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The Coronavirus - a virus from eating bats, an accident or something sinister gone wrong?


swordfish

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6 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Primarily the latter.   Completely irresponsible for Congress to pass such a bill when the country is already trillions in debt.

I’m gonna need a little more in-depth than that. That sounds more like opinion than analysis.

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11 minutes ago, Bobref said:

I’m gonna need a little more in-depth than that. That sounds more like opinion than analysis.

Why do you need more analysis to know that it's bad fiscal policy to spend money you don't have?  Oh, yeah, we can just mint two 1 trillion dollar coins:

https://fortune.com/2020/03/25/coronavirus-stimulus-bill-how-will-us-pay-trillion-dollar-coin/

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If a 5¢ coin is a nickel, 10¢ a dime, and 25¢ a quarter, what is a $1 trillion coin?

Call it an emergency plan. The minting of such mammoth mammon isn’t just a thought experiment—it’s an actual draft bill being floated in Congress. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat representing Michigan’s 13th district, put forward a plan that would have the U.S. Treasury strike two $1 trillion coins to raise funds for a stimulus package designed to provide economic relief from the devastation of the coronavirus pandemic.

Under the plan, the Treasury would mint the two $1 trillion coins, then deposit them at the Federal Reserve. Forced by law to recognize the coins as legal tender, the Fed would add $2 trillion to the Treasury’s account. The Treasury would then use this money, under Congress’s direction, for stimulus.

If the government wants money, why doesn’t it just—poof!—make the money? In this case, the $2 trillion would fund prepaid debit cards for “every person in America,” as Rep. Tlaib’s so-called Automatic BOOST to Communities Act says. The cards would come loaded with $2,000 and be topped up with another $1,000 every month until a year after the end of the crisis. Problem solved, right?

That $2 trillion isn’t an invented number. The White House and Senate overnight reached an agreement on a coronavirus aid package that would cost at least that. A lot is unknown with that plan, including how will it be financed.

 

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'We are finished': Takeout and delivery isn't sustaining Indianapolis restaurants: https://www.indystar.com/story/entertainment/dining/restaurants/2020/03/30/why-takeout-cant-sustain-indianapolis-restaurants-during-coronavirus/2906602001/

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....

When Gov. Eric Holcomb halted dine-in service March 16 to control the coronavirus’ spread, many restaurant owners quickly shifted to takeout and delivery. Social media lit up with customer calls to “support our local restaurants.” Organizations created hashtags like #carryoutwednesday and #TheGreatAmericanTakeout. Efforts have boosted sales but not nearly enough, Indiana Restaurant and Lodging Association president Patrick Tamm said.

 

Indiana's restaurant industry overall lost an estimated $433 million in sales and more than 53,000 jobs during the first 22 days of March, the InRLA reported.

Owners have cited sales declines of up to 80%, Tamm said. Even restaurants with established takeout menus, places with drive-up windows or that already used third-party delivery services such as UberEats, are down, some to as little as 3% of their typical carryout income.

 

“We’re seeing the effects as each day goes by,” said Rob Chinsky, who owns 18 Penn Station sub shops.

Although his restaurants have long relied on carryout, Chinsky said, “Last week, we saw 30% drops, and now they’re just continuing to grow. I have some stores that will potentially close (for takeout) just because they’re not doing the volume.

Some restaurant owners offered takeout just long enough to sell what was left on shelves and in coolers. Many had stocked up to serve the influx expected during the Big Ten basketball tournament, which was canceled four days before Holcomb clamped down on dine-in service. 

...

Fewer carryout options may pressure already-stressed grocers. Americans spend nearly 40% of their food dollars on meals away from home, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Some restaurants, including Rooster’s Kitchen on Mass Ave., Sahm’s restaurants, Big Lug Canteen in Nora and Studio C and Half Liter BBQ in SoBro, have stepped up to ease the crush by becoming curbside food markets.

As unwilling as they are to surrender, restaurateurs know that they are operating on borrowed time as the number of COVID-19 cases in the United States rise.

“These are the first few weeks when everybody is rallying, and everybody is trying to support everybody, which is great ... but we all know that has a shelf life,” Nicole Oprisu said.

Her five Broad Ripple-area restaurants — Delicia, La Mulita, Northside Social, Northside Kitchenette and Old Pro’s Table — are down 70%.

“More people are going to lose jobs," she said. "It’s going to be harder for people to get out and about. It’s going to be harder for people to come pick things up.”

As sales dry up, permanent restaurant closures will follow, Tamm said.

“We already have restaurants that we know, unfortunately, will not reopen, barring some mass cash infusion, free cash infusion,” he said. “They simply will not reopen.

...

We all require cash flow. We all require butts in seats and sales to operate," she said. "These are really fragile ecosystems. And we are now learning how fragile we are.”

Thanks Mr. Holcomb and his cronies, for destroying the Indiana economy.   And no amount of "free" federal money will save it.

 

 

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2 hours ago, Muda69 said:

Why do you need more analysis to know that it's bad fiscal policy to spend money you don't have?  Oh, yeah, we can just mint two 1 trillion dollar coins:

https://fortune.com/2020/03/25/coronavirus-stimulus-bill-how-will-us-pay-trillion-dollar-coin/

Because, in theory, some amount of additional debt could end up being the lesser of two evils, given the extraordinary circumstances. I’d have to see the thinking behind the stimulus to have an informed opinion. That’s why shortcut thinking like “more debt = bad” is just intellectually lazy.

