In conversations on an anti-conspiracy website (which I am anti-conspiracy and have argued against vaccination conspiracies‘ at length as well), a video was posted that I found interesting and informative. I marked it at the 3:30’ish start to skip the pleasantries and allow for the beginning of the data comparisons. Enjoy:
Compare Confirmed Cases, Death, and Fully Vaccinated Rate From Singapore during First Wave and Second Wave (Current Wave):
Part of my contribution to to the recalling of this video is as follows:
Again, to be clear, as England is a month or more ahead of us, we use their numbers:
in England, of the 600,000 new cases of Delta, of the over 2,500 deaths, 63% of those deaths, 1,613 people, were the fully vaccinated. Twenty-eight percent were with the unvaxxed.”(PJ-MEDIA)*
I have yet to hear people give me an answer why this is… I have a response that explains it well, but this response is rejected in regard to the larger death toll, and is one used when needed to cover the tracks of those forcing vaccines [so-called] on people. For example, CDC Dir. Rochelle Walensky — when breakthrough cases were up-and-coming — noted that many of the 223 deaths “from Covid” she said were actually because of other illnesses. You see, when they want to pad numbers and skeptics say “well the numbers are inflated because these deaths would have happened anyways,” these common sense observations are rejected. But when the admin in charge wants to sweep stats under the rug, they borrow from arguments I have made since March 2020.
Not to mention the myriad of complications due to the Vaccines:
(GATEWAY PUNDIT) Jose Manriquez is a 7 year veteran of the Denver Police Department and a 12 year veteran of the Army National Guard but his most important job is taking care of his 4 children and being a loving husband, son, brother, and uncle. Manriquez was given the mandatory COVID vaccine required by the City of Denver. The mandatory mandate stated either get the vaccine or face termination from the job he loves so much!
Manriquez received the mandatory vaccine on August 22, 2021, and immediately started having a bad reaction. Since receiving the vaccine he has not been able to return to work and his future is uncertain. After receiving his vaccine he developed severe tremors and has trouble sleeping due to the amount of pain in his legs. He has fallen a number of times and basically can’t walk.
EXAMPLE TWO
(GATEWAY PUNDIT)Jessica Berg Wilson, a young mother and “exceptionally healthy and vibrant 37-year-old with no underlying health conditions,” passed away from COVID Vaccine-Induced Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia.
This occurred after she took the COVID vaccine that she did not want.
According to her obituary at Oregon Live:
Jessica fully embraced motherhood, sharing her passion for life with her daughters. Jessica’s motherly commitment was intense, with unwavering determination to nurture her children to be confident, humble, responsible, and to have concern and compassion for others with high morals built on Faith.
Jessica’s greatest passion was to be the best mother possible for Bridget and Clara. Nothing would stand in her way to be present in their lives. During the last weeks of her life, however, the world turned dark with heavy-handed vaccine mandates. Local and state governments were determined to strip away her right to consult her wisdom and enjoy her freedom. She had been vehemently opposed to taking the vaccine, knowing she was in good health and of a young age and thus not at risk for serious illness. In her mind, the known and unknown risks of the unproven vaccine were more of a threat. But, slowly, day by day, her freedom to choose was stripped away. Her passion to be actively involved in her children’s education—which included being a Room Mom—was, once again, blocked by government mandate. Ultimately, those who closed doors and separated mothers from their children prevailed. It cost Jessica her life. It cost her children the loving embrace of their caring mother. And it cost her husband the sacred love of his devoted wife. It cost God’s Kingdom on earth a very special soul who was just making her love felt in the hearts of so many.
The family posted Jessica’s obituary at The Oregonian — But Twitter will not allow this information to be shared without a “misleading” label.
The social media giants are lying to the American public and people are dying.
A Public Health England Technical briefing released in September 2021 entitled “SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and variants under investigation in England” has some findings that do not bode well for vaccine supporters. The numbers show vaccinated people contracted and died of the so-called “Delta” variant of Coronavirus at a far greater rate than unvaccinated people between February 1, 2021 and September 12, 2021.
During the time period in question, unvaccinated people reportedly accounted for 257,357 Delta cases out of 593,572 total Delta cases (approximately 43 percent), and 722 out of 2,542 Delta deaths (approximately 28 percent) “within 28 days of positive specimen date.” What does that mean? It means that the vast majority of Delta deaths in England during this period occurred among vaccinated people, NOT unvaccinated people.
Here is Senator Ron Johnson’s presentation of this in-depth report:
More from PJ-MEDIA:
…On Thursday, Senator Ron Johnson (D-Wisc.) highlighted COVID data from outside of the United States. “The type of data we are not getting from our healthcare agencies,” he said, lamenting that “we have to look, unfortunately, to England and Israel,” which are being more transparent. The CDC has been accused of covering up the real numbers of breakthrough infections, which, if true, means that U.S. data isn’t very reliable. So, Senator Johnson first pointed to data from England.
“Now, President Biden – and this has been parroted by media and news media – said that what we are currently experiencing is a ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated’. They don’t really give us any data to back that up. They just proclaim, pronounce that 99 percent of people with Covid now are unvaccinated. But they don’t give us the data,” he explained. “Well, we have data from England, and here’s the data. So, of the 600,000 cases in England, 43% were the unvaxxed, 27% were with the fully vaxxed, another 30% were with partially vaxxed, or just undetermined.”
“Here is another quote from President Biden,” Johnson continued. “President Biden said, ‘if you’re vaccinated, you’re not going to be hospitalized. You’re not going to an ICU unit. You’re not going to die. You’re not going to get Covid, if you have these vaccinations’. Well, maybe that’s true in the U.S., I kind of doubt it. Because in England, of the 600,000 new cases of Delta, of the over 2,500 deaths, 63% of those deaths, 1,613 people, were the fully vaccinated. Twenty-eight percent were with the unvaxxed.”…
Vaccine APARTHEID: Don Lemon’s Covid BOMBSHELL — CNN’s Don Lemon has told his viewers that it’s time to shun and leave behind those who refuse to get vaccinated.
Can We REALLY Trust Vaccine Fact-Checkers??! — Are Facebook’s Fact Checkers reliable? A new report suggests they might not be as reliable as previously thought.
