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We’re Owed an Explanation
Rush Limbaugh.com ^ | April 9, 2020 | Rush Limbaugh

Posted on 04/09/2020 12:31:45 PM PDT by Kaslin

RUSH: They owe us an explanation. Now, I touched on this yesterday. We are owed a huge explanation. So, 2.2 million deaths. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God, 2.2. We gotta shut it down. And if we mitigate, maybe 240,000 deaths. If we social distance, we stay at home, if we shut down, if we wear masks, we do all this stuff, maybe a hundred thousand to 200,000, maybe 240,000.” Guess what?

Sixty thousand. “Fauci Slashes U.S. Death Projection, Raising Hope for Reopening.” The doomsayers get to get away with everything. “Fauci Slashes U.S. Death Projection, Raising Hope for Reopening.” What is wrong with this headline? Does Dr. Fauci have anything to do with reopening? Yes. That’s what’s wrong with the headline. This is a Bloomberg News story. “Top infectious disease official credits social distancing.” I’m gonna start calling BS on this.

Now, don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying it’s not important. I’m not saying it’s not relevant. But there is no way social distancing has made the difference in 2.2 million down to 60,000 dead. There is no way that social distancing made the difference from 240,000 dead projected now down to 60,000 dead. And what do you bet that number gets revised down in the coming days? There has to be something else going on here, and it has to be the projections were wrong in the first place because of the models, and we know that they were wrong.

But these guys get to revise their projections and hold on to their expertise status throughout the entire process. I just don’t believe social distancing has suddenly changed the data that lowers the forecast death toll from 240,000 to 60,000. We’re not stupid here.

And I’ll give you another bit of evidence for why I don’t believe this. California, oh, man, is this a huge See, I Told You So. Stanford researchers are now thinking, you know what, maybe it was herd immunity. Maybe the virus has been in California since last fall, and maybe in California they’ve developed an immunity to it, herd immunity. Most of the people that have been exposed to it got antibodies ’cause it makes no sense that in a state of 40 million the death toll is still under – I forget what it was — 750 a few days ago. It’s phenomenally low.

In the state of Oregon practically statistically zero deaths. And it’s not because of social distancing. They told us, they tried to tell us that social distancing is what made the difference in California. California had a two-day head start on social distancing over New York. New York has more deaths than Italy. Are you telling me — see, we’re not stupid here. And you aren’t, either. You’re telling me that a two-day head start on social distancing in California is the reason why there are so few deaths in California compared to New York?

The data is bad. The input data was bad. We told you this my first day back. When I found out that that U.K. modeler could change his outcome from 500,000 dead in the U.K. to 20,000 dead simply by factoring in social distancing, then what good was the first model? And if the model has that wide a variance, if you can input one data point and create this massive shift in outcomes on the model, what good’s the model?

But these people get to hold on to their expert status throughout all of these revisions. They haven’t been right from the get-go. But the doomsayers are never wrong because whatever ends up happening, they can claim credit for it because of their mistakes. “Well, yeah, of course we overshot, but because we overshot we scared the hell out of people, people social distanced, people stayed home. Of course our work is responsible for this.” It’s just the way it works. And everybody got scared. Can’t blame ’em. Everybody got scared into using the data that was trumpeted, put out.

But we are owed an explanation.

“One of President Donald Trump’s top medical advisers slashed projections for U.S. coronavirus deaths on Thursday, saying that only about 60,000 –” And, by the way, I don’t mean to say that 60,000 is insignificant. Those are people. They are loved ones. They are part of families. I’m not trying to be cavalier about it. I’m simply talking about the statistics and the numbers.

Remember, we started with 2.2 million, and they did that on purpose so that they could show great success, 2.2 million, now 60,000. Look at the great work. No. That’s not the way to look at because 2.2 was never an active, real number, and we shut down a $22 trillion economy because of it. And now the death is 60,000, which is on par with the number of flu deaths in America every year.