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1 hour ago, Bobref said:

Because, in theory, some amount of additional debt could end up being the lesser of two evils, given the extraordinary circumstances. I’d have to see the thinking behind the stimulus to have an informed opinion. That’s why shortcut thinking like “more debt = bad” is just intellectually lazy.

No, it's not.  Not when you are already trillions of dollars in debt to begin with.

Back to Work: America Has No Choice if It Is to Avoid Total Disaster: https://mises.org/power-market/back-work-america-has-no-choice-if-it-avoid-total-disaster

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China and Russia are open for business and working at close to capacity as America shutters most all business and industry in states such as Pennsylvania, New York, California, New Jersey, and Connecticut. In many cases only select manufacturing companies are allowed to operate, which means that most manufacturers will be short of parts and services necessary to produce goods.

Our leaders are creating an economic crisis and a major national security risk with limited data. The cure is far worse than any perceived impact from COVID-19. Our economy is both fragile and interdependent, an economic reality not understood by our leaders as they order mass closings of many states’ business and industry.

Thomas Sowell wrote, “There are no solutions. There are only tradeoffs.” Sowell was informing us that wise and sound judgments are imperative during any crisis.

An opinion piece by John P.A. Ioannidis, professor of medicine, epidemiology, and population health at Stanford University, is headlined, “A Fiasco In the Making? As the Coronavirus Pandemic Takes Hold, We Are Making Decisions Without Reliable Data.”

This season the flu has killed 22,000 Americans versus 388 dead from COVID-19. This the hard data available. There has been no national discussion about the flu but complete panic on the coronavirus.

The restaurant industry, which is the largest employer in America, is closed in most states. Now we will begin to witness the industries that support restaurants and hotels begin to shutter.

Marriott Corporate in Bethesda, Maryland, has furloughed 66 percent of its employees and cut the pay of the remaining employees by 20 percent. Such actions by major employers will have a devastating impact on the US economy.

The Big Three automakers and their suppliers are closed, which means hundreds of thousands of workers are laid off and at home. This will quickly lead to more layoffs and many small business failures. There is no amount of government money that can make up for an economy closed and workers staying home.

We all know that food and supplies are critical to families. Most individuals assume these products and services will be available. But as we have witnessed, when demand exceeds supply and businesses are shuttered, supply runs out.

Supply of goods and services is quickly becoming a more important national issue than the COVID-19 panic. The virus will not adversely impact most Americans, but they will sustain substantial financial losses, and at some point supplies will run out.

Schools can shut down, and sick people should stay home, along with older or at-risk individuals, until the panic subsides, but the healthy must be allowed to work.

Every family, state, city, and business can make the best decisions during this crisis, but we cannot have simplistic top-down mandates.

We are quickly moving toward a supply problem. Just-in-time inventory means we make products as needed. If the producers are closed, we run out of goods quickly.

Wiring $3,000 to most Americans may seem like a solution, but unless we have a supply of the goods families need, the money will not help. The best way for families to have income is for America to be open for business and not risk shortages and civil unrest. It is noteworthy that liquor, ammo, and guns sales are robust.

The federal government has no money and is $23 trillion in debt. Now Congress contemplates a $2 trillion economic bailout, which is pushing the limits of how much Congress can borrow and will eventually create a major financial meltdown. The solution is a robust economy producing goods, services, and financial stability.

All healthy Americans who want to work must be allowed to return to work no later than March 30. This commonsense approach will allow new production and for the healthy to support those in need.

I urge President Trump to speak to Americans from a Midwest manufacturing plant, away from the Swamp, and appeal to all governors and Americans to overcome their fears and take reasonable precautions, but allow America to open for business by March 30.

This "just shut everything down" mantra by government is the intellectually lazy decision here, not  "more debt = bad".

 

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24 minutes ago, Bobref said:

The two are not mutually exclusive. 😉

Government shuts down the nation and destroys the economy.   That leads to more massive borrowing, aka debt,  to fund a record-setting "stimulus" bill that won't even come close to fixing the problem.  Will just attempt to make us all more dependent on government, and it's a large scale experiment on UBI.

 

 

 

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This Business Is Suing the Government Over a Coronavirus Closure Order: https://reason.com/2020/03/30/this-business-is-suing-the-government-over-a-coronavirus-closure-order/

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The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires the government to pay just compensation when it takes private property for a public use. Does that apply when the government orders a business to close its doors indefinitely in order to help prevent the spread of COVID-19? Is the shuttered business entitled to compensation for its troubles?

These are not hypothetical questions. Schulmerich Bells, a small outfit that makes handcrafted handbells and chimes in Hatfield, Pennsylvania, has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Gov. Thomas Wolf's order indefinitely closing all "non-life-sustaining" businesses during the COVID-19 outbreak. "The Governor has placed the cost of these Orders—issued for the benefit of the public—squarely upon the shoulders of private individuals and their families, and has failed to justly compensate affected parties for these takings undertaken for their benefit to the public," the suit states. "These uncompensated seizures violate the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment." The suit seeks the payment of just compensation by the state.

