Time for a Second Opinion

Real Clear Politics ^ | March 31,2020 | By William J. Bennett & Seth LeibsohN

[Hojczyk]

Barring that, Professor Hofstadter, though wrong about the 1960s, would be right about today: We truly are shutting down America and harming a great many Americans, based on the worst fears that have not been true and are not on the horizon. We are scaring the hell out of the citizenry.

A few additional statistics help counsel a lowering of our national temperature: The vast majority of deaths from the virus are of people over the age of 70 with underlying frailties. The focus on New York where, of course, most of the media is based, is also flooding and distorting the picture for the rest of the country. Of course we need to pay attention to ground zero, which is New York. But what happens there is not what is happening everywhere.

For example, our most populous state, California shows 149 deaths, 11% of the total in New York. Texas, our second most populous state, shows nothing like the death toll in New York, with 47 deaths, about 3.5% of the total in the Empire State.

[Hojczyk]

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/03/31/time_for_a_second_opinion_142817.html

worth reading

[Buckeye McFrog]

At this point this is really all about the public health bureaucracy kicking into CYA mode.

The CDC was absolutely asleep at the switch when it came to doing their primary job, keeping statistical track of emerging diseases. We are where we are today largely because they dropped the ball on this.

But they are eager to avoid their day of reckoning once this is all over. So they are throwing out scary pandemic numbers like 2.2 million so that when the actual number comes in around 100K they can claim to be the heroes and that the number is the result of us all doing what they told us to.

So let’s have the tickertape parade. No need for nasty investigations into what went wrong.

[dfwgator]

But hey, they had Climate Change covered.

https://www.cdc.gov/climateandhealth/default.htm

CDC’s Climate and Health Program
Celebrating 10 Years

CDC’s Climate and Health Program is excited to celebrate 10 years of supporting state, tribal, local, and territorial public health agencies as they prepare for specific health impacts of a changing climate. CDC is proud of the collaborative work states, cities, territories, and tribes are doing to develop and implement adaptation plans to protect at-risk populations and locations.

[SmokingJoe]

For example, our most populous state, California shows 149 deaths, 11% of the total in New York. Texas, our second most populous state, shows nothing like the death toll in New York, with 47 deaths, about 3.5% of the total in the Empire State.

New York City is the Italy of the United States. There is no other state that is even close to the horrid numbers that New York State is posting.
And the reasons for the very high incedence of coronavirus in New York is entirely due to the incompetence of DeBlasio and Cuomo. Plus political correctness. Plenty of posts here on that.

[Buckeye McFrog]

And the Doctors sold Trump on extending the lockdown over predictions that the rest of the country would become New York.

If they are wrong it’s not going to go well for them.

[Avalon Memories]

I completely agree with this article’s viewpoint.

[SanchoP]

Again, our plea: Look at the numbers, look at everything, rationally, and let us reclaim a sense of proportion. In the early 1990s, Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned that our country was defining deviancy down. Today, we are concerned about defining pandemonium up. We have a problem. Rather than engaging in “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy,” as Hofstadter warned, we should focus our solution on it without upending everything else. Paranoia and overreaction do not suit our democracy well.

We're witnessing a global media event using the same political strategy as glowbull warming and we fell for it hook,line and sinker.

[MrEdd]

I’m not terribly scared.

[SmokingJoe]

Money quote :” As Eran Bendavid and Jay Bhattacharya, professors of medicine at Stanford, have written, based on their model of over 6 million cases they believe exist: “That’s a mortality rate of 0.01%, assuming a two-week lag between infection and death. This is one-tenth of the flu mortality rate of 0.1%.”

[gibsonguy]

It doesn’t help that NY is the MSM capitol.

[central_va]

Billy Shakespeare penned: First let's kill all the lawyers.

How about change it to first kill all the doctors over 60?

[SmokingJoe]

Yep.
And the MSM is totally vested in creating as much hysteria and panic as they can to tank the economy and defeat President Trump in November.

[central_va]

From an engineering point of view it never made any sense to me to apply draconian rules to 100% of society and ruin the economy to protect those who are truly at risk, maybe 5% of the general population. Protecting them should be priority but let the 95% go on living!!!

[SmokingJoe]

If it comes to that, the first on my list will be the media. They are by far the most evil, malevolent, most destructive entity in America. No one even comes close.

[Huebolt]

The Chinese New Year Parade in NYC with thousands of Chinese Nationals flying in to participate in “The Year of the Rat” celebration has put NYC where it is.

They knew ahead of time that the pandemic was going full bore in China.

Trump’s fault, of course.

[Buckeye McFrog]

I’m not terribly scared.

I know people who are. Mainly because they lack Faith and are glued to cable news 24/7.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Protecting them should be priority but let the 95% go on living!!!

We're going to have to because herd immunity MUST occur at some point, whether Dr. Fauci likes it or not.

[Ann Archy]

The CDC was spending their time on STUPID stuff like monkeys drinking liquor and soap operas! HEads SHOULD ROLL!

[SmokingJoe]

The Chinese New Year Parade in NYC with thousands of Chinese Nationals flying in to participate in “The Year of the Rat” celebration has put NYC where it is.
They knew ahead of time that the pandemic was going full bore in China.

Yes.