Political Comedy

It's still a fuckton of people who shouldn't have died if we had even a smidgen of competent leadership. Thanks to Trump, we don't even have that. 

Shall I list all of the fuckery Trump has pulled in response to Covid-19?

And even more recently:

We could hit 200k deaths from Covid-19 by Labor day:

Logistics aren't his strong suit apparently

Trump basically admits he wants to kill the postal service to prevent people from voting and other legal activities like getting mail-in prescriptions.

All of Trump's lies on Covid-19

Basically, at every turn, Trump undermines our response to Covid-19. He encourages people not to wear masks, to gather in large numbers, to flaunt social distancing guidelines, to open schools and businesses early. He undermines our postal service and social security and it goes on and on.

He has no plan to combat this threat, he doesn't follow medical advice and has no concern other than to get re-elected.  So tell me again, how it's not his fault? The buck stops at the top and ultimately, the botched response to Covid-19 is his fault. He is the president, however unfortunately. 

As far as sending sick people to nursing homes, yeah, stupid move and I've already said those governors should be charged after the fact. Trump still owns part of the fault, because he could have stopped it with an EO. He didn't. Instead, he golfed, held stupid ass rallies and called Covid-19 a Democratic Hoax and Kung Flu. Nice.

HCQ is snake oil when it comes to Covid-19. That's been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. So don't even go there.

Ah... Numbers, numbers, numbers. Trump himself has championed cooking the numbers from the get go. So it is his fault in part we don't have an accurate count. Also, fuck all. It's probably worse than we know.

We had the lock-downs to prevent millions from dying. Covid-19 can't transmit when you're by yourself and staying the fuck away from people. It's about the only thing that's kept the body count down. Whenever they lift restrictions, the body count goes up. The reason behind the lock-downs is because not everyone shows obvious signs when they are infected and people are contagious before symptoms show up even when they do have them Also people are fucking morons. See Sturgis motorcycle rally and the fucking protests. Cootie filled idiots they are.

Covid-19 is novel. It's a new disease. The testing used for SARS and other viruses wouldn't work on Covid-19, because the bugs are different.  So new tests had to be created to find the bugs. For example, a test to find strep throat isn't going to work to find a bug that causes the flu, even though both cause sore throats. It's the same basic reason why you can't use one vaccine for all diseases.

Now the blazing moron has replaced the real doctors who give out decent advice with a yes man lickspittle. Lovely.

How about you do some real research when it comes to this instead of parroting leftist sources who have their own agenda (and it ain't the health and well-being of the citizens).  NPR?  American Progress?  MSN?  Really?  Try pulling from sources outside the US.  Even statnews.com is actually owned by the Boston Globe, which is left of center.  Try looking at multiple sources from multiple viewpoints and draw your own conclusions.  Get the Ground app - it'll tell you a sources political bias.

My rebuttal to your feelings-driven (as opposed to data-driven) statements:

1.  Encouraging people to not wear masks and gather in large groups? 

a. Masks don't help healthy people.  They are aimed at preventing sick people from infecting healthy people by limiting how far exhaled breath that might be carrying virii can travel.  Unless it is a sneeze or cough where the droplets are atomized to a significant extent, exhaled breath doesn't travel all that far.  More importantly, the standard cloth masks being used (as well as gaiters or bandanas) are so openly-weaved in comparison to the size of virus particles that they are not much help at all.  This is common sense.  You don't require healthy people to wear masks.  As to the argument "well Japan does it..."  Yes - in Japan they've been wearing masks for decades - when they're sick.  I've lived and worked in Asia for years and only sick people generally have worn them.

b. Large gatherings?  The only large gatherings I've seen occurring frequently have been leftist anarchist mobs - but I guess being antifa or BLM makes you immune to getting sick...