The U.S. Supreme Court has long said that the states may regulate—and even prohibit—certain property uses in the name of public health and safety without triggering the Takings Clause. In Mugler v. Kansas (1887), the Court ruled against a liquor manufacturer whose livelihood was destroyed when the state banned the sale and manufacture of "intoxicating beverages." According to the Court, "a prohibition simply upon the use of property for purposes that are declared, by valid legislation, to be injurious to the health, morals, or safety of the community, cannot, in any just sense, be deemed a taking or an appropriation of property for the public benefit." Such government action "does not disturb the owner in the control or use of his property for lawful purposes, nor restrict his right to dispose of it, but is only a declaration by the State that its use by any one, for certain forbidden purposes, is prejudicial to the public interests."

Similarly, in Miller v. Schoene (1928), the Supreme Court upheld a Virginia law requiring the destruction of red cedar trees infected with cedar rust if those trees stood within two miles of an apple orchard (cedar rust is highly detrimental to apple trees). "The state does not exceed its constitutional powers by deciding upon the destruction of one class of property in order to save another which, in the judgment of the legislature, is of greater value to the public," the Court said. "It will not do to say that the case is merely one of a conflict of two private interests and that the misfortune of apple growers may not be shifted to cedar owners by ordering the destruction of their property; for it is obvious that there may be, and that here there is, a preponderant public concern in the preservation of the one interest over the other."

In short, if this particular lawsuit is going to succeed, it will have to clear some steep precedential hurdles.

One can see thousands of these lawsuits, clogging up the courts, if the America doesn't "get back to work" soon.    The government is destroying our economy, and our nation.

 

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COVID-19 Immigration Restrictions Make Labor and Food Shortages a Real Possibility: https://reason.com/2020/03/28/covid-19-immigration-restrictions-make-labor-and-food-shortages-a-real-possibility/

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Farm groups are warning that immigration restrictions put in place this month by the Trump administration could lead to food shortages down the road, Reason contributor Sean Higgins reported this week in the Washington Examiner.

Last week, the U.S. closed consulates in Mexico, which halted processing of farmworker visas there under the H-2A visa program. Earlier reports had suggested H-2A visas "would continue to be processed."

The U.S. and Mexico also agreed last week to close the border temporarily to all but essential traffic, though commercial transport and workers with legal work permits are still free to traverse the border. The moves also come as protesters in Mexico blocked a border crossing this week to demand visitors from the United States be tested for the coronavirus before being allowed into Mexico.

The H-2A visa program lets U.S. farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural producers that anticipate labor shortages bring on foreign workers temporarily to fill the gaps. 

"Contrary to what some might assume, these visa holders aren't unskilled labor," Higgins writes. "Modern farming involves a lot of technology, including heavy equipment, that the workers must be familiar with, as well as other skills that ordinary people won't possess."

According to 2016 Labor Department data, more than 165,000 agricultural labor positions were certified that year under the H-2A program. More than half of those positions were based in Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington, and California. Leading crops harvested by H-2A workers include berries, apples, melons, sweet potatoes, lettuce, and corn. More than nine out of every 10 farmworkers holding an H-2A come from Mexico.

While workers who've applied for an H-2A visa in the past year are eligible to renew, Higgins cites agricultural sources who say such renewals typically account for only around half of annual applicants. Unless many more existing visa holders re-apply than normally do, then, or the Trump administration changes course, the U.S. could face crippling farm labor shortages. And those labor shortages could, in turn, translate to food shortages at U.S. grocery stores.

According to a primer from the American Farm Bureau Federation, the nation's largest farm lobby, Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act, which gave rise to the H-2 visa process, in the early 1950s. The H-2A program has grown dramatically in recent years, with some U.S. businesses that rely on H-2A applicants seeing their demand for guest workers double in recent years.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, acknowledging the potential impact of a farm labor shortage, says the administration will "do everything we can to keep that part of our economic lifeblood working."

Meanwhile, many are downplaying the risk of any potential food shortages.

"Even if the COVID-19 pandemic stretches over months[,] there will be no big food shortages, especially on staples like milk, eggs, cheese, bread[,] and meat," CNBC reported last week. The New York Times also reported (as did Politico) that domestic food supplies and production are on solid ground. Rodney McMullen, CEO of Kroger, told the Motley Fool that food shortages are unlikely given that "there's plenty of food in the supply chain." 

But, as Forbes reported last week, producers and sellers are facing many challenges, including "a number of weak spots in the food transportation system that could be aggravated by the increased demand for food." And though some grocers are thriving right now, they're also struggling to keep up with consumer demand.

Predictably, the U.S. isn't the only country facing food-supply hurdles due to COVID-19. Europe, for example, is facing similar labor challenges, which are giving rise to fears of food shortages there, too.

COVID-19 has caused countries to take a variety of steps to reassess their food supplies. Some countries, for example, have begun to halt food exports. The Guardian reported this week that the United Nations warns that worker shortages, coupled with "protectionist policies"—including tariffs and export bans, including ones adopted in Kazakhstan, Vietnam, and Russia—could begin to cause food shortages around the globe "within weeks." Global supply chains, like those in the U.S., are also being tested

But these fears aren't universal. Thailand, for one, is downplaying fears of any food shortages in that country.