Jonathan Isaac slam-dunks on Journo! This video was all over RUMBLE and TWITTER… but no one edited the audio and boosted the DBs. I did. The guys uploading need to keep in mind that many people listen to the audio from these videos on their cellphones. Which, often times make it hard to hear.
During the 2020 NBA bubble in Orlando, Florida — after the George Floyd riots — NBA players knelt during the national anthem to protest anti-racism and anti-police brutality. Choosing to stand for the National Anthem was viewed as an anti-black gesture, with the risk of being vilified by the public at an all-time high. Isaac chose not to kneel for the anthem.
“Do you believe that black lives matter?” a reporter asked Isaac afterward.
“Absolutely. I believe that Black Lives Matter,” he said. “A lot went into my decision, and part of it is, I thought that kneeling or wearing the Black Lives Matter T-shirt doesn’t go hand-in-hand with supporting Black lives. So I felt like, just me personally, what is that I believe is taking on a stance that, I do believe that Black lives matter, but I just felt like it was a decision that I had to make, and I didn’t feel like putting that shirt on and kneeling went hand-in-hand with supporting Black lives. I believe that for myself.”
So, it comes as no surprise that Isaac is going against the grain when it comes to the vaccine. ……..
Here is a shitty article by Rolling Stone thinking they are high and mighty, as catalogued by POST MILLENNIAL:
According to a new report by Rolling Stone, the NBA is running out of patience with the remaining 10 percent of active players that are unvaccinated.
Commissioner Adam Silver had previously announced that the association would not implement a vaccine mandate for the 2021-22 season, but according Rolling Stone, league shot-callers are concerned that the remaining unvaccinated players are basing their decision on “conspiracy theories.”…….
These are actual quotes from pieces I’ve just read. I don’t know why I’ve been ignoring this. Let me say that I’m serious about my respect for frontline workers. I’m confident THEY are NOT the ones calling for us to lose our jobs so they can do theirs. Politicians did that. 2/
“Tallia says his hospital is ‘managing, but just barely,’ at keeping up with the increased number of sick patients in the last three weeks. The hospital’s urgent-care centers have also been inundated, and its outpatient clinics have no appointments available.” 3/
“Dr. Bernard Camins, associate professor of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, says that UAB Hospital cancelled elective surgeries scheduled for Thursday and Friday of last week to make more beds available” 4/
“We had to treat patients in places where we normally wouldn’t, like in recovery rooms,” says Camins. “The emergency room was very crowded, both with sick patients who needed to be admitted” 5/
“In CA… several hospitals have set up large ‘surge tents’ outside their emergency departments to accommodate and treat … patients. Even then, the LA Times reported this week, emergency departments had standing-room only, and some patients had to be treated in hallways.” 6/
“In Fenton, Missouri, SSM Health St. Clare Hospital has opened its emergency overflow wing, as well as all outpatient centers and surgical holding centers, to make more beds available to patients who need them. Nurses are being “pulled from all floors to care for them,” 7/
“it’s making their pre-existing conditions worse,” she says. “More and more patients are needing mechanical ventilation due to respiratory failure” 8/
“From Laguna Beach to Long Beach, emergency rooms were struggling to cope with the overwhelming cases… and had gone into ‘diversion mode,’ during which ambulances are sent to other hospitals.” 9/
“Hospitals across the state are sending away ambulances, flying in nurses from out of state and not letting children visit their loved ones for fear they’ll spread… Others are canceling surgeries and erecting tents in their parking lots to triage the hordes of… patients.” 10/
“There’s a little bit of a feeling of being in the trenches. We’re really battling these infections to try to get them under control,” McKinnell said. “We’re still not sure if this is going to continue … “ 11/
“At Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, waiting rooms turned into exam areas as a medical tent was built in order to deal with the surge of patients. A Houston doctor said local hospital beds were at capacity” 12/
“Dr. Anthony Marinelli says they’ve seen a major spike in… cases. It’s so overwhelmed the community hospital that they’ve gone on bypass at times — that means they tell ambulances to bypass this ER and find another.” 13/
“Dr. Atallah, the chief of emergency medicine at Grady, says the hospital called on a mobile emergency department based nearly 250 miles away to help tackle the increasing patient demand. “At 500-plus patients a day you physically just need the space to put a patient in. “ 14/
“We’ve never had so many patients,” said Adrian Cotton, chief of medical operations at Loma Linda University Health in San Bernardino County.” 15/
“…at least one hospital has set up an outdoor triage tent to handle the overflow of people” “In Long Beach, hospitals have started visitor restrictions. In the South Bay, a conference center has been transformed into an ambulatory clinic.” 16/
We have signage set up all over the hospital to inform patients that, if they have any family members with even signs of symptoms, not to visit” “Loma Linda emergency physicians are seeing about 60 more patients a day than usual, Cotton said.” 17/
“About 150 patients have so far been treated in the tent, which is staffed according to the number of people inside. It’s expected to be up [for months].” 18/
“As the main emergency room gets full, patients are moved to the tent. For example, a patient who comes in with a broken arm is likely to be treated inside the tent, he said. Visitor restrictions have also been implemented.” “The county saw a 300-percent increase” 19/
“Overflow tents also have emerged in San Diego County hospitals. Though they haven’t pitched tents, most hospitals across Southern California have set up overflow areas inside their facilities.” 20/
Our workers are incredible and I know they’ve been trained to deal with this. But maybe the lockdown folks are correct. Maybe we opened up too quickly. Maybe we should stay in shutdown mode. I mean nothing like this has ever happened to our hospitals before?!
Watch Crowder DESTROY the Myth of “ICU Bed Shortage” | Louder With Crowder – Crowder cuts through the globalist media’s fear mongering and exposes what’s really going on in hospitals.
(OP – Original Post) Good presentation. This rant is not related to the video, but I was thinking about this today. Whenever there is a bad flu year, we always deal with the variants in years to come, and, typically they aren’t as deadly. Like Delta. So deaths, and hospitalization are typically lower than the Alpha strain. So tent triages and the like were set up for the 2017-2018 flu season — (the CDC estimates that between 46,000 and 95,000 Americans died due to influenza during the 2017-18 flu season. This resulted in an estimated 959,000 hospitalizations and a middle-ground of 61,099 deaths) and the subsequent variants were less deadly, but they are still floating around. But this seasons Delta Variant is less of a bugger than 2017-18, maybe even the 2012-2013 flu season — (56,000 deaths is the CDC estimate. 571,000 influenza-related hospitalizations). But people still want to live in fear, rather than live. Its sad.