They told us that this week, remember, “This is gonna be… oh ho, the next two weeks it’s gonna be armageddon, it’s gonna be the apocalypse, it’s like gonna be bad.” And in these two weeks they’re revising everything down. Remember, they said these two weeks, you better expect the worst. We may not have a country after these next tweaks. There may not be enough people to go back work. It’s gonna be bad, it’s gonna be really, really bad out there.”

Now they’re revising the numbers down, the death numbers down during the apocalypse week. It’s a Bloomberg story, by the. “The falling projection, the result of aggressive social distancing behaviors Americans adopted to curb the spread of the virus, may accelerate Trump’s effort to develop a plan to urge Americans to leave their homes and return to work next month.”

I’ll tell you something I’m a little worried about. How many people are gonna be scared to leave their homes? How many Millennials are gonna be scared to death to leave? They’re scared to death anyway. They make up the snowflake generation. They’re scared by a shadow of a conservative on a college campus. It doesn’t even take a real conservative to scare ’em on a campus, just the shadow of one. And if they’re scared of a conservative shadow on a college campus, are they gonna be scared to go back to work? Be concerned. We’ll have to wait and see if it happens.

So here’s Dr. Fauci. “The real data…”

The real data? Oh, we’re talking about real data now?

“The real data are telling us that it is highly likely that we’re having a definite positive effect by this mitigation things that we’re doing — this physical separation — so I believe we are gonna see a downturn in that. And it looks more like the 60,000 than the 100,000 to 200,000. But having said that, we better be careful that we don’t say, ‘OK, we’re doing so well we can pull back.'”

Uh… I… (sigh) Folks, they’re gonna have to explain this, and I know how they’re gonna do it. The doomsayers are gonna tell us, “Hey,” they’re already setting the stage for doing it, “our policies, our requests for social distancing and all that made all the difference.” I don’t…

If we’re gonna say that, that means we have to trust the computer modeling data and that’s the data that’s been all over the place, 2.2 million, 200,000, 100,000, 240,000, 500,000 U.K. The numbers have been all over the place, revised down


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: rush; shutdown; transcript
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To: RedMominBlueState

“Are you reading about the crime in our big cities?”

Hmmm.... wonder if that has something to do with some of the states releasing hardened criminals back into the population.


141 posted on 04/09/2020 3:29:06 PM PDT by LastDayz (A blunt and brazen Texan. I will not be assimilated.)
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To: Travis McGee

“On a simple linear scale for those who don’t understand log scales.”

Actual deaths from Covid are highly suspect.


142 posted on 04/09/2020 3:34:10 PM PDT by LastDayz (A blunt and brazen Texan. I will not be assimilated.)
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To: Travis McGee

First, the decision to reopen the country should be on a state-by-state, city-by-city basis. In some states, there are very few cases. Hot spots like NYC are (and will be) a different story. If states can meet these conditions, they could reopen. 1) the state is over the peak of the current wave of infections 2) the state needs to have the medical resources to deal with the inevitable second wave 3) there should be adequate testing for both those with active and prior infection 4) the state should have adequate PPE for both healthcare and returning workers. When these conditions are met we could begin to open up states.


143 posted on 04/09/2020 3:46:45 PM PDT by RedMominBlueState
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To: RedMominBlueState

The new estimate of deaths is 60,000.

That estimate is based on the assumption that people will continue social distancing for the rest of this month. Open up earlier and the number of projected deaths goes back up.

We are trading off saving some number of lives (in the thousands now not the millions according to the “experts”) against the safety and security of 330 million people

The last recession we had was in 2009 and the US economy can't handle non-essential workers taking a 2 month vacation after 11 years of growth? If that's true then I guess our economy was weaker than it appeared. Nobody thinks the shutdown will be economically painless but if there is one thing I have faith in it is the ability of the US economy to recover, even rebound, after the restrictions are lifted. It may be painful, it may take longer than we like, but it will happen. The dead cannot be brought back to life. And as I said before opening prematurely will also cause an economic crash. We are between a rock and a hard place. Finding the solution that minimizes both loss of life and jobs is an incredibly difficult balancing act that will require input from the top experts.

