Thursday, January 07, 2021
How Virus Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds of Thousands of Americans
Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, the media have spilled barrels of ink over mistakes by the federal government. We've heard endlessly about the failure to quickly ramp up testing, the confusion over mask-wearing and the debates over proper lockdown policy. But when the history of this time is written, the fundamental mistake made by the United States government won't be rhetorical excesses by the president or conflicting public health advice. It will be the same mistake the government always makes: trusting the bureaucracy.
We now know that the miraculous Moderna vaccine for COVID-19 had been designed by Jan. 13, 2020. That was just two days after the sequencing of the virus had been made public. As David Wallace-Wells writes for New York magazine, "the Moderna vaccine design took all of one weekend. ... By the time the first American death was announced a month later, the vaccine had already been manufactured and shipped to the National Institutes of Health for the beginning of its Phase I clinical trial." Meanwhile, for six weeks, Dr. Anthony Fauci assured Americans that there was little to worry about with COVID-19.
Fast-forward to the end of 2020. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died. Tens of thousands of Americans continue to die every week. The Food and Drug Administration has still not cleared the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which costs a fraction of the other vaccines (about $4 per dose, as opposed to $15 to $25 per dose for Moderna's vaccine or $20 per dose for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine). The FDA approval process cost us critical months, with thousands of Americans dying each day. As Dr. Marty Makary of Johns Hopkins University told me this week, "Safety is their eternal excuse. They are entirely a broken federal bureaucracy...Why did we not have a combined Phase I-Phase II clinical trial for these vaccines?"
This is an excellent question, of course. Phase I trials involve small numbers of participants, who are then monitored. Phase II trials involve larger numbers. Huge numbers of Americans would have volunteered for a combined Phase I-Phase II trial. And even after we knew the vaccines were effective, the FDA delayed. Data was collected by late October that suggested Phase II/III trials had been successful. The FDA quickly requested more results, which it did not receive until November. It then took until Dec. 11 for the FDA to issue emergency use authorization for the Pfizer vaccine. The Moderna vaccine wasn't cleared until Dec. 18, nearly a year after it had first been produced.
The disgrace continues. The government continues to hold back secondary doses of the vaccine, despite the fact that the first doses provide a significant effect. As Makary says, "We're in a war. The first dose gives immunity that may be as high as 80 to 90 percent protection, and we can probably give half the dose, as Dr. Moncef Slaoui suggested ... We can quadruple our supply overnight."
Meanwhile, states continue to be confused by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance on how to tranche out the vaccines. It took until nine days after the FDA authorized the Pfizer vaccine for the CDC to release its recommendations. Those recommendations were still complex and confusing and often rife with self-defeating standards -- even though it was perfectly obvious from the start that the solution ought to be based on age.
Americans have relied on the government -- a government supposedly comprised of well-meaning experts -- to get us through a pandemic. The government not only failed with conflicting information and incoherent lockdown policy but also actively obstructed the chief mechanism for ending the pandemic thanks to bureaucratic bloat. If Americans' takeaway from the COVID-19 pandemic is that centralized government is the all-purpose solution, they're taking precisely the lesson most likely to end in mass death in the future.
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Left media can’t admit Donald Trump was likely right on COVID lab creation
Comment from Australia
A Chinese virologist whistleblower who fled the country after leaving her job at a Hong Kong university claims coronavirus was “man-made” in a lab – and the communist nation released the virus “intentionally”.
Wait a second, this wasn’t supposed to happen. We were all supposed to believe that the COVID-19 pandemic just sort of happened when someone slaughtered the wrong animal too close to some other animal in Wuhan’s notoriously gruesome “wet markets”.
The idea that it may have been cooked up in a lab, even for legitimate purposes? The stuff of internet loonies, we were told.
Yet how things change.
Evidence is now building that in fact the coronavirus was cooked up in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, with the idea now being endorsed by US deputy national security adviser Michael Pottinger saying that there was “a growing body of evidence that the lab is likely the most credible source of the virus” — and that in Beijing, “even establishment figures … have openly dismissed the wet market story”.
This lends credence to the theory that the virus may have been created at the lab as part of legitimate scientific research that aims to cut up and recombine viruses in what are known as “gain of function” experiments designed to predict how viruses might evolve — and thus better counter their threat should that occur.
But it’s dangerous work. In 2014 a paper by scientists at Johns Hopkins University in the US called for a moratorium on such experiments, saying that “research that aims to create new potential pandemic pathogens … poses extraordinary potential risks to the public.”
You don’t say.
Now, like the credibility of doctors who used to advertise cigarettes, the preferred media narrative that no way could the coronavirus have slipped through the gates at the Wuhan Institute of Virology is falling apart.
And it hasn’t been helped by China’s response, blocking a World Health Organisation team from landing in Wuhan to investigate the pandemic’s origins.
As the possibility that the pandemic is China’s own Chernobyl, it’s worthwhile looking back at just how this theory of COVID-19’s origins has been dealt with in the leftist media.
After all, the idea that the virus escaped some lab where these things were being tinkered with, for whatever purpose, was popular with Trump and his supporters, making it automatically suspect.
Recall that before the latest round of trade sanctions and social media attacks, hawkishness on China was seen as a thing for the sabre-rattling right.
For the respectable left, it was far better to treat the coronavirus as the natural but unfortunate outcome of Wuhan’s exotic local food scene and make anyone who said otherwise out to be a war-hawk or a pariah.
To blame the communist state which, after all, was supposed to make us all wealthy while providing a counterbalance to a blustering America was unthinkable.
The [Austraian] ABC, naturally, led the charge to depict those who thought something fishy (or even batty, pardon the pun) was going on at the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a swivel-eyed lunatic or, even worse, a Trump supporter. “Coronavirus may have come from a Chinese lab, if you believe Donald Trump — but experts disagree”, sneered the headline on a piece by reporter Alan Weedon on April 18 of last year.
Ah yes, where would we be without “experts”?
A month later, after Sharri Markson reported for the The Daily Telegraph that a US State Department dossier suggested links between the coronavirus outbreak and the Chinese facility, the ABC again swept into action to shoot the story down.
“The document contained no new evidence linking the laboratory to the outbreak and instead relied on publicly available news and scientific journal papers,” the ABC’s Dylan Welch wrote.
Not to be outdone, the ABC’s Media Watch did not one but two hit pieces, one week apart, slamming the story as a “conspiracy theory” and citing condemnations of the reporting by everyone from Gareth Evans to Bob Carr.
The same pattern was repeated in leftward-listing newsrooms around the world where for the past four years Donald Trump has been Enemy Number One.
The Los Angeles Times told readers in May that “Like the virus whose origin it purports to explain, the following conjecture refuses to die: The novel coronavirus was cooked up in a Chinese lab.”
A Washington Post “fact check” (yes, really) that same month looked at the question “Was the Wuhan coronavirus accidentally released from a Wuhan lab?” and came up with the answer “It’s doubtful”.
This, as they say, is not journalism. It’s activism in plain sight, stemming from the simple equation that has governed so much of the news cycle for the past four years: If Trump says X, then not only must that X be false, it also must be driven into the ground and the earth above it salted so that nothing ever grows there again.
And it is pretty rich to see the ABC of all outlets getting all high and mighty about “conspiracy theories”.
Recall that the billion-dollar broadcaster spent wheelbarrows of cash pushing the greatest conspiracy theory of all (still taken as an article of faith by many on the left), namely, that Donald Trump was somehow an agent of Moscow.
This saw taxpayers fork out for everything from the “Russia, Are You Listening?” podcast to special three-part Four Corners humbly titled, “The Story of the Century”.
The great irony, of course, is that those on the left love to pride themselves on listening to facts and experts and what is pretentiously known as “the science”, while at the same time judging every piece of information’s worth by whether or not it serves their narrative.
There is nothing political about a lab accident; they might happen anywhere scientists are working with these sorts of viruses.