(KRIS W. — a thoughtfully minded conservative) This doctor was great! I hope you are right about the numbers. I refuse to live in fear.
(ME)Kris W., So, the Alpha Covid strain was here in September of 2019. So the Covid season “A” was 2019-2020. We are now in a 2020-2021 season. The numbers from this season need to be separated from the previous. I bet we are closer to bad seasons from previous years. And next year will be better. But like other flu strains, we will have Covid with us forever. (Flu shots are a hodgepodge mixture of various strains, and people who get it hope one of the many strains in the shot get close to the actual, and so lessons the symptoms if they get the flu. Same here. These Covid strains may be in a cocktail mix in the future.)
FLASHBACK: Flatten the Curve (Originally posted May 27, 2020)
This first part of a multi-part post is merely to discuss what the Flattening the curve was for ~ AND THAT WAS ~ not over-burden our healthcare system.
…The goal is no longer to prevent the virus from spreading freely from person to person, as it was in the outbreak’s early days. Instead, the objective is to spread out the inevitable infections so that the healthcare system isn’t overwhelmed with patients.
Public health officials have a name for this: Flattening the curve.
The curve they’re talking about plots the number of infections over time. In the beginning of an outbreak, there are just a few. As the virus spreads, the number of cases can spike. At some point, when there aren’t as many people left for the pathogen to attack, the number of new cases will fall. Eventually, it will dwindle to zero.
If you picture the curve, it looks like a tall mountain peak. But with containment measures, it can be squashed into a wide hill.
The outbreak will take longer to run its course. But if the strategy works, the number of people who are sick at any given time will be greatly reduced. Ideally, it will fall below the threshold that would swamp hospitals, urgent care clinics and medical offices, said Dr. Gabor Kelen, chair of the emergency medicine department at Johns Hopkins University…
LOS ANGELES TIMES: Why We Should Still Try To Contain The Coronavirus
The coronavirus outbreak that has sickened at least 125,000 people on six continents and caused nearly 4,600 deaths is now an official global pandemic. But that doesn’t mean we should give up on trying to contain it, health experts say. The goal is no longer to prevent the virus from spreading freely from person to person, as it was in the outbreak’s early days. Instead, the objective is to spread out the inevitable infections so that the healthcare system isn’t overwhelmed with patients. Public health officials have a name for this: Flattening the curve. (Healy and Khan, 3/11)
ABC NEWS: Why Flattening The Curve For Coronavirus Matters (March 11, 2020)
NBC NEWS: What Is ‘Flatten The Curve‘? The Chart That Shows How Critical It Is For Everyone To Fight Coronavirus Spread. (March 11, 2020)
Confirming the above, you will see that the trend line was to spread out the disease, not to defeat it. And this endeavor would take two weeks at the least, six at the most:
Anywhere from 20 percent to 60 percent of the adults around the world may be infected with the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease COVID-19. That’s the estimate from leading epidemiological experts on communicable disease dynamics.
[….]
So yes, even if every person on Earth eventually comes down with COVID-19, there are real benefits to making sure it doesn’t all happen in the NEXT FEW WEEKS.
Dena Grayson, MD, PhD, a Florida-based expert in Ebola and other pandemic threats, told Medscape Medical News that EvergreenHealth in Kirkland, Washington, is a good example of what it means when a virus overwhelms healthcare operations.
[….]
Grayson points out that the COVID-19 cases come on top of a severe flu season and the usual cases hospitals see, so the bar on the graphic is even lower than it usually would be.
“We have a relatively limited capacity with ICU beds to begin with,” she said.
So far, closures, postponements, and cancellations are woefully inadequate, Grayson said.
“We can’t stop this virus. We can hope to contain it and slow down the rate of infection,” she said.
“We need to right now shut down all the schools, preschools, and universities,” Grayson said. “We need to look at shutting down public transportation. We need people to stay home — AND NOT FOR A DAY BUT FOR A COUPLE OF WEEKS.”
The graphic was developed by visual-data journalist Rosamund Pearce, based on a graphic that had appeared in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) article titled “Community Mitigation Guidelines to Prevent Pandemic Influenza,” the Times reports.
To slow down the spread of the pandemic virus in areas that are beginning to experience local outbreaks and thereby allow time for the local health care system to prepare additional resources for responding to increased demand for health care services (CLOSURES UP TO 6 WEEKS)
On the other hand, if that same large number of patients arrived at the hospital at a slower rate, for example, OVER THE COURSE OF SEVERAL WEEKS, the line of the graph would look like a longer, flatter curve.
And, here is a conversation via my Facebook that elucidates how people have this idea of saving lives mixed up with not pressuring or overwhelming our healthcare system
EXCERPT FROM FACEBOOK CONVO
(ME)
Steve W — you do know Steve that the same amount of death from and infection due to Covid-19 exists under the trend line of doing nothing and the most strict quarentine rules…. right? In other words, we are not saving lives. And, in fact, we have made it worse for our economy next fall/winter because it is coming back as it makes its rounds around the world.
(STEVE W)
Sean Giordano I have heard that said but not seen it from a credible source. So I think that is false.
(ME)
Steve W what is false?
(STEVE W)
Sean Giordano “the same amount of death from and infection due to Covid-19 exists under the trend line of doing nothing”
(ME)
Steve Wallace now you are saying don’t listen to Dr. Fauci?
Many bemoan Trump for not listening to him (even though he has), and some I meet do not support Fauci in the idea that this was to elongate the process as to not put any undue stress on our health care system. Even though he clearly announced multiple times this was the reason to do so
WORLD ECONOMIC FORUMmentions the following, and all the graphs of the United States shown by Doctors Fauci and Birx have all used this idea as well (graph below from CDC and WEF)
CHRIS WALLACE: All right. You talk about slowing the virus down. You talk a lot, and I’ve very used to this now, you can either have a bump like this of cases or you could make it maybe the same total cases, but it’s a much more gradual and slower and longer curve. I want to put up some numbers. We have in this country about 950,000 hospital beds, and about 45,000 beds in Intensive Care Unit. How worried are you that this virus is going to overwhelm hospitals, not just beds, but ventilators? We only have 160,000 ventilators. And could we be in a situation where you have to ration who gets the bed, who gets the ventilator?