Right now I have been furloughed from my job and lost a fair bit in the stock market. I am not in the high-risk population. Yet, even putting aside my concern for my elderly parents' lives, I am still better off remaining unemployed than returning to work, catching CV, and being presented with an astronomical medical bill, with a side helping of permanent lung damage. Wages are simply too low and health care costs too high to be worth the risk of returning to work until we are past the peak. Waiting until the risk is lower is the best thing for the safety and financial security of Americans without Cadillac health insurance.

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-recovery-damage-lung-function-gasping-air-hong-kong-doctors-2020-3

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3828991/posts

144 posted on 04/09/2020 3:52:43 PM PDT by FormerFRLurker (Keep calm and vote your conscience.)
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To: FormerFRLurker

I am not talking about opening up earlier than May 1 FRLurker, but I do think we need to talk about a strategy for opening up. Some people are discussing staying closed all summer for example. You bring up a key point that I meant to address, which is that people 65 or over or with underlying health conditions should not go back to work. You, I and everyone else should make decisions that make the most sense for each one of us. It sounds like your plan is the right one for you. However, if my 30-year-old son wants to return to work in a state that meets the conditions I outlined, he should be able to. We are getting close to the point where it doesn’t make sense to have a “one size fits all” approach for all 330 million citizens.


145 posted on 04/09/2020 4:04:40 PM PDT by RedMominBlueState
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To: FormerFRLurker

And to help you put the current job loss into perspective, in the 2008-2009 “Great Recession” 9 million jobs were lost - spread over not quite 2 years. In the last 3 weeks alone,16 million people have filed for unemployment. AND furloughed workers are not eligible for unemployment. There are millions of those in the retail and hospitality industries. The magnitude of this is breathtaking and I think most people don’t have a clue about how bad it is.


146 posted on 04/09/2020 4:15:08 PM PDT by RedMominBlueState
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To: DouglasKC
Re: “IF nothing were done THEN it would have been catastrophic.”

I think Washington state proves that wrong.

King County (Seattle) had the first USA confirmed infection on 21 January 2020 - from someone who flew straight into Sea-Tac airport from Wuhan, China.

King County (Seattle) had the first USA death on 29 February 2020 - probably someone (identity never confirmed) from the nursing home in Kirkland, WA, where 35 residents died and half the staff were infected.

King County schools and the University of Washington were not closed until 12 March 2020. When they were closed, not even one student had tested positive for COVID-19.

Governor Inslee issued a Stay-at-Home order on 23 March 2020.

I started tracking “Positive Test Results” for King County and the State of Washington on 13 March 2020 - 10 days BEFORE the Stay-at-Home order.

Our COVID-19 tests were originally given only to high risk individuals - specifically, to individuals who had known exposure, or had a travel history to highly infected regions, or who had obvious symptoms.

The Positive Test Rate for high risk individuals in Washington state and King County has been between 6.5% and 9.0% for the last four weeks.

Compare that to New York City, where the infection rate for high risk individuals has been close to 40% in recent weeks.

There is only one way that California, Oregon, and Washington could all have such low infection rates...

We already had millions of people with immunity to COVID-19.

147 posted on 04/09/2020 4:30:44 PM PDT by zeestephen
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To: FormerFRLurker

And who are the medical experts? Little Hitler Fauci and Scarf Lady, both tied to the Gates Foundation. Not to be trusted with our Republic.


148 posted on 04/09/2020 5:12:44 PM PDT by DLfromthedesert
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To: RedMominBlueState; Travis McGee
However, that growth is much smaller than was predicted as recently as four days ago.

Mom, we know what the exponential growth rate was because it is shown in Travis's charts. What changed to keep it from increasing by a another factor of 100 two weeks from now. There is one thing only - we initiated social distancing.

It is like this. Everyone is driving 80mph on a densely packed interstate and a dense fog is rolling in. Modlers project 1000's will die from the pile-ups and this is advertised loudly and everyone slows down to 20 MPH and most pull off the road. Two days later, there were a couple of odd collisions an a couple of fatalities and everyone starts blaming the modelers for hotel bills and late deliveries and missed weddings. How did they get it so wrong??

