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Dr. Phil begrudgingly apologizes for comparing coronavirus to swimming pool deaths...
Yahoo News ^ | April 17, 2020 | Brendan Morrow

Posted on 04/17/2020 11:33:37 PM PDT by L.A.Justice

Dr. Phil is attempting some clean-up after generating outrage in a Fox News coronavirus segment, admitting he used "bad examples" and taking a sorry-if-you-were-offended approach.

TV host Phil McGraw on Thursday appeared on Laura Ingraham's Fox News show to speculate about why lockdown measures are being put in place during the coronavirus pandemic when "we don't shut the country down" for deaths from car accidents and swimming pools, wrongly claiming 360,000 people die in swimming pools in the United States every year.

After the segment drew outrage, McGraw, who isn't a medical doctor, on Friday said he does support social distancing measures amid the pandemic and walked back this comparison to other causes of deaths that are not contagious like the coronavirus.

"Last night, I said we as a society have chosen to live with certain controllable deadly risk every day: smoking, auto crashes, swimming," he said. "And yes, I know that those are not contagious. So probably bad examples. Probably bad examples. ... I probably could have used better examples about that."

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: coronavirus; lauraingraham; philmcgraw
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To: zeestephen

The left will never stop until they ban every gun in this country. The virus is a test and another attempt to screw with DJT.


21 posted on 04/18/2020 3:48:20 AM PDT by cnsmom
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To: Yaelle

Re: “Due to the intense contagion of this new COVID virus...”

That remains to be proved.

Compare the COVID numbers to the influenza numbers...

The CDC estimates that 39 million to 56 million Americans were infected with seasonal influenza in the last 6 months, and that 24,000 to 62,000 of them died.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm

According to the Johns Hopkins COVID Dashboard...

Total USA COVID Tests - 3.57 million

Total USA Positive COVID Tests - 707,000

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

So, roughly, a 20% COVID infection test rate, even though most of those tests have been given to high risk individuals.

In California, Oregon, and Washington state, the infection rate has been less than 9% of tests since COVID first arrived.

Bottom Line...

COVID-19 looks exactly like a bad flu season - nothing more, nothing less.


22 posted on 04/18/2020 4:03:03 AM PDT by zeestephen
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To: zeestephen

“The CDC estimates that 39 million to 56 million Americans were infected with seasonal influenza in the last 6 months, and that 24,000 to 62,000 of them died.”

The Santa Clara County SARS-CoV-2 antibody study (https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1) indicates the true infection rate is 50-85x the number of positive cases. Therefore, at least 35 million (and possibly 60 million) Americans have been infected. Nearly all (99.9%) have recovered.


23 posted on 04/18/2020 4:21:49 AM PDT by BlueStateRightist (Government is best which governs least.)
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To: BlueStateRightist

That’s a great link.

Thank you.

It’s astounding how close the COVID and influenza numbers are.

The estimated Case Fatality Rate for influenza is consistently in the 0.1% to 0.2% range - exactly like your 99.9% recovery statistic for COVID.

I live in King County (Seattle).

After monitoring the Positive Infection Rate and CFA in the three West Coast states for the first month of the outbreak, I am convinced that one, or both, of the following statements are true:

(1) COVID-19 began to immediately mutate into a more benign disease after it wiped out the nursing home in Kirkland, WA.

(2) And/or - millions of West Coast residents had some level of immunity to COVID-19 BEFORE it arrived in Seattle in January 2020.


24 posted on 04/18/2020 4:47:13 AM PDT by zeestephen
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To: zeestephen

The comments at that link are good. There are good arguments that this study (based on a Facebook ad and therefore self-selection) overestimates the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 exposure in the general population.


25 posted on 04/18/2020 5:47:20 AM PDT by BlueStateRightist (Government is best which governs least.)
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To: datura

EXACTLY!!!


26 posted on 04/18/2020 6:40:24 AM PDT by ridesthemiles
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To: ridesthemiles

Bryan Williams calculus at work, or maybe cow que us would be more accurate.


27 posted on 04/18/2020 7:23:22 AM PDT by Colt1851Navy (What was wrong with Nixon?)
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To: irishjuggler
Okay, but if you go on TV and say 360,000 people die in swimming pools annually when the real number is more like 3,500... you gotta apologize. He wasn’t even close.

And that if you make sure a statement in such a medium try to make sure you have your facts right. Even if your argument is sound "fact-checkers can focus on one false statement to discredit the whole.

28 posted on 04/18/2020 8:04:43 AM PDT by daniel1212 ( Trust the risen Lord Jesus to save you as a damned and destitute sinner + be baptized + follow Him)
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To: zeestephen

Because hardly any humans on the planet had exposure to this virus, they pretty much all get exposed and have the virus enter their systems, although it seems that possibly many are asymptomatic. I still say it is therefore more infectious than an influenza. But we are debating a minor difference.


29 posted on 04/18/2020 10:19:20 PM PDT by Yaelle
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