DR. FAUCI: OK. So let me put it in a way that it doesn’t get taken out of context. When people talk about modeling where outbreaks are going, the modeling is only as good as the assumptions you put into the model. And what they do, they have a worst-case scenario, a best-case scenario, and likely where it’s going to be. If we have a worst-case scenario, we’ve got to admit it, we could be overwhelmed. Are we going to have a worst-case scenario? I don’t think so. I hope not.
What are we doing to not have that worst-case scenario? That’s when you get into the things that we’re doing. We’re preventing infections from going in with some rather stringent travel restrictions. And we’re doing containment and mitigation from within. So, at a worst-case scenario, anywhere in the world, no matter what country you are, you won’t be prepared. So our job is to not let that worst-case scenario happen.
(…. STILL ME….)
STEVE W for you not to understand the goal of all this, and then get on here sharing insights is itself insightful. I am not blaming you STEVE… I just see this fundamental misunderstanding of the underlying factors and goals of this whole endeavor of bending the curve as applicable to MANY A PERSON in these discussions here and elsewhere on social media. I am giving you, in fact, the most respectful benefit of a doubt, but am merely in conversation with you at this moment. This conversation is just multiplied (others are having) across social media many fold. Blessings to you and yours friend. Yet, this foundational view is not known well by others… that is, the reason behind flattening the curve as well as the data underneath the trend line.
(CLICK TO ENLARGE)
Here I wish to switch gears a bit and start to discuss another “info graphic” post from MY SITES FACEBOOK I shared with my readers. And since the entire idea behind “flattening the curve” was to keep the health and hospital system working well by not getting inundated all at once, this should have lasted two or three weeks. Not as long as it has — our economy is important too! Damnit!
CAPACITY OF THE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM
The following was compiled after a conversation I had on Facebook. It touches on some of the issues above. Enjoy
I note the bell curve because many are under the false impression we are doing this to “save lives.” This was never the case.
The quarantine was to lessen the apex of the bell curve as to not put pressure on the hospital/health system. The same amount of people in the elongated “quarantine bell curve” (the trend-line) would die and get sick. In other words, the same statistics exist below the line (POWERLINE). Here is a site cataloging the hospitalizations for the rona that POWERLINE used – US CORONAVIRUS HOSPITALIZATIONS …they used both the CDC site and this one, but the CDC site has lower hospitalizations, so they opted for the most updated numbers. WHICH AS OF APRIL 21ST STAND AT 84,292 HOSPITALIZATIONS FROM JANUARY TILL NOW. This is important, because, the flu season of 2017-2018 we saw 810,000 hospitalization, and our health system didn’t collapse. Nor did the Swine Flu of 2009-to-2010, which saw 60-million American infected and 300,000 hospitalizations.
This then may explain why all the field hospital’s the ARMY CORE OF ENGINEERS built are being dismantled without a single bed being used.
The panic and fear among the people who cannot be bothered to read the actual statistics about this pandemic is what should concern most preppers. In fact, this virus has been so overhyped that the Army’s field hospital in Seattle, an “epicenter” of the pandemic has closed after three days without seeing one single COVID-19 patient. According to a report by Military.com, the hastily built field hospital set up by the Army in Seattle’s pro football stadium is shutting down without ever seeing a patient. [….] The decision to close the Seattle field hospital comes amid early signs that the number of new cases could be hitting a plateau in New York, the epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic in the U.S., and other states. At a news conference Friday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said, “Overall, New York is flattening the curve.” — ZERO HEDGE (see: MILITARY TIMES | DAILY CALLER)
Unlike the Mercy, the Comfort is treating COVID-19 patients on board as well as patients who do not have the virus. The ship has treated more than 120 people since it arrived March 30, and about 50 of those have been discharged, said Lt. Mary Catherine Walsh. The ship removed half of its 1,000 beds so it could isolate and treat coronavirus patients. [The Mercy has seen 48 patients, all non-Covid related] (THE STAR)
And literally handfulls of patients on the Comfort (New York City) and the Comfort (Los Angeles) — *see comment below. There was never a shortage of respirators (NATIONAL REVIEW), and we may surpass the 2018-to-2019 flu death rate, but come nowhere close to the 2017-to-2018 flu death rate:
(CLICK TO ENLARGE)
And it seems that we are reaching a plateau with The Rona, so there is good news in this regard (POWERLINE).
* Here is a comment from the Military Times article from a few days ago:
So, why did we spend all that Taxpayer’s money to move the Comfort to NYC and all the added Military medical personnel to staff the Javitt’s Center? Because Cuomo was crying WOLF.
“So far, the thousands of beds provided by a converted convention center and a hospital ship have not been needed, but the extra personnel are coming in handy for the city’s civilian hospitals.
About 200 doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists and others are working in New York’s medical centers, where bed space has not been overwhelmed, but where hospital-acquired coronavirus cases have sidelined civilian staff.”
…TO WIT…
HOSPITALS GOING BANKRUPT
VOX actually has a decent story on this:
Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston is laying off 900 people from its 17,000-person staff and asking full-time salaried employees to take a 15 percent pay cut, according to the Post & Courier; the hospital says it’s not laying off front-line workers at this time.
Essentia Health, a major medical system of clinics and hospitals in Duluth, Minnesota, is laying off 500 workers, per KBJR.
The Cookeville Regional Medical Center in Tennessee will be furloughing 400 of its 2,400-person staff, and a few hundred others will see a cut in their hours, Fox 17 Nashville reports.
Boston Medical Center is furloughing 10 percent of its staff, about 700 people, according to the Boston Globe.
Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic, which runs five hospitals in the Philadelphia area and employs 125,000 people there, will furlough an unspecific percentage of its staff, per the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Two hospital systems in West Virginia are furloughing upward of 1,000 employees combined, Metro News reports.
The largest hospital system in eastern Kentucky is laying off 500 workers, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.
I’m sure there are many more stories like these. But you get the idea.