But there something deeply political, to say nothing of incredibly dangerous, about dismissing that possibility simply because it might vindicate the US president
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IN BRIEF
Well-deserved Medal of Freedom goes to Devin Nunes for "courageous" efforts to stop "plot" against Trump (Washington Times)
British prime minister imposes another national lockdown on England (CNBC)
Nearly one million excess deaths expected over next 15 years from pandemic rise in unemployment (Washington Examiner)
Google workers form union in latest show of discontent with evil tech giant (CBS News)
DC mayor calls in National Guard for Trump supporters but refused to during BLM/antifa riots (Post Millennial)
This just in: Trans women retain athletic edge after a year of hormone therapy, study finds (NBC News)
Nothing to see here... Hunter Biden email associate is on DOJ transition team (Washington Times)
Census Bureau misses year-end deadline for delivering numbers for House seats (NPR)
U.S. votes against UN budget over anti-Israel measure, lack of Iran action (Fox News)
Pelosi just proposed banning gendered terms like "father, mother, son, daughter" in the House. Yet she has "mother" and "grandmother" in her Twitter bio. (Not the Bee)
Novavax starts late-stage trial of vaccine in United States (Reuters) | UK authorizes Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine (NY Times)
New Mexico fines two churches $10,000 each for Christmas Eve services (Disrn)
ICE deports more than 185,000 illegal aliens and 4,200 gang members in 2020 (Breitbart) | ICE says arrestees had average of four criminal convictions or charges each (Fox News)
Mom and pop landlords struggle through eviction freeze (Washington Examiner)
Britain's trade agreement with the European Union enters legal force (UPI)
Portland mayor, antifa enabler now asks for federal and state help against "radical Antifa" (Disrn)
Emancipation Memorial honoring freed slaves in Boston officially removed (Disrn)
New York City shootings doubled in 2020 (Washington Examiner)
Chicago ends 2020 with 769 homicides (AP)
Massachusetts allows abortions without parental consent, codifies Roe v. Wade (Disrn) | Meanwhile, Ohio governor signs bill requiring cremation or burial of aborted babies (Disrn)
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http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC) Saturdays only
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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Wednesday, January 06, 2021
FDA Admits PCR Tests Give False Results, Prepares Ground For Biden To "Crush" Casedemic
Tyler Durden points out that most Covid "positive" test results are false positives
The FDA today joined The WHO and Dr.Fauci in admitting there is a notable risk of false results from the standard PCR-Test used to define whether an individual is a COVID "Case" or not.
This matters significantly as it fits perfectly with the 'fake rescue' plan we have previously described would occur once the Biden admin took office. But before we get to that 'conspiracy', we need a little background on how the world got here...
We have detailed the controversy surrounding America's COVID "casedemic" and the misleading results of the PCR test and its amplification procedure in great detail over the past few months.
As a reminder, "cycle thresholds" (Ct) are the level at which widely used polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test can detect a sample of the COVID-19 virus. The higher the number of cycles, the lower the amount of viral load in the sample; the lower the cycles, the more prevalent the virus was in the original sample.
Numerous epidemiological experts have argued that cycle thresholds are an important metric by which patients, the public, and policymakers can make more informed decisions about how infectious and/or sick an individual with a positive COVID-19 test might be. However, as JustTheNews reports, health departments across the country are failing to collect that data.
Here are a few headlines from those experts and scientific studies:
1. Experts compiled three datasets with officials from the states of Massachusetts, New York and Nevada that conclude:“Up to 90% of the people who tested positive did not carry a virus."
2. The Wadworth Center, a New York State laboratory, analyzed the results of its July tests at the request of the NYT: 794 positive tests with a Ct of 40: “With a Ct threshold of 35, approximately half of these PCR tests would no longer be considered positive,” said the NYT. “And about 70% would no longer be considered positive with a Ct of 30! “
3. An appeals court in Portugal has ruled that the PCR process is not a reliable test for Sars-Cov-2, and therefore any enforced quarantine based on those test results is unlawful.
4. A new study from the Infectious Diseases Society of America, found that at 25 cycles of amplification, 70% of PCR test "positives" are not "cases" since the virus cannot be cultured, it's dead. And by 35: 97% of the positives are non-clinical.
5. PCR is not testing for disease, it's testing for a specific RNA pattern and this is the key pivot. When you crank it up to 25, 70% of the positive results are not really "positives" in any clinical sense, since it cannot make you or anyone else sick
So, in summary, with regard to our current "casedemic", positive tests as they are counted today do not indicate a “case” of anything. They indicate that viral RNA was found in a nasal swab. It may be enough to make you sick, but according to the New York Times and their experts, probably won’t. And certainly not sufficient replication of the virus to make anyone else sick. But you will be sent home for ten days anyway, even if you never have a sniffle. And this is the number the media breathlessly reports... and is used to fearmonger mask mandates and lockdowns nationwide...
In October we first exposed how PCR Tests have misled officials worldwide into insanely authoritative reactions.
As PJMedia's Stacey Lennox wrote, the “casedemic" is the elevated number of cases we see nationwide because of a flaw in the PCR test. The number of times the sample is amplified, also called the cycle threshold (Ct), is too high.
It identifies people who do not have a viral load capable of making them ill or transmitting the disease to someone else as positive for COVID-19.
The New York Times reported this flaw on August 29 and said that in the samples they reviewed from three states where labs use a Ct of 37-40, up to 90% of tests are essentially false positives. The experts in that article said a Ct of around 30 would be more appropriate for indicating that someone could be contagious - those for whom contact tracing would make sense.
Just a few days earlier, the CDC had updated its guidelines to discourage testing for asymptomatic individuals. It can only be assumed that the rationale for this was that some honest bureaucrat figured out the testing was needlessly sensitive. He or she has probably been demoted.
This change was preceded by a July update that discouraged retesting for recovered patients. The rationale for the update was that viral debris could be detected using the PCR test for 90 days after recovery. The same would be true for some period of time if an individual had an effective immune response and never got sick. Existing immunity from exposure to other coronaviruses has been well documented. These are many of your “asymptomatic” cases.
However, due to political pressure and corporate media tantrums, the new guidance on testing was scrapped, and testing for asymptomatic individuals is now recommended again. Doctors do not receive the Ct information from the labs to make a diagnostic judgment. Neither the CDC nor the FDA has put out guidelines for an accurate Ct to diagnose a contagious illness accurately.
Hence, our current “casedemic.” Positive tests as they are counted today do not indicate a “case” of anything. They indicate that viral RNA was found in a nasal swab. It may be enough to make you sick, but according to the New York Times and their experts, probably won’t. And certainly not sufficient replication of the virus to make anyone else sick. But you will be sent home for ten days anyway, even if you never have a sniffle. And this is the number the media breathlessly reports.
A month later, Dr. Pascal Sacré, explained in great detail how all current propaganda on the COVID-19 pandemic is based on an assumption that is considered obvious, true and no longer questioned: Positive RT-PCR test means being sick with COVID.
This assumption is misleading. Very few people, including doctors, understand how a PCR test works.
In mid-November, none other than he who should not be questioned - Dr. Anthony Fauci - admitted that the PCR Test's high Ct is misleading:
“What is now sort of evolving into a bit of a standard,” Fauci said, is that “if you get a cycle threshold of 35 or more … the chances of it being replication-confident are minuscule.”
“It’s very frustrating for the patients as well as for the physicians,” he continued, when “somebody comes in, and they repeat their PCR, and it’s like [a] 37 cycle threshold, but you almost never can culture virus from a 37 threshold cycle.”
So, I think if somebody does come in with 37, 38, even 36, you got to say, you know, it’s just dead nucleotides, period.”
So, if anyone raises this discussion as a "conspiracy", refer them to Dr.Fauci.
In response to this and the actual "science", Florida's Department of Health (and signed off on by Florida's Republican Governor Ron deSantis), decided that for the first time in the history of the pandemic, a state will require that all labs in the state report the critical “cycle threshold” level of every COVID-19 test they perform.
All of which leads us to today's announcement from The FDA...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is alerting patients and health care providers of the risk of false results... with the Curative SARS-Cov-2 test.
And why does this matter?
Well it's simple - this is how the establishment can show Joe Biden's plan is miraculously rescue the world.
We explained the "fake rescue" plan in October.
The Fake Rescue
Biden will issue national standards, like the plexiglass barriers in restaurants he spoke about during the debate, and pressure governors to implement mask mandates using the federal government’s financial leverage (NOTE: his 100-day mask-wearing 'mandate' is already in play).
Some hack at the CDC or FDA will issue new guidance lowering the Ct the labs use, and cases will magically start to fall.
In reality, the change will only eliminate false positives, but most Americans won’t know that.
Good old Uncle Joe will be the hero, even though it is Deep-State actors in the health bureaucracies who won’t solve a problem with testing they have been aware of for months. TDS is a heck of a drug.
So, there you have it folks... First Fauci, then WHO, now FDA all admit there is malarkey in the PCR Tests, but have - until now, done nothing about it... allowing the daily fearmongering of soaring "cases" to enable their most twisted 1984-esque controls.
All that's needed now is for one of these estemeed groups to decide to cut the Ct for a "positive" PCR Test to say 15x or 20x and suddenly, we are rescued from the "Dark Winter" as Biden's plan slashes the positive case count dramatically... we are saved.
As an aside, this also clearly explains the disappearance of the "flu" during this season as the plethora of high Ct PCR Tests supposedly pointing to a surge in COVID are nothing of the sort.
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I Now Better Understand the 'Good German'
BY DENNIS PRAGER
As my listeners and readers can hopefully attest, I have been on a lifelong quest to understand human nature and human behavior. I am sad to report that I have learned more in the last few years, particularly in 2020, than in any equivalent period of time.
One of the biggest revelations concerns a question that has always plagued me: How does one explain the “good German,” the term used to describe the average, presumably decent German, who did nothing to hurt Jews but also did nothing to help them and did nothing to undermine the Nazi regime? The same question could be asked about the average Frenchman during the Vichy era, the average Russian under Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Leonid Brezhnev and their successors, and the millions of others who did nothing to help their fellow citizens under oppressive dictatorships.