Ultimately, the U.S. could still avoid potential farm labor shortages if, say, the Trump administration reverses course or—less likely, given the need for skilled labor—if recently unemployed U.S. workers fill the available farm positions.

The Trump administration's odious stance against Mexico, Mexicans, and immigrants in general casts a cloud of suspicion over its immigration and border restrictions. Vox reported last week that some observers are concerned the Trump administration is "using the crisis as a potential excuse to further restrict travel across the southern border. " On the other hand, temporary border restrictions to battle COVID-19 make sense. They also apply at this point to people in every non-U.S. country—whether Canada, Mexico, China, England, or beyond—and vice versa.

As soon as those restrictions can be lifted safely and our borders can be reopened, they should be. American farmers and consumers depend on it.

 

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Macomb man with COVID-19 says Hydroxychloroquine, Azithromycin saved him

https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/macomb-man-with-covid-19-says-hydroxychloroquine-azithromycin-saved-him

"I was struggling to breathe. I felt like I was slowly drowning and I was sitting there thinking I'm not going to make it until midnight," he said.

Santilli says the experimental drugs Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin brought him back from the brink.  The 38-year old was prescribed the drugs a little more than a week ago at Henry Ford Macomb where he was hospitalized for COVID-19.

He says a doctor told him they'd exhausted treatment options. An infectious disease physician recommended he try both.

"He stated at that point for COVID-19 patients they saw a lot of positive results in China and South Korea it would be advantageous to try it," Santilli said. "Right away I saw improvements in a few hours: the gasping for air stopped; a lot of my symptoms went away, and really it was a turning point almost a 180 degree turn as to what I was experiencing."

The FDA recently approved shipping Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine products to public health authorities across the country to treat severe cases of COVID-19. It said it is reasonable to believe they may be effective in treating COVID-19 and that the known and potential benefits outweigh the risks.

"It does appear as though Hydroxychloroquine may be beneficial," said Dr. Rudolph Valentini. 

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Overnight, his business vanished: Farmers reliant on restaurants suffer during pandemic: https://www.indystar.com/story/news/environment/2020/03/31/farmers-reliant-restaurants-suffer-covid-19-pandemic/2924142001/

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Greg Gunthorp works in one of the professions deemed essential by the state and federal government as the coronavirus outbreak rages on. He is not a health care worker or in public safety — he is a farmer.

He raises pigs, chickens, ducks and turkeys. But seemingly overnight, the market for Gunthorp’s products vanished. That’s because the people he sells to — restaurants, universities, amusement parks — have closed their doors.

“We have whole categories of species we just plain don’t have customers for right now,” said Gunthorp, who estimates that his customer base has dwindled to less than 20% of previous levels. “We’ve spent 20 years building these markets, and that literally just blew all up last week.”

At a time when many grocery stores can’t keep their shelves stocked, small specialty farmers across the Midwest are hoping to shift strategies as quickly as the restaurant markets they served have unraveled. Some are looking to sell directly to consumers.

Still, some in the agriculture industry worry that some small farms won't make it through the coming months. 

Larger farm operators, too, are feeling the effects of COVID-19 outbreak, as they wonder if they will have enough labor, if prices will hold and if the government will provide relief.

“It’s clear that this pandemic is really challenging and threatening all of society,” said John Piotti, president of the American Farmland Trust, a national group that works to protect and preserve farms. “But our farmers, who are the ones responsible for putting the food on our table, are experiencing particular challenges and they need our help.”

...

More proof these government edicts are quickly destroying the American economy.  It needs to stop, government should not have this level of control of the market.

 

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Coronavirus: The California Herd: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/coronavirus-pandemic-california-herd-immunity/

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The bluest state’s public officials have been warning for weeks that California will be overwhelmed, given federal-government unpreparedness and the purported inefficacy of the local, state, and federal governments.

California governor Gavin Newsom has assured his state that over half of the population — or, in his words, 56 percent — will soon be infected. That is, more than 25 million coronavirus cases are on the horizon, which, at the virus’s current fatality rate of 1–2 percent (the ratio of deaths to known positive cases), would mean that the state should anticipate 250,000–500,000 dead Californians in the near future. Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti predicted that this week Los Angeles would be short of all sorts of medical supplies as the epidemic killed many hundreds, as is the case in New York City.

It’s been well over two months since the first certified coronavirus case in the United States, so one might expect to see early symptoms of the apocalypse recently forecast by Governor Newsom. Yet a number of California’s top doctors, epidemiologists, statisticians, and biophysicists — including Stanford’s John Ioannides, Michael Levitt, Eran Bendavid, and Jay Bhattacharya — have expressed some skepticism about the bleak models predicting that we are on the verge of a statewide or even national lethal pandemic of biblical proportions.

The skeptics may be right. As of this moment, California’s cumulative fatalities attributed to coronavirus are somewhere over 140 deaths, in a state of 40 million. That toll is a relatively confirmable numerator (though coronavirus is not always the sole cause of death), as opposed to the widely unreliable denominator of caseloads (currently about 6,300 in the state) that are judged to be only a fraction of the population that has been tested. The Iceland study, for example, suggests that half of those who are infected show no symptoms. Currently, even with fluctuating statistics, California is suffering roughly about one death to the virus for every 250,000–300,000 of its residents.