Well no, they modeled what would happen if no one did anything, and seeing this the authorities and the driving public realized that they needed to engage in socially responsible behavior to prevent problems.

But you can't say, oh they were wrong, let's all get back on the freeway in dense fog and drive 80MPH.

The precipitating condition - dense fog - needs to go away.

149 posted on 04/09/2020 5:14:30 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: Repeal The 17th

The person I know who died lived in New Jersey. He was one of my college coaches.


150 posted on 04/09/2020 5:26:11 PM PDT by kaehurowing
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To: zeestephen

The population density isn’t that great on the West Coast compared to NYC.


151 posted on 04/09/2020 5:41:32 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
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To: Balding_Eagle

You think a Navy SEAL and accomplished author is being paid by Red China to disseminate anti-American propaganda??

Absolutely ludicrous!


152 posted on 04/09/2020 5:42:04 PM PDT by Sir_Ed
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To: mdmathis6
How many were healthy and strong and vigorous with no underlying issues? How many people did the one with very mild symptoms infect before he discovered that he too had the virus? How many were given Hydroxy during the illness

First thank you for your service taking care of the sick. And I am sorry to poke fun at this serious situation. All of the firefighters were basically healthy and strong and vigorous with no underlying issues. None of them that I am aware of were treated with Hydroxyl although that is a HIPPA issue and some may have been. The one who came into work with symptoms was blamed for all the other cases, but this seems highly suspect since UW researchers believe it has been going around this community since sometime in January before it started hitting vulnerable populations around the end of February. By the middle of March things started getting back to normal at ICUs around here. I hope the situation wherever you are at will follow a similar pattern.

153 posted on 04/09/2020 5:57:24 PM PDT by fireman15
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To: AndyJackson

This is not correct, Andy. In the University of Washington Model (IMHE model) social distancing was assumed in the 100,000 then the 80,000 and now the 60,000 death projection. Without social distancing the model predicted deaths of 1 million+. Dr. Birx addressed this in the briefing today, explaining that the models assumed what happened in NYC and NJ would happen nationwide and fortunately that is not happening. This is part of the reason for the downward adjustment of the model.


154 posted on 04/09/2020 6:11:09 PM PDT by RedMominBlueState
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To: RedMominBlueState

You are wrong about being wrong and state the reason why you are wrong in your own statement, which if you would stop and THINK you would figure out for yourself.


155 posted on 04/09/2020 6:15:11 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: DLfromthedesert

Well, I’m willing to bet that between them Drs. Birx and Fauci have 2 more medical degrees than you have. I would say that’s one of the first steps towards becoming an expert on infectious diseases.

Are they perfect? No. Do I trust they know what they’re talking about more than some random flubro? Yes.


156 posted on 04/09/2020 6:38:20 PM PDT by FormerFRLurker (Keep calm and vote your conscience.)
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To: DouglasKC

re: “Is Rush just stupid on this??”

Apparently, this is above your ‘pay grade’.


157 posted on 04/09/2020 6:40:02 PM PDT by _Jim (Save babies)
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To: SanchoP

SOOOO many idiots on FR these days ...


158 posted on 04/09/2020 6:41:20 PM PDT by _Jim (Save babies)
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To: Kaslin
ONE chart says it all - and we've been HAD!

2020-04-08 US Pneumonia Deaths - Weekly; NOTICE how the pneumonia 'deaths' went away, to APPEAR elsewhere as --- Covid-19 deaths.


159 posted on 04/09/2020 6:46:11 PM PDT by _Jim (Save babies)
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To: AndyJackson

Andy, the 100,000 then the 80,000 then the 60,000 IMHE death estimates assumed social distancing. Look it up if you doubt me. The numbers of deaths have not been halved because of social distancing.


160 posted on 04/09/2020 7:18:46 PM PDT by RedMominBlueState
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