These past few years have taught me not to so quickly judge the quiet German, Russian, etc. Of course, I still judge Germans who helped the Nazis and Germans who in any way hurt Jews. But the Germans who did nothing? Not so fast.
What has changed my thinking has been watching what is happening in America (and Canada and Australia and elsewhere, for that matter).
The ease with which tens of millions of Americans have accepted irrational, unconstitutional and unprecedented police state-type restrictions on their freedoms, including even the freedom to make a living, has been, to understate the case, sobering.
The same holds true for the acceptance by most Americans of the rampant censorship on Twitter and all other major social media platforms. Even physicians and other scientists are deprived of freedom of speech if, for example, they offer scientific support for hydroxychloroquine along with zinc to treat COVID-19 in the early stages. Board-certified physician Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, who has saved hundreds of COVID-19 patients from suffering and/or death, has been banned from Twitter for publicizing his lifesaving hydroxychloroquine and zinc protocol.
Half of America, the nonleft half, is afraid to speak their minds at virtually every university, movie studio and large corporation — indeed, at virtually every place of work. Professors who say anything that offends the left fear being ostracized if they have tenure and being fired if they do not. People are socially ostracized, publicly shamed and/or fired for differing with Black Lives Matter, as America-hating and white-hating a group as has ever existed. And few Americans speak up. On the contrary, when BLM protestors demand that diners outside of restaurants raise their fists to show their support of BLM, nearly every diner does.
So, then, who are we to condemn the average German who faced the Gestapo if he didn’t salute Hitler or the average Russian who faced the NKVD (the secret police and intelligence agency that preceded the KGB) if he didn’t demonstrate sufficient enthusiasm for Stalin? Americans face the left’s cancel culture, but not left-wing secret police or reeducation camps. (At least not yet — I have little doubt the left would send outspoken conservatives to reeducation camps if they could.)
I have come to understand the average German living under Nazism and the average Russian living under communism for another reason: the power of the media to brainwash.
As a student of totalitarianism since my graduate studies at the Russian Institute of Columbia University’s School of International Affairs (as it was then known), I have always believed that only in a dictatorship could a society be brainwashed. I was wrong. I now understand that mass brainwashing can take place in a nominally free society. The incessant left-wing drumbeat of The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and almost every other major newspaper, plus The Atlantic, The New Yorker, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, NPR, all of Hollywood and almost every school from kindergarten through graduate school, has brainwashed at least half of America every bit as effectively as the German, Soviet and Chinese communist press did (and in the latter case, still does). That thousands of schools will teach the lie that is the New York Times’ “1619 Project” is one of countless examples.
Prior to the lockdowns, I flew almost every week of the year, so I was approached by people who recognized me on a regular basis. Increasingly, I noticed that people would look around to see if anyone was within earshot and then tell me in almost a whisper: “I support Trump” or, “I’m a conservative.” The last time people looked around and whispered things to me was when I used to visit the Soviet Union.
In Quebec this past weekend, as one can see on a viral video, a family was fined and members arrested because six — yes, six — people gathered to celebrate the new year. A neighbor snitched on them, and the celebrants were duly arrested. The Quebec government lauded the snitches and asked for more public “collaboration.”
Snitches are likewise lauded and encouraged in some Democrat-run states and cities in America (Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti in March: “Snitches get rewards”) and by left-wing governments in Australia. Plenty of Americans, Canadians and Australians are only too happy to snitch on people who refuse to lock down their lives.
All this is taking place without concentration camps, without a Gestapo, without a KGB and without Maoist reeducation camps.
That’s why I no longer judge the average German as easily as I used to. Apathy in the face of tyranny turns out not to be a German or Russian characteristic. I just never thought it could happen in America.
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http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC) Saturdays only
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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Tuesday, January 05, 2021
Mask Mandates Aren’t Working As Promised
SUMMARY A surge in COVID-19 cases in the United States and Europe has prompted calls for a national mask mandate here in America. Advocates of government edicts have asserted that these would bring the pandemic “under control” in a matter of weeks. The authors of this Backgrounder found that 97 of the 100 counties with the most confirmed cases had mask mandates. Nor did a national mask mandate prevent a surge in Italy. These findings do not deny the efficacy of mask-wearing, nor should they discourage the practice. Instead, they point to the inadequacy of public health strategies that rely too heavily on lockdowns and mask mandates. Governments should undertake more effective interventions, such as specifically protecting nursing home residents, enabling nationwide screening through use of rapid self-tests, and establishing voluntary isolation centers where infected people can recover, rather than exposing their families to infection.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
A surge in COVID-19 cases in the United States and Europe has prompted calls for a national mask mandate here in America. Advocates of government edicts have asserted that these would bring the pandemic “under control” in a matter of weeks.
Public health officials here and throughout most of the world believe that mask-wearing has some value in reducing the rate at which the pandemic spreads. Accepting this premise, however, does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that government mask mandates will bring the contagion under control.
This Backgrounder examines the effects of mask mandates in the U.S. and Italy. While there is no national mask mandate in the U.S., many states and counties have imposed them. We (the authors) find that, of the 25 counties reporting the highest numbers of new cases during this latest surge, 21 had mask mandates in place since at least July.
Italy does have a national mask mandate that is backed by fines of up to 1,000 euros for non-compliance. We find that the mandate did not prevent a surge in cases in Italy that began in October, peaked in mid-November, and had not yet subsided in mid-December.
These findings do not deny the efficacy of mask-wearing per se. Nor should they discourage the practice.
Instead, they point to the inadequacy of public health strategies that rely predominantly on lockdowns and mask mandates. Governments should undertake more effective interventions. These include adopting better measures to protect nursing home residents, enabling nationwide screening through the widespread use of rapid self-tests, and establishing voluntary isolation centers where infected people can recover, rather than exposing their families to infection.
The Value of Masks
Mask-wearing has become a highly politicized practice in the U.S. Some detractors consider it an emblem of social submission. Others, such as Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield, see masks as the best way to get the pandemic under control: “I think if we could get everybody to wear a mask now,” Redfield said in July, “I think in four, six, eight weeks, we could bring this epidemic under control.
Mask-wearing has thus inspired both enthusiasm and revulsion that likely exaggerates its significance.
The CDC in general is a bit more tempered about mask-wearing than its Director. While the CDC has changed its guidance on masks numerous times throughout the pandemic, the agency’s recommendation (as of November 20) endorses mask-wearing both to reduce the risk of infecting others and to protect uninfected people from the contagion.
The discussion of CDC guidance on mask-wearing represents claims that the agency made as of November 20, 2020. As noted, the agency changes its views frequently, and likely will continue to do so.
The CDC and other public health authorities in the U.S. and abroad have been trying to determine the relative efficacy of mask-wearing for two different, though related, purposes. The first is “source control”—meaning the extent to which wearing a mask prevents an infected individual from spreading the virus. The second is “protection”—meaning the extent to which wearing a mask protects an uninfected individual from contracting the virus.
The CDC has, for many months, believed that masks have “source control” value. More specifically, it advises that “multi-layer cloth masks block release of exhaled respiratory particles into the environment.”
Ibid.
According to this theory, by reducing the speed and volume of droplets that an infected person releases into the environment, masks help to protect the uninfected from the infected.
Since November 20, 2020, the CDC has also asserted that masks provide some protection for uninfected people who wear them: “Cloth mask materials can also reduce wearers’ exposure to infectious droplets through filtration.”
Ibid.
The CDC bases its mask guidance on “experimental and epidemiological data,” rather than controlled studies
Experimental data is collected, for example, by squirting an aerosol through a cloth mask and measuring how far particles travel. Epidemiological studies or, as the CDC calls them, “real world” data, generally involve case studies of transmission.
In perhaps the most famous of these, two St. Louis hairstylists who had COVID-19 wore masks while they continued to service customers. They saw 139 clients over eight days. Of those, 67 consented to follow-up testing. None of those 67 tested positive for COVID-19.7
The CDC assigns great weight to this study.
One drawback of these studies is that they lack a control group. Danish researchers recently published the only controlled study of mask-wearing. It tests the hypothesis that wearing a mask protects uninfected people.
The researchers conducted the study, in which 6,000 Danes participated, in spring 2020, before Denmark instituted a mask mandate. The control group followed existing social distancing guidelines but did not wear masks. Researchers provided the experimental group with high-quality surgical masks with a filtration rate of 98 percent and instructed participants to wear them outside their homes.
Those who completed the study underwent COVID-19 tests one month later. Researchers found that 1.8 percent of those in the mask-wearing group tested positive, while 2.1 percent of the control group did. The results were not statistically significant. The researchers concluded that mask-wearing is compatible with a range of outcomes—from a 46 percent reduction in infections to a 23 percent increase.
Although the Annals of Internal Medicine published the study on November 18, the CDC did not cite it in its November 20 revised mask guidance. The Danish study casts doubt on the CDC’s advice about the protective value of masks.
In sum, some studies support the source control value of masks, though none of those studies are controlled. Source control benefits also align with common sense: A face-covering will reduce the speed and distance that an infected person’s droplets travel. The prevention value of masks is less well attested, and the only controlled study of the hypothesis contradicts it.