The rate certainly will go up each hour, and no doubt in geometric fashion, as the virus spreads. Yet we should remember that California loses about 270,000 lives to all causes every year — meaning, on any given day, around 740 Californians die. So far there is no published clear evidence that in January, February, and March more Americans have died from pneumonia-related diseases than in an average year. Note too that not all deaths attributed to coronavirus are the work of COVID-19 alone; they are often accompanied by advanced age and serious chronic conditions that may have soon led to death without any accompanying viral infection.

In contrast, as of Monday morning, New York State, with about half of California’s population, has about eight to nine times the number of deaths, and 20 times the per capita rate, at 60 deaths per million residents. In fact, California has a much lower per capita death rate than many of the nation’s largest states; for that matter, its per capita death rate is similar to that of nations that so far have mysteriously escaped the virus’s modeled wrath. Currently, California has lost fewer than 4 people per million, roughly between South Korea’s 3 deaths per million and Germany’s 5, which are both being studied as outliers. Of course, statistics change hourly, but for now California’s data remain mysteries.

Even at this midpoint in the virus’s ascendance, most believed that California would be fairing far worse. And they have good reason for such pessimism. California in a normal year usually experiences the greatest number of deaths associated with the flu in the United States, and it ranks about midway among the states in flu deaths per capita. The state was hit hard by influenza unusually early in the first weeks of November, including a strain that at the time was characterized as probably not “A” but a rarer “B” — and on occasion quite virulent. A typical news story related, in early 2020, “California health officials have identified 16 outbreaks since the start of the flu season Sept. 29. Flu cases, hospitalizations and flu deaths are all higher than anticipated, according to the health department.” Many Californians complained late in 2019 of getting the flu a bit early, with flu symptoms that were somewhat different from the norm, at times including severe muscle aches, some digestive cramping, an unproductive cough, and days or even weeks of post-fever fatigue.

Forty-million-person California, in normal times — that is, until around or shortly after February 1, 2020 — hosts dozens of daily direct flights from China in general to San Diego, SFO, LAX, and San Jose, and in particular, since 2014, several weekly nonstop flights from Wuhan. Of the nearly 15,000 passengers who were estimated to be arriving every day in the U.S. on flights from China in 2019 and 2020, the majority flew into California. After the ban, there were thousands of Chinese tourists who remained in California and could get neither direct nor indirect flights home to China.

Travel forecasts from China for 2020, even amid the trade war, had estimated more than 8,000 daily arrivals in California. Two years ago, Los Angeles mayor Garcetti bragged that 1.1 million Chinese tourists had visited L.A. — more than 3,000 per day. The greatest number of foreign tourists to Los Angeles are Chinese, and the city is the favorite spot in America of all visitors from China. During the months of October, November, January, and February alone — before the travel ban — perhaps nearly 1 million Chinese citizens arrived in California on direct and indirect flights originating in China.

Moreover, researchers in Italy believe that the Chinese were not telling the truth about the origins or birth dates of the virus; they argue that COVID-19 was first loose worldwide in the middle of Autumn 2019 rather than in Winter 2020. Reuters recently reported:

Adriano Decarli, an epidemiologist and medical statistics professor at the University of Milan, said there had been a “significant” increase in the number of people hospitalized for pneumonia and flu in the areas of Milan and Lodi between October and December last year. . . . He told Reuters he could not give exact figures but “hundreds” more people than usual had been taken to hospital in the last three months of 2019 in those areas — two of Lombardy’s worst hit cities — with pneumonia and flu-like symptoms, and some of those had died. . . . Decarli is reviewing the hospital records and other clinical details of those cases, including people who later died at home, to try to understand whether the new coronavirus epidemic had already spread to Italy back then. . . . “We want to know if the virus was already here in Italy at the end of 2019, and — if yes — why it remained undetected for a relatively long period so that we could have a clearer picture in case we have to face a second wave of the epidemic,” he said.

In a recent Oxford study, a heterodox hypothesis was offered questioning the widely circulated study of Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist with Imperial College London. He and his team had offered a worst-case projection of as many as 2.2 million American and 510,000 British deaths. Ferguson has now emphasized the low-end estimates of death rates in some of his modeling, for example, suggesting that maybe only 20,000 in Britain may die from the virus, given how Britain has taken actions to curb and treat it. In any case, other models from the Oxford authors offer far less pessimistic hypothetical scenarios. In one, they suggest that viral infections in the U.K. might have begun almost 40 days before March 5, which was the first confirmed death there. If that is true, they argue, then to square the current figures of transmission, perhaps 68 percent of the British population would have had to be already infected by at least March 19 — reflecting a herd immunity that will radically curtail future transmission. Of course, without widespread antibody testing alongside testing for current infections, no one knows the number of past and present infections. Regardless, the Chinese notion that the world was not seriously infected until mid February increasingly seems mathematically unlikely.

