected by herd immunity.

Among the individuals exposed to Covid-19, people aged in their 70s have roughly twice the mortality of those in their 60s, 10 times the mortality of those in their 50s, 40 times that of those in their 40s, 100 times that of those in their 30s, and 300 times that of those in their 20s. The over-70s have a mortality that is more than 3,000 times higher than children have. For young people, the risk of death is so low that any reduced levels of mortality during the lockdown might not be due to fewer Covid-19 deaths, but due to fewer traffic accidents.

Considering these numbers, people above 60 must be better protected, while restrictions should be loosened on those below 50. Older people who are vulnerable should stay at home. Food should be delivered and they should receive no visitors. Nursing homes should be isolated together with some of the staff until other staff who have acquired immunity can take over. Younger people should go back to work and school without older coworkers and teachers at their sides.

While the appropriate magnitude of countermeasures depends on time and place as it is necessary to avoid hospital overload, the measures should still be age-dependent. This is how we can minimise the number of deaths by the time this terrible pandemic is over.

Among anti-herders, it is popular to compare the current number of Covid-19 deaths by country and as a proportion of the population. Such comparisons are misleading, as they ignore the existence of herd immunity. A country much closer to herd immunity will ultimately do better even if their current death count is somewhat higher. The key statistic is instead the number of deaths per infected. Those data are still elusive, but comparisons and strategies should not be based on misleading data just because the relevant data are unavailable.

While it is not perfect, Sweden has come closest to an age-based strategy by keeping elementary schools, stores and restaurants open, while older people are encouraged to stay at home. Stockholm may become the first place to reach herd immunity, which will protect high-risk groups better than anything else until there is a cure or vaccine.

Herd immunity arrives after a certain still unknown percentage of the population has acquired immunity. Through long-term sustainable social distancing and better hygiene, like not shaking hands, this percentage can be lowered, saving lives. Such practices should be adopted by everyone.

Social distancing that cannot be permanently sustained is a different story. Some people will eventually be infected, and for every young low-risk person avoiding infection, there will ultimately be roughly one additional high-risk older person that is infected, increasing the death count.

Anti-vaxxers do not suffer the consequences of their beliefs, as they are protected by the herd immunity generated by the rest of us. Neither will the anti-herders, many of whom can afford to isolate themselves from Covid-19 until natural herd immunity is achieved by others. It is older and working-class people that disproportionately suffer from the current approach, becoming infected and thereby indirectly protecting much lower-risk college students and young professionals who are working from home.

The current one-size-fits-all lockdown approach is leading to unnecessary deaths. Protecting older people and other high-risk groups will be logistically and politically more difficult than isolating the young by closing schools and universities. But we must change course if we want to reduce suffering and save lives.

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.

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