Much more here:
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The Media Is Lying About Trump's Call with Georgia Secretary of State
Over the past couple of days, media headlines have tried to convey the impression that a leaked phone call between President Trump and top Georgia officials shows Trump pressuring Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to fraudulently “find” enough votes for him to win the state.
“Trump pressures Georgia’s Raffensperger to overturn his defeat in extraordinary call” read the headline from the Washington Post.
CNN called the leaked audio “astonishing new evidence of a desperate President Donald Trump” trying to “steal the election,” claiming Trump “tried to bully” Raffensperger “into finding votes” for him.
But a review of the transcript of the call shows no such thing. The Washington Post claimed that Trump “repeatedly urged [Raffensperger] to alter the outcome of the presidential vote in the state,” but that isn’t what happened.
Throughout the conversation, Trump lays out the evidence that there was voter fraud in the state, and demands an honest accounting of the ballots, which he believes would give him more than 11,000 votes needed to win the state. “I just want to find 11,780 votes,” is the key quote cited by the media, but there’s more to the quote.
“So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state,” is what Trump said, in context. He also insisted that “there’s no way I lost Georgia. There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes.”
During the conversation, Trump laid out the evidence, explaining how there “4,502 voters who voted but who weren’t on the voter registration list,” and “18,325 vacant address voters” whose votes should not have been counted. He even mentioned 904 votes linked to post office boxes, which is also not allowed. Trump also mentioned the State Farm videotape that corresponds to a late-night vote dump of at least 18,000 votes which were counted after Republican poll watchers were told to leave. Trump brought up nearly 5,000 out-of-state votes, 2,326 absentee ballots sent to vacant addresses, and roughly 5,000 votes from dead people. Then there are the suspicious military ballots that went all for Biden.
“So there were many infractions, and the bottom line is, many, many times the 11,779 margin that they said we lost by — we had vast, I mean the state is in turmoil over this,” Trump said on the call.
Raffensperger disputed Trump’s claims, saying that only two dead people voted, that the State Farm video didn’t actually show fraud. Raffensperger also claimed that an audit showed that there weren’t any ballots that were scanned three times.
While it’s true that not all of these allegations by Trump’s team may pan out or be proven, the allegations are linked to many thousands of votes and should be investigated properly. Yes, Trump did acknowledge that he’d only need roughly 12,000 votes to change the result, but that margin is smaller than the number of disputed ballots. “Look, Brad. I got to get . . . I have to find 12,000 votes, and I have them times a lot. And therefore, I won the state. That’s before we go to the next step, which is in the process of right now. You know, and I watched you this morning, and you said, well, there was no criminality.”
Trump very clearly believes that he legitimately won Georgia, and wasn’t asking Raffensperger to fraudulently “find” enough ballots to make up that margin. Trump discussed at length the examples of fraud, which are backed up by video evidence, affidavits, and statistical analyses.
Like the transcript with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky that Democrats impeached him over, this phone call is yet another nothingburger that has the media and the left crying foul. There’s already a Wikipedia page for the “Trump-Raffensperger scandal.” Democrats are reportedly looking to censure Trump and have asked FBI Director Wray to open a criminal probe. But Trump quite clearly presented evidence that there was fraud, and made the case that the number of disputed ballots is larger than his deficit in the certified results. A proper investigation would resolve these outstanding questions about these disputed ballots.
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The Worst Argument Ever
Rob Jenkins
As a professional rhetorician and teacher of rhetoric—the art of persuasion—for over 35 years, I have seen a lot of bad arguments. And not all of them have come from my college students. Not by a long shot.
But in all that time, the worst argument I have ever heard, by far, is this one: “If it only saves one life….”
It’s a line big-government types love to trot out whenever they want good-hearted, well-meaning people to accept some sketchy, illogical, oppressive measure because, you know, it just might save one person’s life. An example is socialized medicine, which would make health care worse for far more people than it helped.
Unfortunately, even many conservatives fall for this line, because they’re generally good-hearted, well-meaning people. Yet in almost every case, it is a bad argument, even a ridiculous argument, for several reasons.
First, it is completely irrational, based solely on emotion. It says nothing about the actual merits of the policy or proposition being put forward. It merely attempts to tug at people’s heartstrings — no one wants to see anybody die, right? — while making those who would oppose the idea on moral or logical grounds appear cruel.
Basically, it’s a form of ad hominem attack, a way to make your opponent look bad without actually addressing what they’re saying—probably because you can’t argue the point logically.
Along with that, the “if it only saves one life” argument is also self-righteous and condescending. It’s not only a way of making your opponent look (and hopefully feel) bad, it’s a way of making yourself look better — as if you, and only you, really care about people. Anyone who disagrees with your (cockamamie) idea obviously just wants people to die.
But mostly it’s a bad argument because it’s disingenuous, at the very least, if not downright hypocritical. For example, those who want to ban “assault rifles” because doing so “might save one life” wouldn’t dream of banning alcohol, even though alcohol kills far more people than AR-15s. So do knives. So do falls, for that matter.
Here’s an idea: Let’s just ban ladders. No? Why not? After all, if it just saves one life, it’s worth it, right? What are you, heartless?
https://townhall.com/columnists/robjenkins/2021/01/04/the-worst-argument-ever-n2582491
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Sunday, January 03, 2021
New Approaches Besides Lockdowns Show Promise in Fighting COVID
New knowledge in the treatment and prevention of COVID-19 is renewing hope that the public will no longer have to endure drastic mitigation efforts such as lockdowns, government-enforced social distancing, and mask mandates.
Within months, with huge incentives under the Trump administration’s “Operation Warp Speed,” two U.S. drugmakers announced successful trials of their vaccines. The first, announced by Pfizer and BioNTech, was found to be more than 90 percent effective in preventing COVID-19. Moderna announced on November 16 an analysis showing its vaccine is 94.5 percent effective. On November 23, U.K. drugmaker AstraZeneca should results of a study indicating its vaccine has an average efficacy of 70 percent.
On the treatment side, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration this fall approved two drugs that must be administered in the hospital. Remdesivir is an antiviral therapy infused into patients, and bamlaanivimab is a monoclonal antibody treatment.
Researchers are also learning much from studies on how cocktails of existing drugs, antivirals, antibiotics, steroids, zinc, and vitamins are keeping COVID patients out of the hospital altogether. The FDA and National Institutes of Health have yet to approve an early outpatient approach using the drug hydroxychloroquine.
Vaccine Development Hurdles
In the early stages of the pandemic, public health authorities were at a loss as to how to respond to the threat. Mitigation efforts such as social distancing and mask use were easy, inexpensive go-to measures that showed a low risk of adverse results while helping keep the public safe.
Other mitigation measures had much more drastic consequences. Numerous states shut down schools and businesses and limited the size of public gatherings. Several states ordered citizens to wear masks in public.
A vaccine eliminating the need for such protection seemed like the ideal solution, but development is rife with challenges.
Vaccines go through a strenuous, three-stage clinical trial process before they are sent to regulatory agencies for final approval. Vaccines have to be not only effective but also safe.
Manufacturing and distribution is another big challenge. All vaccines currently under development appear to require two doses. To get to a level where the virus is no longer a public health threat, so-called herd immunity, billions of people would have to receive a vaccine, twice each. Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine must be stored at minus-94 degrees Fahrenheit, requiring special storage equipment and transportation which will make it very difficult for some countries to distribute.
Trust, Distrust, Mandates
Another significant challenge is public trust. In May, a survey of more than 1,000 people conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found 51 percent had not decided or were unsure about whether they would take a COVID-19 vaccine. Many respondents cited concerns about possible side effects and the speed at which the vaccine was produced possibly affecting its quality.
More information about vaccine side effects will be known after Phase 4 trials, which begin after a drug has been approved and is on the market.
Talks of mandating the COVID-19 vaccine have continued to circulate as states begin to prepare for vaccine distribution, with some considering laws that would allow employers to fire employees who choose not to get vaccinated.
Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) took to Twitter to speak out against possible vaccine mandates, stating, “Americans should have the freedom to take the COVID vaccine. Americans should also have the freedom to decline the vaccine.”
Early Treatment Alternatives
A successful vaccine is not the only way out of the pandemic. Medical providers around the globe have been successfully treating COVID-19 with low doses of existing drugs and vitamins during the early stages of infection.
One treatment that has garnered particular attention is hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a drug used for decades to treat malaria and even autoimmune disorders such as lupus. The NIH and FDA have singled out this drug for particular condemnation, stating they discourage the use of hydroxychloroquine in treating COVID-19. On June 15, the FDA revoked the emergency use authorization for donated and stockpiled HCQ to be used on hospitalized patients with COVID-19 outside of clinical treatment trials
As a result, numerous states have limited, restricted, or banned off-label use of HCQ in outpatient settings during the early stages of infection.
Data on the drug from trials around the globe proves the restrictions are unwise, says Steven Hatfill, M.D., a virologist and adjunct assistant professor at the George Washington University Medical Center.