In the case of California, again, unfortunately, the state still should have had many things going against it, at least in terms of susceptibility to any pandemic infection that curbs its huge tourist and commercial travel with China. The state has the nation’s highest poverty rate (affecting over 20 percent of the population, or some 8 million people); the greatest number of homeless people, at somewhere over 150,000; and the most residents in the nation on some form of public assistance, one-third of the nation’s total.

Over a quarter of the state’s population was not born in the U.S. Until recent bans, many frequently went to and from their countries of origin. It has the largest number of non-English speakers in the U.S., suggesting that public dissemination of key information might become far more problematic.

The state is not especially healthy and rarely rates among the top ten states in terms of per capita health, by whichever metrics one uses. A decade ago, studies suggested that one in three admissions of those over 35 to California hospitals were suffering from either diabetes or pre-diabetes — a known risk factor for coronavirus patients.

California ranks near the bottom when we count the number of available hospital beds per 1,000 population, at about 1.8. Likewise, its number of active doctors per 100,000 is similarly unimpressive, about midway among state rankings, at 276 per 100,000 — versus Massachusetts’s high of 450 and Mississippi’s low of 191. In most surveys of nurses per 100,000 population, California ranks near last (664).

How, then, has California in the third month of known COVID-19 infections in the U.S. lost between 140 and 150 lives to it?

Again, a number of experts have offered hypotheses. Is it a question of the statistical anomaly — as some have suggested is the case for Germany, which similarly posts few total deaths from the virus — given differences in how countries and perhaps even states record the chief causation of death (i.e., are some places listing COVID-19 as the cause of death, even when the decedent suffered from underlying chronic conditions)? Is California experiencing a brief lull, in the fashion of Japan, which likewise has suffered few deaths so far but may be posed to suffer far more?

Is there a lag in ascertaining and determining deaths in a state that’s geographically huge and linguistically diverse, a lapse that will shortly cease, correcting such misimpressions with a radical increase in corona-associated deaths — as is now forecast for Japan and to a lesser extent Germany?

Did California’s Draconian shelter-in-place policies that antedated many of those in other states simply arrest (so far) what should have been by now a lethal epidemic?

Did California’s proverbial warmer weather slow down the virus? Did its suburban ranch-home lifestyle and the large open spaces in the Central Valley, Sierra Nevada, desert and northern counties make transmissions harder than it has been in, say, the high-density living of New York City?

Maybe and maybe not.

While testing tardiness might explain outliers in terms of California’s relatively small number of proven cases and lethality rates, it would not greatly affect accurate statistics of deaths attributed to the virus. If anything, as the number of known cases grows, the lower the lethality rate will likely appear.

While California adopted shelter-in-place policies on March 19, other states did the same about the same time. And visiting a California Costco on any Saturday morning is a reminder of current mob frenzies. After a near-record dry and warm January and February, the state has been unseasonably cold and wet for most of March during the epidemic’s spike. True, California encompasses an enormous area, but it also is home to the country’s largest population and thus still ranks about eleventh in population density among the states. Some districts in San Francisco and Los Angeles are as densely populated as East Coast cities.

One less-mentioned hypothesis is that California, as a front-line state, may have rather rapidly developed a greater level of herd immunity than other states, given that hints, anecdotes, and some official indications from both China and Italy that, again, the virus may well have been spreading abroad far earlier than the first recorded case in the U.S. —and likely from the coasts inward.

So given the state’s unprecedented direct air access to China, and given its large expatriate and tourist Chinese communities, especially in its huge denser metropolitan corridors in Los Angeles and the Bay Area, it could be that what thousands of Californians experienced as an unusually “early” and “bad” flu season might have also reflected an early coronavirus epidemic, suggesting that many more Californians per capita than in other states may have acquired immunity to the virus.

Here in Fresno County (1.1 million people), we are warned daily that we are the next hot spot. But as of late March, we’ve had no recorded deaths and only 41 known cases. The figure will no doubt multiply rapidly and geometrically, but it still seems incomprehensible that not a single death was attributed to the virus in its first 60 days of visitation. I live near the Kings County line in rural Fresno County (which is not so rural anymore, given urban sprawl from greater Fresno). There have been two recorded cases and no deaths among the county’s more than 150,000 residents.

We won’t know the answers until antibody testing becomes widespread enough to determine who has already been infected, and who carried the virus without symptoms, and who wrongly attributed symptoms to the flu or a bad cold. Or epidemiologists will have to go over average daily pre-coronavirus death rates in California to determine whether, in comparison with past years, the state had any per capita spikes in deaths in October, November, December, and January, or an increase in hospitalizations attributed to the flu.

In the meantime, for a few days at least, we are left with the California paradox. As with the apparent outliers of Germany, South Korea, and Japan, it reminds us that there are endless known unknowns about the origins, lethality, infectiousness, and patterns of travel of the coronavirus — and that today’s latest frightening statistical model is often superseded tomorrow by more realistic appraisals and theories, and then again rendered naïve by even more frightening new backlash models. Until now, without either widespread antibody or current-infection testing, the number of people who die from the virus in comparison to a given population base is about all we can rely on to determine the lethality of the disease. And in that regard, at least for a few days or weeks longer, California remains a mystery.