Hospitals have typically said in these announcements that they are starting with nonmedical staff for furloughs and reduced hours, which is no solace to those workers but softens the impact on our medical capacity.
But it’s not clear how long medical systems can avoid cutting doctors and nurses as well, and some of them clearly cannot. I heard from a nurse in Texas, who asked that neither she nor her hospital be named for fear of professional repercussions, who has been furloughed because of the ongoing economic crisis.
She said how constrained she felt by the news. If she wanted to help with the coronavirus response by taking a job with a travel nursing service offering temporary postings in Covid-19 hot spots, for example, she would lose her old job and her health insurance.
”It really is frustrating to hear that you’re a hero but also we don’t value you enough to prepare or pay you,” she said. “I would be happy to temporarily relocate, work in a hot spot, and make the same wages as I normally would. I can’t afford to work for free, exactly, but it’s frustrating if I can’t work at all.”
Hospitals have taken huge revenue losses as they postpone elective surgeries and other routine care so they can make more staff and space available for the Covid-19 response. Some hospitals expect to lose half their income, and the top industry trade groups have warned that hundreds of hospitals could close after this crisis.
Congress pumped $100 billion into US hospitals as part of its first stimulus package, and Democratic leaders are already calling for another $100 billion in the next stimulus bill they hope Congress will pass.
But that may still not be enough, in the end. When one in four rural hospitals were already vulnerable to closure before the coronavirus struck, the current pandemic is almost certainly going to leave some hospitals with no choice but to close, no matter how much money the federal government provides….
And to compliment the Left leaning VOX article is the “Right” leaning FEDERALIST article:
….During a press conference Wednesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis noted that health experts initially projected 465,000 Floridians would be hospitalized because of coronavirus by April 24. But as of April 22, the number is slightly more than 2,000.
Even in New York, where Gov. Andrew Cuomo said last month he would need 30,000 ventilators, hospitals never came close to needing that many. The projected peak need was about 5,000, and actual usage may have been even lower.
Other overflow measures have also proven unnecessary. On Tuesday, President Trump said the USNS Comfort, the Navy hospital ship that had been deployed to New York to provide emergency care for coronavirus patients, will be leaving the city. The ship had been prepared to treat 500 patients. As of Friday, only 71 beds were occupied. An Army field hospital set up in Seattle’s pro football stadium shut down earlier this month without ever having seen a single patient.
It’s the same story in much of the country. In Texas, where this week Gov. Greg Abbott began gradually loosening lockdown measures, including a prohibition on most medical procedures, hospitals aren’t overwhelmed. In Dallas and Houston, where coronavirus cases are concentrated in the state, makeshift overflow centers that had been under construction might not be used at all.
In Illinois, where hospitals across the state scrambled to stock up on ventilators last month, fewer than half of them have been put to use—and as of Sunday, only 757 of 1,345 ventilators were being used by COVID-19 patients. In Virginia, only about 22 percent of the ventilator supply is being used.
Meanwhile, hospitals and health care systems nationwide have had to furlough or lay off thousands of employees. Why? Because the vast majority of most hospitals’ revenue comes from elective or “non-essential” procedures. We’re not talking about LASIK eye surgery but things like coronary angioplasty and stents, procedures that are necessary but maybe not emergencies—yet. If hospitals can’t perform these procedures because governors have banned them, then they can’t pay their bills, or their employees.
To take just one example, a friend who works in a cardiac intensive care unit (ICU) in rural Virginia called recently and told me about how they had reorganized their entire system around caring for coronavirus patients. They had cancelled most “non-essential” procedures, imposed furloughs and pay cuts, and created a special ICU ward for patients with COVID-19. So far, they have had only one patient. One. The nurses assigned to the COVID-19 ward have very little to do. In the entire area covered by this hospital system, only about 30 people have tested positive for COVID-19.
If Hospitals Can Handle The Load, End The Lockdowns
I’m sure the governors and health officials who ordered these lockdowns meant well. They based their decisions on deeply flawed and woefully inaccurate models, and they should have been less panicky and more skeptical, but they were facing a completely new disease about which, thanks to China, they had almost no reliable information.
However, in hindsight it seems clear that treating the entire country as if it were New York City was a huge mistake that has cost millions of American jobs and destroyed untold amounts of wealth. Now that we know our hospitals aren’t going to be overrun by COVID-19 cases, governors and mayors should immediately reverse course and begin opening their states and communities for business…..
I wanted to post some responses what has been becoming a popular argument. For instance I came across this graphic on a friends Facebook:
It came up with a family member’s conversations as well. So I wanted to make accessible some responses.
MASKS AND SEATBELTS:
The first example in this section comes from ECONLOG’S Bryan Caplan (Professor of Economics at George Mason University):
….The obvious place to start is: Almost no one thought that wearing masks was a good thing before Covid-19. Yet contagious respiratory diseases that kill have been around longer than humans. So if the “In exchange for slight inconvenience and discomfort, we save lives,” argument were airtight, we should have been wearing masks all along – and should plan on doing so forever. Which seems crazy.
You could reply, “That’s a straw man. The real argument is that masks pass a cost-benefit test.” If so, that leaves anti-maskers with two obvious margins to think about.
1. The degree of effectiveness. The most popular version of this objection is that masks don’t save lives. But once you start doing cost-benefit analysis, it is sufficient to claim that masks don’t save enough lives. The evidence from Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) is surprisingly supportive of this position. (And if you deem the RCTs subpar, please join me in calling for large-scale Voluntary Human Experimentation to settle the question once and for all). Ultimately, however, I still suspect that masks reduce contagion by 10-15%.
3. The degree of dehumanization. Personally, I only find masks marginally uncomfortable. But I hate wearing them, and I dislike being around people who wear them. Why? Because a big part of being human is showing other people our faces – and seeing their faces in return. Smiling at a stranger. Seeing your child laugh. Pretending to be angry. Seeing another person’s puzzlement. Masks take most of those experiences away. At the same time, they moderately reduce audibility. Which further dehumanizes us. How many times during Covid have you struggled to understand another person? To be heard? Indeed, how many times have you simply abandoned a conversation because of masks? I say the dehumanization is at least five times as bad as the mere discomfort. And if you reply, “Want to see other people’s faces and hear other people’s voices? Just Zoom!,” I will shake my head in sorrow that you’re dehumanized enough to say such a thing.