“There are now 53 studies that show positive results of hydroxychloroquine in COVID infections,” Hatfill wrote on August 4 in Real Clear Politics. “There are 14 global studies that show neutral or negative results—and 10 of them were of patients in very late stages of COVID-19, where no antiviral drug can be expected to have much effect.”
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Swedish Covid-19 data exposes our fatal lockdown hysteria
Economist SANJEEV SABHLOK comments from Australia:
Three months ago I resigned as an economist in the Victorian Department of Treasury and Finance to protest against disproportionate public health measures by Daniel Andrews that had led to a police state. Information has since become available that makes these policies even less justified.
As I have written previously, this pandemic is not the Spanish flu. Data is now telling us that it is not even in the league of the Hong Kong flu.
In May, modellers had said Sweden would experience more than 100,000 additional deaths from COVID this year, with 96,000 additional deaths by July if lockdowns were not imposed.
Fortunately for the Swedes, their policy is led by arguably the world’s best epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell. He followed the standard approach found in all official pandemic plans, including in Australia. Tegnell did not impose coercive lockdowns or close borders. And no masks, no quarantines. He tried to shield the elderly while flattening the curve by slowing the spread of the virus.
Since Sweden is almost the only country in which the coronavirus was allowed “to let rip”, this pandemic’s true magnitude will be conclusively known from its annual mortality statistics.
Official Swedish mortality data as at December 18 is available at https://bit.ly/36sV3cE . After controlling for recent under-reporting, I estimate Sweden will end up with about 97,000 deaths this year. Long-term trends suggest Sweden would have had about 92,500 deaths this year, so there will be about 4500 additional deaths this year, a far cry from the models.
Note that these 4500 excess deaths are well below the 8300 officially reported COVID deaths to date. And these 4500 additional deaths are not all COVID deaths. Sweden’s Public Health Agency noted in October that “the 2019-2020 influenza season was mild”. As a result, 3419 fewer people died in Sweden last year than in 2018. Many of the frail among these 3419 survivors last year would have died this year anyway. Of its own accord, therefore, COVID has caused a much smaller number of deaths than these 4500 additional deaths. Sweden’s average two-year death rate in 2020 will be around 0.92 per cent, the second lowest in the past 10 years.
One struggles from this analysis to identify a serious pandemic in Sweden: just a bad flu, milder than the Hong Kong flu.
When I outlined this to an international panel on December 10, British MP Andrew Percy demurred and said the UK had experienced proportionately many more excess deaths than Sweden. It has, but analysis for nations other than Sweden needs to account for the additional deaths caused by the hysteria drummed up by governments and their coercive lockdowns.
As I have explained in my book, The Great Hysteria and the Broken State, and in my 68,000-word complaint to the International Criminal Court, lockdowns have likely killed two million people and shortened the lives of hundreds of millions.
Lockdowns kill in many ways, including by causing additional COVID deaths. For instance, the Victorian government spent most of its effort during the lockdowns in restricting the movement of the young, who were never at risk, while ignoring aged-care homes. This led to hundreds of avoidable COVID deaths. Australia’s governments went “all in” on a hunch in March on the basis of models, all of which turned out to be wrong — as they have always been in the past.
Our governments also shut their eyes to the data, which has been telling us a different story since mid-April, ending up in perhaps the biggest policy blunder in Australia’s history.
Moreover, I have discovered during my research that community-wide cordons have been used only once in the past 500 years: for Ebola in 2014 in Africa. But only “very small-scale cordons” — comparable to quarantines — were found to be effective by an evaluation, not the larger-scale lockdowns. When lockdowns are rejected by the science even for a lethal virus such as Ebola, the idea of lockdowns being applied for a flu-like virus does not arise. That is why lockdowns were never part of any official pandemic plan, nor were indefinite international border closures.
Scott Morrison wants to keep Australia’s borders closed and freeze the virus at a level of zero until everyone is vaccinated. But such a policy is preposterous, apart from being unlawful. Section 5 of the Biosecurity Act 2015 states the “appropriate level of protection for Australia is a high level of sanitary and phytosanitary protection aimed at reducing biosecurity risks to a very low level, but not to zero”.
In 2013, British epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta had shown that major pandemics are behind us because international cross-mingling boosts immunity. Minor viruses, however, cannot be avoided.
Are we going to close Australia for every bad flu in the future? We must get back the spunk we lost during this Great Hysteria and resume our normal life as a proudly rational, thinking Western nation. We must reassert our faith in freedom and reason, and end our embrace of the cowardly, totalitarian, zombie ways of the communist Chinese government.
Since 80 per cent of COVID deaths in Sweden have occurred among those over 75, people in this age group should continue to be sheltered and offered the vaccine. To mandate it for others would be yet another display of intellectual and spiritual cowardice.
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Democrats Have Objected to Electoral Vote Certification for the Last Three GOP Presidents
Democrats are outraged that Republicans are planning on objecting to the certification of electoral votes. It’s “conspiracy and fantasy,” says Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
“The effort by the sitting president of the United States to overturn the results is patently undemocratic,” the New York Democrat said. “The effort by others to amplify and burnish his ludicrous claims of fraud is equally revolting.”
There’s only one problem with Chucky’s “argument based on fact and reason.” Democrats have been challenging the electoral vote certification for two decades.
The last three times a Republican has been elected president — Trump in 2016 and George W. Bush in both 2000 and 2004 — Democrats in the House have brought objections to the electoral votes in states the GOP nominee won. In early 2005 specifically, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., along with Rep. Stephanie Tubbs, D-Ohio, objected to Bush’s 2004 electoral votes in Ohio.
Illinois Senator Dick Durbin appears to be even more incensed at Senator Josh Hawley’s plan to object to the Electoral College vote. “The political equivalent of barking at the moon,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said of Hawley joining the challenge to electoral slates. “This won’t be taken seriously, nor should it be. The American people made a decision on Nov. 3rd and that decision must and will be honored and protected by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.”
Brave Sir Dick seems to forget he was singing a different tune in 2005. Then, it was Democrats questioning the results of the Ohio vote, which went narrowly for George Bush.
Durbin had words of praise for Boxer then:
“Some may criticize our colleague from California for bringing us here for this brief debate,” Durbin said on the Senate floor following Boxer’s objection, while noting that he would vote to certify the Ohio electoral votes for Bush. “I thank her for doing that because it gives members an opportunity once again on a bipartisan basis to look at a challenge that we face not just in the last election in one State but in many States.”
In fact, the Ohio electoral vote challenge was only the beginning. Rumors and conspiracy theories swirled around the outcome on election night that saw Bush winning Ohio by a close, but the surprisingly comfortable margin of 120,000 votes. So why are so many of these headlines familiar to us today?
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Saturday, January 02, 2021
Fascism in America, 2021
As it happens so often, the Left accuses the Right of committing crimes that the Left themselves have actually committed. In practice, it's a dead giveaway: Anytime they accuse the Right of any crime, that is a crime which the Left has committed over and over. Antifa is a stunning case in point. Antifa, short for "anti-fascist," is actually among the most fascist organizations in the world.
As Old as the Romans
The concept of fascism dates back to the time of the Romans. Originally fasces, referring to a bundle of weeds or wooden rods tied together, with an ax blade attached, was the symbol of unity and strength. It meant that all aspects of political control were under the auspices of one supreme leader.
Fascism is the antithesis of democracy. In a fascist state, the people don't rule, vote, or choose representatives. Everything is under the control of an autocrat. Fascists, as represented by Antifa, have no regard for the rule of law, one citizen per one vote, fair elections, or civil obedience. Fascists disregard legal rulings and take the law into their own hands. They have no intention of permitting lawful elections and do whatever they can to ensure that elections are not held or are otherwise contorted.
They believe that they are the law, morally and otherwise. They engage in acts of sabotage and violence to create anarchy and mayhem so that law-abiding citizens are coerced into giving up freedoms for enhanced security. If a fascist government takes control, its people lose their freedom and those who don't capitulate are dealt with harshly. They are either murdered, beaten, robbed, canceled, re-educated, or otherwise shunned in society.
You and I Have No Rights
In America today, and around the world, Antifa represents the opposite of individual rights. They prefer censorship to deal with anybody who has views opposing theirs. Groups that are contrary to their way of viewing the world are denied free speech, the right to assembly, the right to petition, the right to a free press, and many other rights that we routinely enjoy in America.
Antifa has little, if any, regard for personal property. They'll pull down statues. They will burn down or bomb what stands in their way as surely as they pick their own noses. They do not support religious freedom. They'll desecrate memorials and destroy religious places of worship such as churches, synagogues, and potentially mosques, although they seem to tiptoe around Islamics.
Antifa’s worldview is that everyone must submit to their will. They are vigilant supporters of big government control – as long as such governments strictly enforce Leftist edicts.
No Mirrors Available
When Antifa blames those on the right, including President Trump, congress, judges, governors, etc., of being fascists, they ought to hold a mirror up to themselves. Fascists are not for individual rights, industry deregulation, tax cuts, or school choice.