c. Opening early?  The number of people affected by lost jobs and lost wages (some businesses or jobs are never coming back) has a greater effect on citizens all over the world than a not-so-novel virus that is killing about the same number of people as would have been classified last year as "influenza or flu-like illnesses."  No one knows how many people die each year from flu.  No one knows how many of those ILIs resulting in pneumonia leading to death are the result of coronavirii or rhinovirii.  The risk of someone getting COVID-19 resulting in death is minuscule.  It always has been.  People who this year died from COVID-19 are the same people who last year would have died from pneumonia caused by an ILI - some type of respiratory virus for which they wouldn't have bothered testing because the person was (a) old and feeble, (b) already compromised due to comorbidity, or (c) genetic factors.  Guess what?  My mother died a few years ago from pneumonia...  Caused by a cold that spread to her chest.  She was in her 70s and suffering from Alzheimer's.  They put her on a vent for 10 days.  We know that patients with Alzheimer's have a poor prognosis when placed on a ventilator.  Within four hours of being taken off the vent, she died.  They didn't test her for what virus caused her death.  She is one of the many people older than 65 reported as having died from pneumonia that year.

d. Undermines the postal service?  He gave them $10M in funding this past March.  The USPS is its own worst enemy and has been operating in the red for years.  All those mailboxes in storage?  Obama did that. 

e. Undermines social security?  No - Congress undermines social security every time they dip into it for non-social security uses.  Businesses and illegal aliens undermine it every time they work and don't pay taxes.

2.  I guess you think that the federal government is a monolithic entity and can tell each state what to do, huh?  Any President would be relying on advice from "experts."  Those experts have proven to be anything but.  The FDA and CDC continue to show that they are lazy and incompetent.  The CDC *specifically* rejected COVID test kits from WHO because they wanted to make their own - which they promptly fucked up.  Masks or no masks?  They've changed their tune multiple times and Fauci freely admitted they said no masks specifically to prevent hoarding in case medical-grade PPE ran out - PPE that the Obama admin blew through during H1N1 and didn't restock.  PPE that state governments and local hospitals refuse to stockpile for pandemics because it isn't economically desirable.  If Fauci is such an expert, how come he hasn't figured out HIV or other virii he's been studying?  He's only been working on it (i.e. receiving $MMM in funding) for decades to develop vaccines that he holds a patent on.

3. How does a federal EO trump sovereign states' own EOs?  Answer - it doesn't.  It's called states' rights.  The blame for sending sick people into nursing homes is a local decision made by governors and the blame rests squarely and solely on them and their state department of health directors.

4. You are 100% completely wrong regarding HCQ.  The "studies" proving it doesn't work?  Proven to have been faulty to begin with.  The Lancet study showing HCQ was harming COVID-19 patients was proven to be a complete fraud - the study was withdrawn after three of its authors (each with ties to the pharmaceutical industry) were forced to retract it - and Surgisphere who provided the dataset refused to allow it to be reviewed independently.  The studies in South America where people died from HCQ? Due to being given such large doses (up to 3x the normal dose) that they were toxic.  Studies in the US Veteran's Administration?  Given when patients were so far along that they were never going to be successful.  The average COVID death rate is 3.75 times lower in HCQ-encouraging countries - and 10 out of the 16 most densely populated countries (where social distancing is much harder) but where they encourage HCQ use at early onset have a COVID death rate 10x lower than the US.  Bottom-line - in HCQ encouraging countries that have a much lower COVID death rate, the protocol is HCQ+Az+Zn administered within the first 5 days of symptoms.  You don't wait a week for the virus to replicate to the point of overwhelming the immune system to begin treatment.  Its no different than why tamiflu doesn't work if you wait more than 2 days before taking it when you have the flu.  The Detroit study (a protocol-driven study) clearly shows that, if given early, the rate of fatalities was cut in half.  They tested on patients 18 - 76 (most with comorbidity), where they treated them with a short course of HCQ within 1-2 days of getting to the hospital, along with corticosteroids.  In-hospital mortality was cut from 26.4% in the control group to 13.5% in the group treated with HCQ.  The *only* people who don't want it to work are pharmaceutical companies who have a vested interest in selling a much more expensive treatment or vaccine.