It seem fairly clear that this strain of the Coronavirus has been in the USA for many months,  mostly in California.  And this 'herd immunity' has taken hold after an initial uptick of this strange "B-type influenza"  in November of 2019.  And I bet dollars to doughnuts this "B-type influenza" is COVID-19.

 

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Police arrest Florida pastor for holding church services despite stay-at-home order: https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/us/florida-pastor-arrested-river-church/index.html

Quote

Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne said he wouldn't close the doors of his Tampa, Florida, megachurch until the End Times begin. The police weren't willing to wait that long.

On Monday, Florida sheriff's deputies arrested the evangelical pastor, who has continued to host large church services despite public orders urging residents to stay home to help contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said Howard-Browne has been charged with two counts: unlawful assembly and a violation of health emergency rules. Both are second-degree misdemeanors, Chronister said at a press conference Monday.
....

The U.S. Constitution:  "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

The Florida State Constitution:  "SECTION 5. Right to assemble.—The people shall have the right peaceably to assemble, to instruct their representatives, and to petition for redress of grievances."

 

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3 hours ago, Howe said:

I haven't seen Democrats and their mainstream media propaganda arm this upset since the 2016 presidential election, the collapse of the Russia hoax, , the humiliation of their super hero during that ridiculous Mueller Dossier hearing, the conviction of their super hero Michael Avenatti, who appeared over 300 times on their networks and the failed impeachment hoax.

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The state of Rhode Island is now truly an island surrounded by the evil coranavirus:  https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2020/03/29/rhode-island-ends-restrictions-on-new-yorkers-1269535

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Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo is no longer singling out motorists from New York for restricted access to her state. Instead, she has broadened the restrictions to include all other states.

Raimondo announced on Friday that her state’s police would pull over drivers with New York license plates and force them to self-quarantine for 14 days. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo quickly denounced the policy and threatened to sue.

During his daily briefing on Sunday, Cuomo said he had spoken with Raimondo on Saturday and that she told him her executive order was being repealed.

“I don’t think the order was called for, I don’t believe it was legal, I don’t believe it was neighborly,” he said. “I understand the point, but I thought there were different ways to do it, and the governor of Rhode Island was every receptive.”

While Cuomo suggested the shift was a reprieve for New Yorkers, Raimondo indicated Sunday that New Yorkers will still need to stop or be stopped as they enter Rhode Island — now, they’ll simply have more company at those checkpoints.

“As the data has changed, the situation has changed. Unfortunately, the rate of infection we’re seeing in New York City — unfortunately, we’re seeing that same rate of infection in other places, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey, etc.,” Raimondo said during a regular briefing at the State House in Providence. “So, yesterday, to keep all Rhode Islanders safe, I signed an executive order imposing a quarantine on all visitors from any state, by any mode of transportation who are coming in Rhode Island for non-work purposes and plan to stay.”

...

Rhode Island Door Knocks in Search of Fleeing New Yorkers: https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/rhode-island-door-knocks-in-search-of-fleeing-new-yorkers/2099052/

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The Rhode Island National Guard started going door to door on Saturday in coastal areas to inform any New Yorkers who may have come to the state that they must self-quarantine for 14 days while Gov. Gina Raimondo expanded the mandatory self-quarantine to anyone visiting the state.

Raimondo also ordered residents to stay at home, with exceptions for getting food, medicines or going to the doctor, and ordered nonessential retail businesses to close Monday until April 13 to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. She also directed realtors and hotel operators to include new requirements that any out-of-state residents must quarantine for 14 days in their purchase agreements.

....

If New Yorkers don't comply, they face fines and jail time, Raimondo said, adding that that's not the goal.

``I want to be crystal clear about this: If you're coming to Rhode Island from New York you are ordered into quarantine. The reason for that is because more than half of the cases of coronavirus in America are in New York,`` Raimondo said, adding that it's not meant to be discriminatory.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called the order ``reactionary`` and unconstitutional, saying he'd sue Rhode Island if the policy isn't rescinded but believed they could ``work it out.``

...

Our great country is falling apart, gripped by fear of a virus that hasn't infected, hospitalized, or killed as many people as common influenza.  

Thanks to our government and the scaremongering MSM.

 

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CNN anchor Chris Cuomo tests positive for COVID-19. Perhaps he will instruct doctors to avoid Hydroxychloroquine, Azithromycin treatment.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/cnn-anchor-chris-cuomo-diagnosed-with-coronavirus-he-will-continue-working-from-home/ar-BB11Ycp8?ocid=spartandhp

Twitter takes down posts promoting anti malaria treatment for coronavirus.

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/490245-twitter-takes-down-posts-promoting-anti-malaria-treatment-for-coronavirus

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Our Liberties Have Value Too: https://www.cato.org/blog/our-liberties-have-value-too

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When thinking through the wisdom of COVID-19 lockdowns and orders, commentators often compare the value of lives saved against some loss of economic output (GDP) to determine whether the measure was cost‐effective. But this is an apples vs. oranges comparison.

The value of a statistical life is some calculation of what the average U.S. citizen is willing to pay for a reduction in their probability of dying. Suppose I’m willing to pay $20,000 to avoid a 0.2 percent chance of death. The value of a statistical life for me is thus $20,000/0.2 percent = $10 million per statistical life saved. If this number were applied across the population, then a measure that prevented 500,000 deaths would create $5 trillion in value.