Fascists, as typified by Antifa, prefer to operate in a cancel culture where they literally ruin the careers of others with whom they disagree. Antifa, in America, typically are cowards. They'll approach a large gathering and wait until the sturdy men among them have left. Then, they'll attack older adults, the weak, and the frail, and batter them without mercy, as has happened in Seattle, Portland, Berkeley, and many other cities.
Antifa members tend to be disgruntled, underemployed males, often led by professors or those on the left who show an inkling of intellectual capacity. Many in the Antifa rank-and-file don't fully comprehend why they riot, loot, and incite violence. They have vague notions that their actions are beneficial for the society that they seek to "reform." They are roused by utopian ideals of global government which will magically improve the lives of everyone on Earth.
Why don't they form a political party and have leaders who speak openly on political talk shows? Certainly, CNN and MSNBC would host them.
Why do they wear masks, if they're committed to their cause and proud of what they do? Why creep around incognito? Why exactly do they slither in the dark? We can all guess why. It's because they are vile and detrimental to any society in which they exist.
https://townhall.com/columnists/jeffdavidson/2021/01/01/fascism-in-america-2021-n2582420
*************************************Tainted Electors in Post-Legal America
The American left has been working overtime to obfuscate the real issues at the heart of whether or not the 2020 presidential election is being stolen. For instance, when Chris Krebs, the former head of the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), announced in a statement on November 12 that the 2020 election was "the most secure election in American history" and President Trump fired him, the Left went berserk and cited the firing as just more evidence that Trump is an illegitimate tyrant or something.
On December 13, however, the Department of Homeland Security released Emergency Directive 21-01, a version of CISA's "Mitigate SolarWinds Orion Code Compromise." CISA is charged with protecting the nation's electronic infrastructure from foreign hackers, and it seems to be fairly incompetent at it. Inasmuch as the SolarWinds hacks had been happening for many months, perhaps when he fired Krebs, the president knew things the leftist media didn't.
In any event, the furor over Krebs's firing takes one to Wikipedia to gather some basic info on the guy. It appears that Mr. Krebs is not an information technology professional, an electrical engineer, a computer programmer, or any kind of techie whose opinion on cyber-security matters might carry some weight. You see, Chris Krebs is a lawyer. So his previous job at CISA could only be as a manager, and when he says the election was the safest ever, it means nothing. He's merely repeating what he's been told by his staff. And the opinions of his staff also wouldn't carry much weight, given the SolarWinds "compromise." (To lead CISA more effectively than Krebs, maybe the feds should have gone to the local BestBuy and hired someone from the Geek Squad.)
Given the above, it was heartening to listen to Steve Hilton's opening monologue, "Lack of government action has made people more skeptical about the 2020 election," on the December 20 edition of his FNC show The Next Revolution, wherein he briefly touched on Krebs:
Chris Krebs, the cyber guy, keeps saying it was the safest election ever. But that's like the security guard at the hospital telling you how great the brain surgeon is. The constitutionality of electoral changes, the validity of ballot-harvesting, the merits of signature-matching, none of that's got anything to do with Chris Krebs. His job was running the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in DHS. And oh, on his watch we had the biggest ever cyber-security attack and the worst ever assault on our infrastructure security. So frankly I don't think we need to hear from Chris Krebs on the election or anything else.
(Hilton's fiery monologues are always edifying and a pleasure, so do watch this one in its entirety; it's only 6 minutes and 37 seconds.)
Cyber-security isn't what's at issue in the 2020 election. Such claims are just more leftist obfuscation, similar to charges that the 2016 election was "hacked." The Russians meddled in the 2016 elections, but the feds have assured us that no vote counts were changed. The real issue in the 2020 elections is what seven battleground states did...in broad daylight.
There's an old observation that goes something like this: the problem is not what's illegal; it's what's legal. In other words, it is that which is allowed that plagues us. Just as vexing and corrosive as the issue of election fraud is that of whether or not the elections conducted in the battleground states were even legal. Indeed, legality may be the overarching central issue in the 2020 elections, not fraud, not cyber-security. So the MSM's droning on about the nonexistence of "widespread voter fraud" and the firing of Chris Krebs is just more of their obfuscations.
America's big problem of late is not just with the trashing of constitutional norms; it also involves the left's lack of appreciation for the very idea of law itself. America seems to be entering a "post-legal" twilight, where laws on the books are not enforced and where governors and mayors create capricious new "laws" out of whole cloth that are clear violations of inconvenient pre-existing laws.
Sometimes post-legal "laws" can have the imprimatur of the legal, as when a law has been enacted by lawmakers. So a new law that is contrary to already existing law is allowed until it receives judicial review and is struck down. But what if the courts don't grant certiorari and decline to review?
Where we see abundant evidence that America has entered a post-legal era is in the battleground states of the 2020 federal elections. Laws and even constitutions were ignored and superseded. The prime example is Pennsylvania. Act 77, the law that legalized mail-in voting in Pennsylvania, violated the state's own constitution. And then PA's own Supreme Court violated the U.S. Constitution by usurping the power of the state's Legislature. If that's all true, then the election in the Keystone State was illegal. So how can Congress accept the votes of Pennsylvania's electors on January 6?
Anyone who denies that significant election fraud occurred in November is either dishonest or a fool (here and here). But the issue before Congress on January 6 should not focus on fraud; it should mainly be about the legality of the elections in the battleground states. Some have argued that it falls to the vice president to rule January 6 on the legality of the elections in the battleground states.
It would take a tremendous amount of courage for one man to "decide" the 2020 presidential election. But after their abysmal performance, that seems better than letting the courts decide. The prospect of the V.P. asserting his plenary power to reject the tainted electors of the battleground states has even got the attention of the old media. Mike Pence is a profoundly decent man, and he's been a terrific V.P. He should consider that if he accepts the tainted electors and hands the election to Biden, his political career will be over. On the other hand, if he rejects the tainted electors, he'll be seen as the savior of the republic. After all, haven't we all been saying this is the most consequential election of our lives?
This writer highly recommends Ted Noel's powerful December 26 article "It's for Mike Pence to Judge whether a Presidential Election Was Held at All" (if you've already read it, read it again). Mr. Noel's idea is for Pence to merely reject the electors in question, and it is the cleanest, quickest remedy. If Pence did as Noel suggests, it would send a stinging rebuke to the seven battleground states for their intolerable lawlessness. It might even provide the impetus for Congress to at long last legislate some real reform for federal elections.
If some fear that Noel's solution might trigger social unrest, then another remedy might be to have new elections in the affected states. However, Pence should not agree to such unprecedented elections unless they were strictly supervised. Sadly, the affected states are too corrupt and weak to be allowed to conduct such elections on their own. Another remedy might be to establish a commission to decide the election, as was done in 1876, which would also take much of the onus off Pence. But regardless of the remedy, the vice president should not accept the tainted electors and thereby ratify illegality.
Either America is "a nation of laws, not men" — or she's a fraud.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/12/tainted_electors_in_postlegal_america.html
*************************************Drug used for more than a decade to treat cancer could cure Covid-19 – outperforming remdesivir in lab tests
The drug, called pralatrexate, is a chemotherapy medication that was originally developed to treat lymphomas – tumours that originate in the glands.
Chinese researchers found pralatrexate outperforms remdesivir, which is currently the leading anti-viral medication used to treat Covid-19 patients.
Pralatrexate was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2009 for patients with terminal disease in spite of its toxicity.
Adverse effects of pralatrexate include fatigue, nausea and mucositis – inflammation and ulceration of the mucous membranes lining the digestive tract.
However, repurposing pralatrexate in a way that eliminates its side effects shows much potential, according to researchers.
'Identifying effective drugs that can treat Covid-19 is important and urgent, especially the approved drugs that can be immediately tested in clinical trials,' say the study authors, led by Dr Haiping Zhang at the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, China.
'Our study discovered that pralatrexate is able to potently inhibit SARS-CoV-2 replication with a stronger inhibitory activity than remdesivir within the same experimental conditions.'
Following the global outbreak of Covid-19, researchers were inspired by the idea of repurposing existing drugs that were originally developed to treat other conditions.
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http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC) Saturdays only
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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Friday, January 01, 2021
Lockdowns may prevent a natural weakening of this disease
Matt Ridley
Boris Johnson's fondness for the metaphor of the US cavalry riding to the rescue is risky: ask General Custer. With the vaccine cavalry in sight, and just when we thought we had earned a Christmas break, the virus has ambushed us with a strain that seems more contagious, and which is rapidly coming to dominate the epidemic in south-east England.
It is now a race between the virus and the vaccine as to which can get into your bloodstream first.
Lockdown sceptics are suspicious. Nervtag, the sinister-sounding "new and emerging respiratory virus threats advisory group", is dominated by people on public salaries holding the extreme view that all Covid risks must be considered and most economic, social, mental and physical effects of lockdown pretty well ignored, and they have clearly been itching to call off Christmas.
But that does not mean the new B117 strain is a myth or its danger is exaggerated. Britain does 50 times more genome sequencing of viruses than most other countries which means that we are cursed with knowing more about these mutations but not necessarily being able to do anything about them. Most mutations, thankfully, make little difference.