Am I just being a big baby about this? I think not. Suppose humanity could eliminate all disease by wearing bags over our heads forever. Would you be willing to go through life not seeing the faces of your children? Would you want your child to go through life not seeing the faces of their friends? Well, during Covid we’ve moved at least 25% in that dystopian direction. The word “hellscape” is not out of place. I’ve never been a fan of the veiling of women, but I had to live through Covid to realize how horribly dehumanizing the custom really is.
What if the choice was between masks and a 50% annual chance of death? The reasonable reaction would probably be, “Fine, we’ll be severely dehumanized, but we’ll survive. Just like war. I guess I’ll take it until a better deal comes along.” When the choice is between masks and a 0.5% annual chance of death, however, the reasonable reaction is rather, “I’ll take my chances and live like a human being.” Indeed, once you’re old enough, even a 50% annual chance of death starts to look like a good deal. My considered judgment: If another Covid strikes when I’m 80, I do not want my grandchildren to wear masks around me. I want to enjoy their laughter while I still can…..
The masks are dehumanizing, seatbelts are not. The argument against women being forced to wear burkas in many counties in the Middle-East is that they dehumanizes them.
One of the main points is that almost every study shows a very slight improvement at best. Here, for instance is a CDC study showing how ineffective they are — much more-so than seatbelts.
Here is the CDC STUDY: “Nonpharmaceutical Measures for Pandemic Influenza in Nonhealthcare Settings—Personal Protective and Environmental Measures”
In our systematic review, we identified 10 RCTs that reported estimates of the effectiveness of face masks in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infections in the community from literature published during 1946–July 27, 2018. In pooled analysis, we found no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks (RR 0.78, 95% CI 0.51–1.20; I2 = 30%, p = 0.25) (Figure 2). …. None of the household studies reported a significant reduction in secondary laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infections in the face mask group (11–13,15,17,34,35)….
[….]
Disposable medical masks (also known as surgical masks) are loose-fitting devices that were designed to be worn by medical personnel to protect accidental contamination of patient wounds, and to protect the wearer against splashes or sprays of bodily fluids (36). There is limited evidence for their effectiveness in preventing influenza virus transmission either when worn by the infected person for source control or when worn by uninfected persons to reduce exposure. Our systematic review found no significant effect of face masks on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza….
Here is CITY JOURNAL’S last two paragraph’s of an excellent article: DO MASKS WORK?
In sum, of the 14 RCTs that have tested the effectiveness of masks in preventing the transmission of respiratory viruses, three suggest, but do not provide any statistically significant evidence in intention-to-treat analysis, that masks might be useful. The other eleven suggest that masks are either useless—whether compared with no masks or because they appear not to add to good hand hygiene alone—or actually counterproductive. Of the three studies that provided statistically significant evidence in intention-to-treat analysis that was not contradicted within the same study, one found that the combination of surgical masks and hand hygiene was less effective than hand hygiene alone, one found that the combination of surgical masks and hand hygiene was less effective than nothing, and one found that cloth masks were less effective than surgical masks.
Hiram Powers, the nineteenth-century neoclassical sculptor, keenly observed, “The eye is the window to the soul, the mouth the door. The intellect, the will, are seen in the eye; the emotions, sensibilities, and affections, in the mouth.” The best available scientific evidence suggests that the American people, credulously trusting their public-health officials, have been blocking the door to the soul without blocking the transmission of the novel coronavirus.
MORE EXAMPLES:
Here are two short videos via BILL MAHER making sense:
Some posts by American Institute for Economic Research (AIER):
…Princeton’s notorious utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer now joins Ezekiel “Mandate” Emanuel in an internationally syndicated column urging that everyone be legally required to take the COVID jab.
Singer justifies this imposition by comparing the proposal to laws that require people to wear seat belts in cars. From, “Why Vaccination Should be Compulsory:”
We are now hearing demands for the freedom to be unvaccinated against the virus that causes COVID-19. Brady Ellison, a member of the United States Olympic archery team, says his decision not to get vaccinated was “one hundred percent a personal choice,” insisting that “anyone that says otherwise is taking away people’s freedoms.”
The oddity, here, is that laws requiring us to wear seat belts really are quite straightforwardly infringing on freedom, whereas laws requiring people to be vaccinated if they are going to be in places where they could infect other people are restricting one kind of freedom in order to protect the freedom of others to go about their business safely.
Good grief. There is a huge difference between a law that requires wrapping a cloth belt around one’s body while in a moving car and injecting chemicals intoone’s system. Yes, both acts involve attempts to promote public safety. But the former’s interference with liberty is de minimus, while the latter is one of the most potentially portentous that can be asked of people.
In free societies, legal mandates must be reasonable. A national vaccination mandate — which would be unprecedented — fails that test.
Why aren’t near-universal mandates “reasonable?” Well, young people almost never become seriously ill from COVID — although a very few certainly do. But there is also some evidence of a very slight — but potentially serious — risk from the vaccines for the young. If we care about freedom, surely, for the young, vaccination may be the preferred — but should not be the mandatory — course.
There is also significant evidence that people who recovered from COVID already have significant natural resistance to the disease. That being so, is it reasonable to force people with antibodies to involuntarily inject substances into their bodies, particularly since there is a very slight potential for serious bodily injury or death from the vaccine? No.
Finally, the people most at risk of serious disease are the unvaccinated. People who choose to go unprotected are risking mostly themselves. Allowing them to face that risk is more reasonable than violating their personal autonomy…..
Unlike vaccine injury, there is no genetic risk to seat belt injury; unlike vaccines, the risk of seatbelt injure is random, and is therefore truly share among all people. People injured by one vaccine likely have a higher probability of serious adverse health outcomes from additional vaccines.
Unlike vaccines, seat belts routinely are subject to recall due to injury lawsuits, providing essential product quality feedback to seat belt and automobile manufacturers. By contrast, vaccine manufacturers are immune to liability lawsuits. Instead, families of individuals killed or injured by vaccines have to sue the US government – specifically the Department of Health of Human Services, via the Vaccine injury Compensation Program. Liability for vaccine injury was removed for vaccine manufacturers and for medical doctors and nurses in 1986 with the National Vaccine Injury Act. No vaccine injury damages visited upon vaccine manufacturers compel them to improve their product. Instead, vaccine manufacturers and the HHS are incentived to deny that vaccine injuries and death occur.
