Some recent news concerning the Wuhan virus pandemic:
Brighton Police did the right thing by apologizing quickly. One of the main problems with the new "guidelines" is that they are not laws and enforcement is highly questionable. If the governor issues an executive order to fine people for standing too close to one another, that order can be challenged and most likely overturned on the basis that it's unconstitutional.
It's a much better approach for the government to acknowledge that the steps we are all taking to mitigate the coronavirus are voluntary. They only have our cooperation as long as they stay reasonable. The minute the government starts trampling on the rights of people to get outside and get fresh air is the minute the citizens start suing and winning. Brighton may have saved itself from a very expensive lawsuit. Let's hope that other law enforcement agencies take this event as a warning that they may not overstep their bounds without consequence. We have rights and they are not negotiable, even during a pandemic.
- Not unlike global warming models: "COVID-19 Projection Models Are Proving to Be Unreliable"--National Review. The author relates that: "In a space of just six days starting April 2, two revisions (on April 5 and 8) have utterly discredited the model produced by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. ... That is, in less than a week, the model proved to be off by more than 33 percent." He continues:
My use of the term “off” is intentional. There is no shortage of government spin, regurgitated by media commentators, assuring us that the drastic reductions in the projections over just a few days powerfully illustrate how well social distancing and the substantial shuttering of the economy is working. Nonsense. As Alex Berenson points out on Twitter, with an accompanying screenshot data updated by IHME on April 1, the original April 2 model explicitly “assum[ed] full social distancing through May 2020.”
The model on which the government is relying is simply unreliable. It is not that social distancing has changed the equation; it is that the equation’s fundamental assumptions are so dead wrong, they cannot remain reasonably stable for just 72 hours.
And mind you, when we observe that the government is relying on the models, we mean reliance for the purpose of making policy, including the policy of completely closing down American businesses and attempting to confine people to their homes because, it is said, no lesser measures will do. That seems worth stressing in light of this morning’s announcement that unemployment claims spiked another 6.6 million (now well over 16 million in just the past couple of weeks), to say nothing of the fact that, while the nation reels, the Senate has now chosen to go on recess, having failed, thanks to Democratic obstinacy, to enact legislation to give more relief to our fast-shrinking small-business sector.
In different ways, all these plans say the same thing: Even if you can imagine the herculean political, social, and economic changes necessary to manage our way through this crisis effectively, there is no normal for the foreseeable future. Until there’s a vaccine, the US either needs economically ruinous levels of social distancing, a digital surveillance state of shocking size and scope, or a mass testing apparatus of even more shocking size and intrusiveness.
Many Muslims live in extended families, often, like my household, with three generations under one roof. This means there are a higher number of carriers who can (and often will) infect an elderly relative. An older person cannot effectively self-isolate when they are living in close quarters with their children, grand-children and perhaps even extended family.
We are all social creatures, but maybe Muslims are more social than most. We eat together – often from one plate, sharing utensils and side dishes. For many Muslims, social intimacy like handshakes and hugs are so hardwired into their behaviour that the week-old invention of “social distancing” is both alien and absurd to them.
This is particularly the case in Britain’s 1600 Mosques (there are 130 just in my home town of Bradford). Islam is a collective religion, and although prominent British Muslim organisations like the Muslim Council of Britain have – in line with Muslim-majority countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt – instructed Muslims to pray at home, many of the UK’s mosques are likely to remain open. Thankfully most mosques have heeded the advice, but the prayer spaces that are still open may have even more people packed into them than usual, increasing the risk.
During Friday prayers (attendance at which is, under normal circumstances, an obligation for most Muslims), the close proximity of worshippers makes the spread of coronavirus a near certainty. We know this from events in the Muslim world: Malaysia’s spread of Covid-19 has been traced back to a single religious gathering at a Mosque, which allowed the virus to spread not only across that country, but to six others.
Of course, he blames it all on the government not doing enough to educate Muslims and using big words like "quarantine" and "pandemic." And he warns: "If Muslims feel let down, excluded or forgotten by the government response, there will be repercussions that last longer than the outbreak."
“It’s as much of a consensus issue as you can get in today’s divided world,” said Mark Penn, chairman of the Harris Poll. “Overall, there’s very little trust for anything that the Chinese government says or does, especially its premier. Xi Jinping has less than half the credibility of President Trump in this poll.”
Of the nationally representative sample of 1,993 American adults Harris surveyed online between April 3 and April 5, a net total of 23 percent said Xi, the Chinese president, was a trustworthy source of information related to the covid-19 outbreak, with Republicans and Democrats closely aligned. ...
As a pandemic threatens the globe with loss of life on a biblical scale and economic collapse, a behemoth that fancies itself as “the world body” is nowhere to be seen.
Start with the Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, who immediately sprang to “action,” vaingloriously calling for a global ceasefire to enable the world to focus on the pandemic. No major combatant heeded his call. So, next, he asked member states to fund a $2 billion UN-based initiative for a global humanitarian response. That fund is yet to materialize.
The Security Council, the UN’s most prestigious body charged with ensuring global peace and security, is also yet to respond. It failed to unite behind Mr. Guterres’ global ceasefire and couldn’t even muster a generic statement on the pandemic: China opposes any reference to the origin of an outbreak that America insists calling the “Wuhan virus.”
Instead, pre-coronavirus pet issues dominate the UN.
This week Mr. Guterres issued a policy brief on the impact of Covid-19 on women and girls — even as the New York Times reported Wednesday that in this city the virus “is killing men at twice the rate of women.” More men than women are infected and die globally, as well, but Mr. Guterres has been promoting women's issues ever since his 2016 election bucked a global clamor for a woman UN chief.
Other specialized bodies also use the virus to promote pet issues. UNICEF calls to protect children, even as covid-19 hardest hit are the elderly. UNRWA pleads for funds to help Gazans face the virus, although there have only been a handful of corona cases in the Strip.
Then there’s the World Health Organization — the UN body that, if it worked well, would be the global clearinghouse for all things corona. Instead, WHO has hindered action, contributed to the spread, and, in the process, raised the ire of America, its top funder.
WHO’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has, justly, drawn most of the criticism over initially denying Covid-19 was pandemic and stating no human to human transmission was possible.
The problems started in February when factories couldn't get the raw materials they needed from China, the world biggest exporter of textiles, which accounted for some $118bn (£67bn) in 2018.
Then as China's textile factories reopened in recent weeks - giving garment manufacturers hopes of getting operations back on track - demand collapsed as retailers were forced to shut their doors after governments around the world imposed lockdowns.
More than a dozen of these buyers (men and women) actually thought that since they filled out and signed everything, they could just walk out and go home with the firearm. Several actually said they saw how easy it was to buy a gun on TV and why did they have to fill out all these forms.
The majority of these first timers lost their minds when we went through the Ammo Law requirements. Most used language not normally heard, even in a gun range. We pointed out that since no one working here voted for these laws, then maybe they might know someone who did. And, maybe they should go back and talk to those people and tell them to re-think their position on firearms – we were trying to be nice.
Most were VERY vocal about why it takes 10 days minimum (sometimes longer if the DOJ is backed up) to take their property home with them. They ask why do I need to wait 10 days if I need the protection today or tomorrow? We pointed out again that no one working here voted in support of that law.
They really went crazy when we told them that for each firearm they had to do the same amount of paperwork and they could only purchase ONE handgun every 30 days. Again, we didn’t [vote] for that law.
"Coronavirus kills mainly men, women most affected."
ReplyDeleteA fresh helping of identity politics with your pandemic.
The other victim card being played now is that the complaint that blacks and Latinos are over represented in CCP virus deaths.
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