This one, however, is different because an unprecedented 14 sense-changing substitutions and three deletions in the virus's genomic recipe, rather than accumulating gradually, appeared all together for the first time in a patient in Kent on Sept 20.
The explosive growth of this strain, and the fact that eight of the mutations are in the spike gene (the key that opens the locks on a cell) implies that they make the virus more contagious.
This number of changes would normally take months to emerge at the rate the virus typically evolves: it is less prone to random mutation than an influenza virus. What caused such a burst of evolution within perhaps a single body?
Here the story gets alarming. According to analysis by Andrew Rambaut at Edinburgh University and colleagues for the Covid-19 Genomics Consortium UK, such high rates of mutation have happened in people with suppressed immune systems who get a Covid infection that persists for months and are treated with "convalescent plasma" - essentially blood extracted from those who have recovered from Covid.
In a person with a deficient immune system, a large population of viruses can proliferate, mutate and diversify, and then the treatment selects a new strain from among this diversity.
Essentially, the virus has a crash course in evolution. If so, this casts doubt on the wisdom of convalescent-plasma treatment, pitting the possibility that it might save a life against the possibility that it might help the virus become more infectious or lethal.
There is fortunately no evidence the B117 strain is more virulent, immune to one of the vaccines or can re-infect people who have recovered, though the last of these cannot be ruled out.
Viruses will always evolve to be more contagious if they can, but respiratory viruses also often evolve towards being less virulent. Each virus is striving to grab market share for its descendants. The best way of achieving this is to print as many copies of itself as possible while in a human body, yet not make that person so ill that they meet fewer people.
Where the sceptics have a point is that it is a worrying possibility that lockdowns could prevent this natural attenuation of the virus. They keep the virus spreading mainly in hospitals and care homes among the very ill, preventing the eclipse of lethal strains at the hands of milder ones.
If so, and it's only a possibility, then not only do lockdowns fail to wipe out the disease, they may be prolonging our agony.
We need that vaccine cavalry, and soon.
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/lockdowns-may-prevent-a-natural-weakening/
*******************************What you need to know about the new variant of coronavirus in the UK
Many countries have closed their borders to people leaving the UK due to the rapid spread within the country of a new variant of the coronavirus that might be more transmissible. Meanwhile, South Africa is also reporting the spread of another new variant. Here’s what you need to know.
What do we know about the new UK variant so far?
B.1.1.7, as it is known, has 17 mutations compared with the original SARS-CoV-2 virus first discovered in Wuhan, China, including eight that may change the shape of the outer spike protein. Many of these mutations have been found before, but to have so many in a single virus is unusual. It was first sequenced in the UK on 20 September, but only caught the attention of scientists on 8 December, when they were looking for reasons for the rapid growth of cases in south-east England. On 14 December, the UK’s health minister, Matt Hancock, told parliament that a new variant that seems to spread faster had been identified.
How worried should we be?
There is no evidence so far that this new variant causes more severe disease or that it can evade the protection conferred by any of the vaccines. Some lines of evidence suggest that it spreads more readily, but the evidence isn’t conclusive. On 21 December, a UK expert committee on emerging viral threats said that they have “high confidence” that there is a substantial increase in transmissibility compared with other variants. “There is still more data that we need to get to be 100 per cent sure of this,” says committee member Peter Horby at the University of Oxford.
How much faster is it thought to spread?
The latest estimate is that it was 50 per cent more transmissible than other circulating strains during England’s latest lockdown, according to Neil Ferguson at Imperial College London, another committee member. However, it isn’t clear if this figure is true more generally, he says. B.1.1.7 is already responsible for 80 per cent of infections in London.
What does it mean if this variant is better at spreading?
“No matter how the virus changes, it needs us to be close enough to each other and to have interactions to let it jump between us,” says Emma Hodcroft at the University of Basel in Switzerland. “If we don’t give the virus those opportunities, it simply can’t spread no matter what variant it is.” In other words, standard control measures such as wearing masks and social distancing will still work. The new, tighter “tier 4” restrictions introduced in some parts of England, for example, will be effective if people follow the rules. But imposing such restrictions is obviously highly undesirable.
How did we discover these variants?
Standard tests look for the presence of the virus. It is also possible to sequence the entire genome of the virus, which is around 30,000 RNA letters long, to look for any changes compared with previously sequenced samples. Researchers around the world sometimes sequence samples to track the spread of the coronavirus and see if it is evolving.
What is different about the UK variant?
The mutations that might change the shape of the spike protein may allow the virus to bind to receptors on human cells more strongly and thus get into cells more easily. This may increase viral replication in the upper airways – initial results suggest there are more viruses present on average in swabs from people infected with B.1.1.7 than with other variants. There are also “hints” that it is more likely to infect children, says Ferguson.
And the South Africa variant?+
Around 90 per cent of infections in South Africa are now due to one variant, sequencing suggests, but much less is known about it. This variant, called 501.V2, also has 17 mutations, but only one is the same as in the UK variant. This particular mutation, called N501Y, has been around for a while – it was first seen in Brazil in April and has been detected in several countries since.
How unusual is it for the coronavirus to mutate?
Not unusual at all. In fact, there are tens of thousands of “mutants” that differ from each other by at least one mutation. But any two SARS-CoV-2 coronaviruses from anywhere in the world will usually differ by fewer than 30 mutations, and they are regarded as all belonging to the same strain. Researchers instead talk about different lineages.
Are the mutations in this variant helping it spread?
We don’t know. By chance, some coronavirus lineages do spread more than others. For instance, a variant first found in Spain spread rapidly across Europe in the summer. There was concern that this variant was both more transmissible and more dangerous, but this turned out not to be the case. Its rapid spread is now thought to be due to people travelling to Spain for holidays. However, Hodcroft, who studied the Spanish variant, thinks the UK variant really could be more transmissible. “There is an increasing amount of evidence that there might be a real difference here,” she says. “But nothing we have right now is conclusive.”
How do we find out for sure?
Health authorities will have to keep tracking variants to see if this variant spreads faster than others. Researchers also plan to carry out lab experiments to try to determine the effects of all the mutations. This will include testing antibodies from people who have been vaccinated or were previously infected to see if they are less effective against B.1.1.7.
Has the UK variant spread to other countries already?
Yes. So far, confirmed cases of B.1.1.7 have been reported only in Denmark and Australia, with possible cases in Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands. However, few countries do as much sequencing as the UK, so many cases could have been missed. Given that the UK variant was first detected in September, it is possible that it has already spread to many more countries – we should find out soon now health authorities around the world are looking for it.
So is it too late for travel bans to work?
They will still help, by preventing more introductions of the new variant and thus keeping down the number of cases and making them easier to control, says Hodcroft. “The goal here is more to buy time,” she says.
Can this variant be detected by normal tests?
The short answer is yes. However, some tests may need to be tweaked. The standard test for the coronavirus involves looking for any of three parts of the viral genome sequence. By chance, in some tests used by major labs in the UK, one of the parts is one of the mutated bits of the UK variant. This has turned out to be very useful. By looking at test results that came back positive for only two of the three parts – called S gene dropouts – health authorities have been able to get a much better idea of how fast the variant is spreading than would be possible from sequencing data alone.
Where did the UK variant come from?
“It very much looks like a point source in England,” says Susan Hopkins at Public Health England. In other words, it came from a single individual. There is speculation that it could have evolved in the body of a person with a weakened immune system, meaning the immune response wasn’t strong enough to kill off the virus but did force it to evolve. This would help explain why it has more mutations than normal.
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"Mr. Hawley’s challenge is not unprecedented... Democrats in both the House and Senate challenged certification of the 2004 election results..."
"... and House Democrats tried on their own to challenge the 2016 and 2000 outcomes, though without Senate support. ... Senator Barbara Boxer of California... briefly delayed the certification of George W. Bush’s victory... cit[ing] claims that Ohio election officials had improperly purged voter rolls... which Mr. Bush carried by fewer than 120,000 votes. Nancy Pelosi, then the House Democratic leader, supported the challenge.... The House voted 267 to 31 against the challenge and the Senate rejected it 74 to 1...
After the 2016 election, several House Democrats tried again, rising during the joint session to register challenges against Mr. Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in various states. The Democrats cited reasons ranging from long lines at polling sites to the Kremlin’s election influence operation."
From "Hawley Answers Trump’s Call for Election Challenge/The Republican senator said he would object to certifying the Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, a move that is unlikely to alter President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory" (NYT).
So... in the last three decades, every time a Republican won, Congressional Democrats challenged the certification of the election, and every time a Democrat won, Congressional Republicans did not challenge the certification.
That certainly puts a different light on what Josh Hawley is doing!
Either challenging the certification is the norm or it is not. It can't be the norm for Democrats and abnormal when a Republican does the same thing. Either Congress has a role in looking into the workings of the state elections or it does not. It can't be that the role is to question Republican victories and rubber-stamp Democratic victories.