In an excellent refutation, POOR ROGER’S ALMANNAC (love the name) puts to rest this analogy:
….However, there are a few things wrong with this argument.
The State owns the roads. It licenses drivers and autos to use those roads. It develops and enforces the rules which all drivers are expected to adhere to and, if they do not, it punishes them for the infractions. Whether you agree or disagree with State ownership of roads is irrelevant and a completely separate issue. The State owns them, it can do with them whatever it wants. This is a property rights question and should not be confused with a public health crisis in a pandemic.
The State does not own our bodies or faces. It does not own the air we breathe. It does not own the space in which we live or move. These are all ours, personally and privately, to use as we see fit, within certain restrictions, such as, not violating someone else’s air, body, or space. The State has no business trying to restrict, regulate, or order what we do with our air, our bodies, and our spaces. This, too, is a property rights issue and, as such, must be kept in perspective.
Seat belts are intended for one purpose only–to afford some measure of protection to the wearer in the event that an accident occurs. There are decades of data which prove that a person who wears a seat belt has a better chance of survival in an accident than a person who does not. This cannot be denied. However, a seat belt only protects one person–the wearer. It is useless and has no value to anyone else.
Face masks (I am told) are meant to protect, not only the wearer, but also those people the wearer comes into close proximity or contact with. If they protected only the wearer, the comparison with seat belts might be a little more palatable, but that is not the assertion. “You must wear them to protect others!” is the narrative. This moves the argument from one of property rights to the moral sphere, which are absolutely not the same.
Seat belts are of value only to the wearer AND ONLY THEN if an accident occurs. Under normal driving, the belt offers nothing more than, well, for want of a better word, assurance. However, if an accident does occur, it can be the difference between life and death. The key thing to remember, though, is that a motorist MUST be involved in an accident BEFORE value is received from the seat belt.
If a face mask and seat belt use are synonomous, then it must follow that face masks are valuable ONLY to the wearer AND ONLY THEN if he/she is “accidentally” infected. Wait a minute, though. Isn’t the argument that the mask is supposed to prevent the infection (accident), not to offer insurance against harm in the event of one. Not only are face masks dissimilar to seat belts in the persons they protect, but also in the manner of protection.
To be honest, if an automobile analogy is to be made with respect to face masks, it would be more useful to equate the mask to a Tesla self-driving auto, which (I am told) is supposed to protect not only those within the car, but other motorists within the vicinity as well. Considering Tesla’s “safety record” (I use that term loosely), this comparison might hold up quite well, since face masks also do not perform to the expectation of those who believe in them.
Seat belts do. No comparison.
Oh, by the way, I nearly missed this. Whether we are talking about seat belts or masks does not matter. The State can make all the rules it wants to and try as hard as it can to enforce those rules, but at the end of the day, it cannot prevent auto accidents from happening nor can it prevent someone from getting sick by catching a cold or flu virus. The State certainly cannot prevent a death, regardless of the cause, when the Grim Reaper calls.
God can. Perhaps we should be talking about misplaced faith.
I AM COMBINING A COUPLE OF POSTS TO MAKE THE POINT — IN OONE PLACE — THAT THE BIDEN ADMIN COULD HAVE WITHDRAWN FROM AFGHANISTAN DIFFERENTLY.
100% FED-UP notes the following: “VIDEO Emerges of Biden Saying Timeline And Manner Of Afghanistan Withdrawal Was His Decision“
….Social media and leftist mainstream media are frantically trying to spin the military failure in Afghanistan on anyone but Biden, but he said it was “his decision.” Biden ignored Trump’s phased plan to leave just as he ignored President Trump’s border policy. Both are now epic failures……
JUST THE NEWS had a decent little blurb worth sharing — because I care:
Trump bombed Taliban to negotiating table; some fear Biden let them waltz to Kandahar
…..“We’re going to come back and hit you harder than any country has ever been hit,” Trump said he told Akhundzada, recounting the threatened consequences if the Taliban failed to make peace. “And your village, where I know you are and where you have everybody, that’s going to be the point at which the first bomb is dropped.”
A few hours after that March 2020 call, Trump put an insurance payment down on the threat. When the Taliban attacked an Afghan checkpoint shortly after Trump hung up, U.S. fighter jets rained down fury on the attackers. A stung Taliban immediately called for de-escalation, saying it was committed to the “plans to implement all parts of the agreement one after another to prevent conflict escalation.”
[….]
Trump and his advisers relentlessly used air power to keep the Taliban in check, making the appearance of a deadly Predator drone or warplane a constant threat. In 2019, the year before the Taliban agreed to peace talks, U.S. aircraft flew 2,434 strike sorties, releasing 7,423 weapons, the highest total ever recorded by the Air Force’s Central Command.
But since the Biden transition, the Taliban have refused the negotiation table and instead marched with surprising speed, capturing control of two-third of Afghanistan after the fall of its second biggest city Kandahar on Thursday.
The U.S. Air Force recently acknowledged a steep decline in air sorties on Biden’s watch…..
The Trafalgar Group surveyed over 1,000 potential 2022 American voters and found that 69.3% of the overall participants disapproved of Biden’s handling in Afghanistan, according to the Convention of States Action’s Monday press release. The majority in the bracket, 59.5%, said they “strongly disapprove” of the president’s performance, while the other 10% said they “disapprove.” (DAILY CALLER)
FLASHBACK:
In March 2009 Barack Obama reached out to the Taliban terrorist organization for peace talks.
Joe Biden at the time told reporters “only 5% of the Taliban is incorrigible.”
In August 2010 Barack Obama removed the Taliban from the national terror list.
In May 2012 Barack Obama rewarded the Taliban terrorists with their own office in Qatar for peace talks.
Also in May 2012 the Taliban bombed Kabul two hours after Obama announced peace talks with the terrorist group.
In 2012 the Obama administration even paid for the Taliban peace office in Qatar.
In 2013 Barack Obama secretly released five deadly Taliban prisoners from Gitmo in exchange for peace talks.