But note carefully what this represents: it’s not about output or spending. The value we place on our lives through our choices represents our expectation of the pleasure we’d get from a full spectrum of things we’d miss if we died. Not just the consumption we’d forego, in other words, but the value we place on time with friends and family, travel experiences, enjoying all the new non‐market leisure activities we can engage in, and more. The value of a statistical life used to calculate a dollar measure of the value of lives saved in a lockdown is therefore an economic welfare measure, not a GDP measure.

So the correct comparison when weighing up the wisdom of a lockdown is not “GDP lost” but “economic welfare lost.” That means we must account for the value of our lost liberties from shutdowns, stay‐at‐home orders, and closure of non‐essential businesses. As British economist Andrew Lilico has said, that includes “the cost of lost enjoyment, lost advance in our skills, lost spiritual development, lost self‐expression, delayed marriages, missing of windows of opportunity to ever have a baby, missing the chance to sit at the bedside of a loved one dying of cancer,” and much more besides. These non‐market losses mean the loss of economic welfare from lockdowns is much greater than observed losses to GDP.

One of my friends has had to cancel his bachelor party as a result of the lockdowns; another probably won’t now have her ill Dad around to give her away at her wedding; some students are missing out on lessons that might permanently impair their understanding for life. It should be obvious these losses are greater than any hit to consumption or earning potential. My guess is that many of you at home feel like your evening time is worth less without the option of doing something different. You valued that option even if you wouldn’t act on it. In economic terms, Casey Mulligan writes about all this as a loss in the productivity of leisure time.

Now, accounting for this lost value accurately is difficult. Especially because, even if governments lifted lockdowns, many of us would likely continue to curb our own non‐market activities to avoid the risk of infection or spreading the virus to loved ones. The problem is in large part the virus, not just the policy response. In normal times too, libertarians would balk at the idea you could “aggregate” in some way these very personal valuations of liberties. And, just so my views are not misrepresented, I am not saying that trying to account for them necessarily changes the calculus to what is optimal policy either way.

When thinking through how much pain we are willing to incur to save lives though, it’s essential that we do not place an implicit value of zero on our personal, non‐market freedoms. The value of lives saved accounts for our ability to live those lives. Cost estimates of lockdowns should account for the value of our restricted liberties too.

Rack this opinion piece.  Spot on.

 

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Notice no government workers have been put on the unemployment rolls since this scare started.  Are are all of them really 100% essential?

Thought Experiment - what would be different about our lives today if every government worker at the state, local and federal levels had no paycheck as long as the Emergency and the business closures continue, just like every restaurant and bar owner and every waitress and every hair stylist and on and on with the working Americans who have been deemed "non-essential"?

What if the entire government was without pay and throw in no health benefits until the whole country returns to work? That would include Dr. Fauci, and Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell and President Trump. No pay and no airline trips and no signing ceremonies no new government spending bills and no press conferences. You must stay in your own house, for the good of the children. The National Guard will be at your door to make sure you are safe in your house till this is over.

 

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29 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Trump calls for $2T infrastructure bill as 'Phase 4' of coronavirus response: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-calls-for-2t-infrastructure-bill-as-phase-4-of-coronavirus-response

*sigh*  Nothing more to say anymore really.   All politicians now believe the U.S. Dollar to just be play money.  Our once great country is doomed, and our children and grandchildren are going to pay the price.

 

 

21 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

The ‘Orange Man Bad’ Disease: https://spectator.org/the-orange-man-bad-disease/

How true.

 

 

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1 hour ago, gonzoron said:

 

 

You are the one with TDS, Gonzo.  Not I.  I call out Mr. Trump for his myriad of bad decisions and policies, you call him out on practically everything he says.

You hate the man, admit it.

 

 

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1 minute ago, Muda69 said:

I call out Mr. Trump for his myriad of bad decisions and policies, you call him out on practically everything he says.

So we do the same thing, yet I'm the one who is deranged. Got it.

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4 minutes ago, gonzoron said:

So we do the same thing, yet I'm the one who is deranged. Got it.

No we don't do the same thing.   While I believe Mr. Trump is a bad president and an even worse person,  my opinion of him doesn't descend to the mindless hatred and derision you and others with TDS have of the man whenever you see him, hear him speak, or read his tweets.  

 

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Southern Indiana Hobby Lobby forced to shut down after reopening: https://www.wlky.com/article/southern-indiana-hobby-lobby-forced-to-shut-down-after-reopening/31982573#

Quote

JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. —

A local retailer attempted to reopen its doors on Monday morning, before quickly being shut back down.

Officials with Hobby Lobby in Jeffersonville say the store opened at 10 a.m. However, a representative from the Clark County Health Department arrived an hour later and closed the store.

Customers were seen leaving the building around that time.

The store closed last Tuesday due to COVID-19, but some employees told WLKY they were contacted over the weekend and asked to show up when the store re-opened this morning.

Last week, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb issued at stay-at-home order for the entire state on Monday as the number of COVID-19 continue to rise. The order only allowed essential businesses to remain open.

Police State.

 

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