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2020/12/mr-hawleys-challenge-is-not.html
***********************************http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
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Thursday, December 31, 2020
My pictorial home page
I put up a new one every year with notable pictures from the year. I have just finished the 2020 edition. Find it here
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Oxford vaccine now approved
The Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, which has been described as a 'game changer', was given the green light by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency . The UK has ordered 100 million doses of the vaccine - enough to vaccinate 50 million people.
The United Kingdom was the first country to approve the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which has a lower cost and is easier to store than other vaccines that have already been approved.
The vaccine – called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 – uses a harmless, weakened version of a common virus which causes a cold in chimpanzees.
Researchers have already used this technology to produce vaccines against a number of pathogens including flu and Zika.
The virus is genetically modified so that it is impossible for it to reproduce in humans and cause infection.
Scientists have transferred the genetic instructions for coronavirus's specific 'spike protein' – which it needs to invade cells – to the vaccine.
When the vaccine enters cells inside the body, it uses this genetic code to force the body's own cells to produce the surface spike protein of the coronavirus.
This induces an immune response because it makes those cells look like the virus, which effectively works as a training aid for the immune system to learn how to fight the virus if the real thing gets into the body.
Health secretary Matt Hancock hailed the approval of the critical vaccine on Wednesday saying it means the UK will be 'out' of the coronavirus crisis by the Spring
AstraZeneca boss Pascal Soriot said deliveries would start tomorrow, adding: 'Vaccination will start next week and we will get to one million a week and beyond that very rapidly. We can go to two million.'
The Oxford vaccine is the second vaccine that has been given the green light for public roll-out after the Pfizer vaccine - which has also been approved in the US. The UK was the first country in the world to approve the vaccine for public use.
Studies have shown that the vaccine has an average efficacy rate of 70 percent, with this number rising to 90 percent when half a dose was followed by a full dose.
The Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, which has been described as a 'game changer', was given the green light by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: 'The Government has today accepted the recommendation from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to authorise Oxford University/AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine for use.
'This follows rigorous clinical trials and a thorough analysis of the data by experts at the MHRA, which has concluded that the vaccine has met its strict standards of safety, quality and effectiveness.'
Professor Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group and chief investigator of the Oxford trial, said: 'The regulator's assessment that this is a safe and effective vaccine is a landmark moment, and an endorsement of the huge effort from a devoted international team of researchers and our dedicated trial participants.
'Though this is just the beginning, we will start to get ahead of the pandemic, protect health and economies when the vulnerable are vaccinated everywhere, as many as possible as soon possible.'
Data published in The Lancet medical journal in early December showed the vaccine was 62 percent effective in preventing Covid-19 among a group of 4,440 people given two standard doses of the vaccine when compared with 4,455 people given a placebo drug.
Of 1,367 people given a half first dose of the vaccine followed by a full second dose, there was 90 percent protection against Covid-19 when compared with a control group of 1,374 people.
The overall Lancet data, which was peer-reviewed, set out full results from clinical trials of more than 20,000 people.
Among the people given the placebo drug, 10 were admitted to hospital with coronavirus, including two with severe Covid which resulted in one death. But among those receiving the vaccine, there were no hospital admissions or severe cases.
The half dose followed by a full dose regime came about as a result of an accidental dosing error.
However, the MHRA was made aware of what happened and clinical trials for the vaccine were allowed to continue.
The overall Lancet data, which was peer-reviewed, set out full results from clinical trials of more than 20,000 people.
Among the people given the placebo drug, 10 were admitted to hospital with coronavirus, including two with severe Covid which resulted in one death. But among those receiving the vaccine, there were no hospital admissions or severe cases.
The half dose followed by a full dose regime came about as a result of an accidental dosing error.
However, the MHRA was made aware of what happened and clinical trials for the vaccine were allowed to continue.
Does it differ from Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccine?
Yes. The jabs from Pfizer and Moderna use messenger RNA (mRNA) to trigger immunity to Covid-19.
Conventional vaccines are produced using weakened forms of the virus, but mRNAs use only the virus’s genetic code.
An mRNA vaccine is injected into the body where it enters cells and tells them to create antigens.
These antigens are recognised by the immune system and prepare it to fight coronavirus.
No actual virus is needed to create an mRNA vaccine. This means the rate at which the vaccine can be produced is accelerated.
What about antibodies and T-cells?
The Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Moderna vaccines have been shown to provoke both an antibody and T-cell response.
Antibodies are proteins that bind to the body’s foreign invaders and tell the immune system it needs to take action.
T-cells are a type of white blood cell which hunt down infected cells in the body and destroy them.
Nearly all effective vaccines induce both an antibody and a T-cell response.
A study on the AstraZeneca vaccine found that levels of T-cells peaked 14 days after vaccination, while antibody levels peaked after 28 days.
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Research Finds that UV LEDs Kill 99.9% of COVID-19 Virus
A new study from Tel Aviv University shows that the COVID-19 virus “can be killed efficiently, quickly and cheaply using ultraviolet (UV) light-emitting diodes (UV-LEDs) at specific frequencies,” according to a report from The Jerusalem Post.
“We discovered that it is quite simple to kill the coronavirus using LED bulbs that radiate ultraviolet light,” said Professor Hadas Mamane, head of the Environmental Engineering Program at Tel Aviv University’s School of Mechanical Engineering. Mamane led the study with Professor Yoram Gerchman and Dr. Michal Mandelboim.
UV-LED bulbs require less than half a minute to destroy more than 99.9% of the coronavirus on surfaces, Mamane explained. An article detailing their study and its finding was published earlier this month in the Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology B: Biology.
Ultraviolet wavelengths, available in LEDs as UV-A, UV-B, and UV-C, are very effective at disinfecting surfaces using UV-LED bulbs.
“We know, for example, that medical staff do not have time to manually disinfect, say, computer keyboards and other surfaces in hospitals – and the result is infection and quarantine,” said Mamane. “The disinfection systems based on LED bulbs, however, can be installed in the ventilation system and air conditioner, for example, and sterilize the air sucked in and then emitted into the room.”
“We are also developing, together with a scientist in North Western University a transparent coating that can be dipped or sprayed on surfaces and can kill viruses using visible light LEDs that are not dangerous and are used everywhere, providing another application for regular LEDs,” Mamane added
“UV LEDs have a huge future,” she said. “Of course, as always, when it comes to ultraviolet radiation, it is important to make it clear to people that it is dangerous to try to use this method to disinfect surfaces inside homes. You need to know how to design these systems and how to work with them so that you are not directly exposed to the light.”
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U.S. Businesses Walking Away From China
It looks like companies across the world are carrying out an economic and geopolitical #WalkAway movement from China. They have already looked at the vulnerabilities our dependence on China is causing and taking mitigating steps. Japan is shelling out $2 billion to encourage companies to leave China and head back.
That’s a smart investment, and one Japan will quickly recoup. If companies move to Japan and set up factories, the workers hired there will become taxpayers as opposed to receiving welfare checks. That is not just financial savings for Japan, it also is far less destructive over the long term to the people themselves. Larry Kudlow, director of the United States National Economic Council, makes a similar argument.
This is the type of thing that should be encouraged, especially when it comes to taking the cost of COVID-19 recovery out of the economic hide of the Butchers of Beijing. Again, this is one place where the money will be recouped, and for the same reasons as Japan. In addition, this could very well help bring back many of the smaller cities and towns devastated by the loss of manufacturing over recent decades.
One way to fuel a manufacturing boom would be a military buildup. One very likely consequence of companies walking away from China would be efforts by the ChiComs to retaliate. A strong military would help deter them from that path.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/69920
************************************Amazon Fires Back at Bernie Sanders Acusations
In good Leftist form, Sanders has no regard for the truth
Right behind Walmart, Amazon is the second-largest private employer in the entire United States employing nearly 1 million people across the world.
Last week, Amazon was pushed to respond to Senator Bernie Sanders' stupid remarks.
Sanders said that the giant company is underpaying its employees and denying them benefits; that its workers are working in dangerous conditions; and that Amazon is reaping profits in the name of corporate greed.
Sanders had tweeted just before Christmas,
"Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest man alive, became $83 billion richer over the past 9 months while Amazon made record profits. Meanwhile, Amazon workers are risking their lives to fill holiday orders and are denied paid sick leave and hazard pay. This ugly corporate greed must end."
The guided missiles that Amazon fired back to Sanders are that:
Amazon pays its employees at least 15 dollars per hour, which is double the federal minimum wage
Amazon gives its full-time employees paid sick leave and comprehensive benefits at par with the benefits which their senior executives get.
Amazon created 275,000 new jobs since the pandemic began.
Amazon has applied enhanced cleaning and social distancing measures, distributed personal protective gear, and executed temperature checks throughout its worldwide operations.
While the world was put on lockdown and grappled with how they will get their needs, Amazon fulfilled these needs and people became even more reliant and in need of the services of Jeff Bezos' giant company.
Amazon stipulated that it is not corporate greed that accelerated its sales but the demand for online services and delivery made the existence of Amazon even more relevant than ever.
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http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
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http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
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