In 2014 the Taliban officially released a statement on victory in Afghanistan 6 years into the Obama presidency.
So, in a previous post it is shown the Biden Admin nixed many key components to the withdrawal part of getting out Afghanistan. Now, we know that the treaty the media, Democrats, and Biden keeps referring to….
But here’s the deal: You know — I wish you’d one day say these things — you know as well as I do that the former President made a deal with the Taliban that he would get all American forces out of Afghanistan by May 1. — JOE BIDEN
….was in fact conditional.
DEFINITION
conditional: subject to one or more conditions or requirements being met; made or granted on certain terms. “the consortium has made a conditional offer”
synonyms: subject to ✦ dependent on ✦ depending on ✦ contingent on ✦ hingeing on ✦ resting on ✦ hanging on ✦ based on ✦ determined by ✦ controlled by ✦ tied to ✦ bound up with ✦ contingent ✦ dependent ✦ qualified ✦ with conditions (attached) ✦ with reservations ✦ limited ✦ restrictive ✦ provisional ✦ stipulatory ✦ provisory
… Biden can go only so far in claiming the agreement boxed him in. IT HAD AN ESCAPE CLAUSE: The U.S. could have withdrawn from the accord if Afghan peace talks failed. They did, but Biden chose to stay in it, although he delayed the complete pullout from May to September.
Chris Miller, acting defense secretary in the final months of the Trump administration, chafed at the idea that Biden was handcuffed by the agreement.
“If he thought the deal was bad, he could have renegotiated. He had plenty of opportunity to do that if he so desired,” Miller, a top Pentagon counterterrorism official at the time the Doha deal was signed, said in an interview.
The piece goes on to acknowledge that that course of action may have led to difficulties of its own, but Biden should have been able to rely on the decades of foreign-policy experience he has boasted as having to craft a better deal…..
…IT HAD AN ESCAPE CLAUSE: The U.S. could have withdrawn from the accord if Afghan peace talks failed. They did…
So according to the “deal itself” and the Biden Admin ignoring that and getting rid of the Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau (CCR) — as the original post details below — Afghanistan is 100% Biden’s issue. Period!
The UPDATED VIDEO can be found at the bottom of the post. (Originally posted Aug 18th)
Here is an excerpt, you should read the whole article!
Joe Biden’s State Department moved to cancel a critical State Department program aimed at providing swift and safe evacuations of Americans out of crisis zones just months prior to the fall of Kabul, The National Pulse can exclusively reveal.
[….]
The document is dated June 11, 2021, though The National Pulse understands the decision to pause the program may have come as early as February, both undermining the original Trump-era date for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, and certainly giving the Taliban time to threaten American assets and lives on the run up to Joe Biden’s September 11th date of withdrawal.
The subject line reads: “(SBU) Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau,” and the body of the document recommends:
“That you direct the discontinuation of the establishment, and termination of, the Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau (CCR), and direct a further review of certain associated Department requirements and capabilities.”
It goes on:
“That you direct the discontinuation of the establishment, and termination of, CCR, consistent with the applicable legal requirements, necessary stakeholder engagement, and any applicable changes to the Foreign Affairs Manual and other requirements.”
The document reveals the recommendations were approved on June 11th 2021.
Speaking exclusively to The National Pulse, former President Donald J. Trump blasted Biden’s irresponsible move:
“My Administration prioritized keeping Americans safe, Biden leaves them behind. Canceling this successful Trump Administration program before the withdrawal that would have helped tens of thousands Americans reach home is beyond disgraceful. Our withdrawal was conditions-based and perfect, it would have been flawlessly executed and nobody would have even known we left. The Biden execution and withdrawal is perhaps the greatest embarrassment to our Country in History, both as a military and humanitarian operation.”
In a lengthy article in Vanity Fair from May 2021, the Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau (CCR) – also referred to in overlap with a predecessor/partner bureau called “OpMed” is described as a “little-known team of medics and miracle workers—hidden deep within the U.S. Department of State.”
“Even before COVID reared its head, OpMed was finding ways to do all sorts of things, serving as the hidden hand behind daring and often dangerous operations to rescue Americans from peril abroad,” the article states, before going on to quote Secretary of State Tony Blinken on the importance of the program’s goals.
“The Bureau of Medical Services’ Directorate of Operation—or ‘OpMed,’ as we call it—is a lifeline for the Department of State and the American people… Though perhaps lesser known outside of the Department, it’s vital to our operations. That’s because OpMed provides the platform and personnel to save American lives around the world, especially in times of crisis. During the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, OpMed was integral to our evacuation and repatriation of 100,000 Americans to the United States as countries began locking down their borders.”
But The National Pulse understands that career officials inside the State Department objected to the Trump-era aim of creating a Contingency and Crisis Response bureau with the express purpose of avoiding a future Benghazi-style situation for Americans overseas.
Instead, Biden’s team revoked the funding and the approval for the plan, even as the COVID-19 crisis reasserted itself, and and Afghanistan withdrawal loomed………
NEWSBUSTERS has this updated CNN clip where Darrell Issa schools Jim Acosta
There’s a reason why you don’t see conservatives on CNN very often.
Hack journalist Jim Acosta couldn’t keep up as his Republican guest, Rep. Darrell Issa [R-CA], schooled him on his own show, Sunday, over President Biden’s Afghanistan debacle. Acosta repeatedly tried to blame President Trump for the Taliban takeover, but Issa exposed the journalist’s pathetic hypocrisy…..
In February 2021, the temperature in Texas dropped below zero. Not a big deal, right? Texas is the energy state. Just go home, turn on the heat, and hunker down. That’s how it should have gone. But it didn’t. What happened, and why?
Bernie Sanders and others on the left want higher taxes on “millionaires and billionaires.” Would that be good idea? Most rich people became prosperous by CREATING wealth.
Jim Caruso took over a bankrupt brewery and turned it around by inventing creative craft beers. He now employs more than 100 people. The company he runs, Flying Dog Brewery, is worth millions.
Jason Whitlock and Tucker Carlson discuss two white students who were asked to leave a “multicultural centre” at ASU: “I want to tip my hat to the young men, because this is appalling.”
New Rule: We need to unite as one nation, who come together and sing one anthem. It doesn’t have to be the one we currently use, but it has to be just one.