5. Numbers?  None of the data being presented is accurate.  Period.  No one knows how many people have been infected - precisely because so many people present with nothing more than normal cold symptoms (or no symptoms), never go to the doctor, never get a test, and as a result, fully recover without being added to the list of positive cases.  Cases reported do not equal infections.  Infections do not lead to hospitalization and death in a 1:1 ratio.  The reason numbers were changed to be reported directly to HHS is because the CDC was cooking the books, not because of Trump.  When you are allowed to report probables as positives because they were near someone who had been infected.  When you are allowed to report "died with" as "died from."  When you are allowed to report "caught it back in March but we're just now including it in the count" as a "new" case.  When you are allowed to report multiple tests of the same person as multiple new cases. 

Those ILI illnesses and pneumonia?  No one knows how many died from flu or ILI - they aren't reportable for adults.  The CDC estimates them.  Flu was above epidemic levels for the past five years.  They estimate that 79,000 people died from t he flu last year.  You may argue that COVID reported deaths in the US are around the 170k mark.  Yeah.  That's because we've been testing like crazy and because we've been reporting "death with" the same as "death from."  If we tested for flu to the same extent, the numbers would be staggering.  Close to 160,000 people's deaths are attributed to "chronic lower respiratory disease" in 2018.  That's on par with COVID-19. 

6.  Lockdowns?  Number one - is was supposed to be for two weeks - not to prevent deaths, but to prevent overload of the healthcare system.  Lockdowns need to end.  People need to get on with their lives, with some people getting sick, some people dying, but society as a whole continuing.  You can't live in fear for the rest of your life over a cold.  The peak occurred in April-May.  Its done and over with until next cold season.  Sturgis?  Try CHAZ Seattle and Portland.  Most importantly, lockdowns lower your immune response - there are an untold number of things trying to invade your body at any given time - most of them from your environment and interactions with other people - which exercises your immune system.  Stay in lockdown and you'll get more sick when they are over.  Ask any doctor and they'll tell you the first year in residency and they are sick all the time - and after that when their immune system has learned, they very rarely get sick.

7.  Novel?  Its not novel.  Its very strongly related to SARS-1 and other beta-coronaviruses (i.e. colds).   The first commercially available antibody test for COVID-19 was put together from an old antibody test for SARS-1.  If COVID was "novel," putting together antibody tests kits using SARS-1 kits would not have been possible.  We know that COVID-19 had a less significant impact in areas where SARS-1 had previously occurred.  In a study published by Charite Berlin, they found

that 34% of the people in Berlin who had never been in contact with COVID-19 showed T-cell immunity.  A study published by Stanford U. showed that immunity to COVID-19, measured in the form of antibodies, is much higher than was previously thought. Fact of the matter is that epidemiologists fell for the myth of no immunity and didn't want to believe that COVID-19 is nothing more than a seasonal cold virus mutated from (probably) SARS-1.  The myth of asymptomatic spread is also prevalent - if a virus is growing in the body, it means that human cells die, which alerts the immune system that an infection is occurring. That "scratchy throat" you had a few days ago?  That isn't asymptomatic.  Fact of the matter is that *none* of the epidemiological modelling is anywhere near accurate - they've tried to fit data to models instead of modelling based upon data.  PCR tests?  PCR is a manufacturing technique, not a diagnostic test.  It'll multiply any fraction of genetic material - even shattered viral particles - that's why people can test "positive" using PCR even weeks later when they've gotten infected with nothing more than a scratchy throat and have recovered - many of the reported daily new cases are likely nothing more than reporting of PCR multiplication of viral debris.  For healthy people, they'd be better off wearing a crash helmet than a mask because they have a greater risk of tripping and falling than of getting COVID with serious symptoms.

8.  Replacing "real" doctors with yes men?  Who has Trump replaced?  Fauci is still out there, as is Birx.  The problem is that authorities are relying upon models by "experts."  None of the models have been accurate.  The authorities need to be relying upon advice from immunologists.  I would urge governmental officials to read Professor Beda Stadler's article published in Weltwoche (a Swiss magazine) regarding COVID.  I would urge them to review Dr. John Ioannides work at Stanford (the only model that has been close to reality).

Fact of the matter is probably about 300 million or more people have gotten infected with COVID across the planet, when you factor in the numbers of people infected who had such minor symptoms that they didn't get tested.  The number of deaths (from COVID, not with) is less than one million.  That puts the fatality rate at about 0.25%.