Did they really just say that? //

Clay Travis
✔
@ClayTravis
The WHO now says asymptomatic coronavirus carriers spreading the virus is “very rare.” So why did we lock down again? https://www.outkickthecoverage.com/who-asymptomatic-covid-19-carriers-spreading-virus-is-very-rare/ …

Lorrie Goldstein
✔
@sunlorrie
I just looked up the WHO's definition of "very rare". It means less than one in 10,000 cases. That means the WHO is saying that of the 7 million cases of COVID-19 recorded to date world wide, less than 700 were caused by asymptomatic transmission.

Ashish K. Jha
✔
@ashishkjha
Replying to @ashishkjha
So – it might be @WHO is drawing a distinction between asymptomatic spread and pre-symptomatic spread.

And it may be there isn't a lot of asymptomatic spread but plenty of pre-symptomatic spread.

Would be helpful to get the full report that they are referencing.

Among the long list of issues debated throughout the Wuhan virus pandemic, the face mask arguably stands at the top. //

• Before putting on a mask, clean hands with alcohol-based hand rub or soap and water.
  Cover mouth and nose with mask and make sure there are no gaps between your face and the mask.
  Avoid touching the mask while using it; if you do, clean your hands with alcohol-based hand rub or soap and water.
  Replace the mask with a new one as soon as it is damp and do not re-use single-use masks.
  To remove the mask: remove it from behind (do not touch the front of mask); discard immediately in a closed bin; clean hands with alcohol-based hand rub or soap and water.
  Wear a mask if you are coughing or sneezing.
  Masks are effective only when used in combination with frequent hand-cleaning with alcohol-based hand rub or soap and water.
  If you wear a mask, then you must know how to use it and dispose of it properly.

If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with COVID-19. //

Makes more sense than everybody wearing one. NJMA article:
We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection.

In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic.

This fact does them in... //

Eric M. Strauss
✔
@ericMstrauss
JUST IN: @ABC looked at 21 states that eased restrictions May 4 or earlier & found no major increase in hospitalizations, deaths or % of people testing positive in any of them. [SC, MT, GA, MS, SD, AR, CO, ID, IA, ND, OK, TN, TX, UT, WY, KS, FL, IN, MO, NE, OH] via @AMitrops //

That’s a pretty good indicator, if it wasn’t already apparent, that threats about what will happen if states reopen aren’t materializing. //

Some of the states like Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming and Arkansas didn’t have stay at home orders, never experienced a surge and didn’t experience one in easing other restrictions.

The United States Mission to South Africa organized three flights to repatriate U.S. citizens who wished to depart South Africa. The first two flights departed on April 9, 2020, one from OR Tambo International Airport, and the second from Cape Town International Airport after first picking up passengers in Durban. The third flight will depart from Cape Town tomorrow, April 10, 2020. Visit za.usembassy.gov for more information.

It's race day whether Democrats like it or not. //

If Cooper was hoping the local authorities would help to round up the race fans revolting against the orders, he can count them out. According to the Observer, Alamance County officials aren’t going to lift a finger. As Clyde Albright, the Alamance County Attorney said, officials “cannot constitutionally limit the number of people who can peaceably assemble.”

Now they find the data proves just the opposite of what the author said it did

Amid a slew of negative news stories relating to Africa, here’s a glimmer of hope for the continent. While community transmission of Covid-19 is proven to be taking place with no country on the continent being spared... //

1. People live outside. ‘You are less likely to catch Corona Virus outdoors’. inews.co.uk
   In Africa, the majority of people still live outside. A temperate climate across the continent means that populations use housing mainly for shelter and sleep, the rest of the day is spent outside. Cooking and washing happens outside. //

2. Better levels of Vitamin D. ‘ Recent studies confirm the pivotal role of vitamin D in viral infections’. Scitech Daily. //

3. Young population. ‘The World’s 10 youngest populations are all in Africa ‘ World Economic Forum

Paul Krugman does his best to mislead the American people - again. //

Paul Krugman
✔
@paulkrugman
Repeat after me: debt is money we owe to ourselves. It doesn't make the nation as a whole poorer. https://twitter.com/adam_tooze/status/1263787928230211585 …

Adam Tooze
@adamtooze
Dramatic charts from @ChrisGiles on surge in UK gov debts.
But puzzled why he thinks this detracts from “nation’s wealth”. Obviously, COVID-driven collapse in GDP subtracts from monetary income. But gov debt shows up as asset in balance sheet. H/t @GeneralTheorist https://twitter.com/ChrisGiles_/status/1263742196605431808 … //

Ted Cruz
✔
@tedcruz
Only if by “ourselves” you mean China. //

FIFY: Repeat after me. The national debt is money the U.S. Government must repay (or refinance) at a specified date in the future. When the government borrows additional funds and spends the money, the nation as a whole becomes poorer.

Cuomo has a lot to answer for... //

On March 25, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration ordered that nursing homes were required to accept people who had tested positive for the Wuhan coronavirus. He didn’t reverse the order until the outcry became too great to ignore on May 10.

So what did that actually mean? What kind of numbers are we talking about?

Well, the AP has figured out at least part of it and it’s astonishing that the death toll isn’t even greater, given what the Cuomo did. //

More than 4,500 recovering coronavirus patients were sent to New York’s already vulnerable nursing homes under a controversial state directive that was ultimately scrapped amid criticisms it was accelerating the nation’s deadliest outbreaks, according to a count by The Associated Press.

AP compiled its own tally to find out how many COVID-19 patients were discharged from hospitals to nursing homes under the March 25 directive after New York’s Health Department declined to release its internal survey conducted two weeks ago. //

It’s actually now more than 5800 deaths.

We've seen this movie before and we don't like the ending //

As we come out of the greatest self-inflicted wound by any nation with the possible exception of Operation BARBAROSSA, the same people who were the prime movers behind this current nonsense are attempting to stoke panic by creating a specter of a resurgence of the virus in the fall and with that, the necessity of a return to ‘social distancing’ and lockdowns. As my colleague Michael Thau pointed out yesterday, there is no evidence that any of the measures we have taken have accomplished diddly squat beyond destroying lives and burning through the nation’s wealth like a Kuwaiti oil fire. [READ The Hardest Thing About This Lockdown May Be Admitting to Ourselves That It Accomplished Absolutely Nothing.

https://www.redstate.com/michael_thau/2020/05/21/839511/

While those obvious lessons seem lost upon our self-proclaimed intelligentsia, they are not lost on President Trump.

“People say that’s a very distinct possibility. It’s standard. And we’re going to put out the fires. We’re not going to close the country. We’re going to put out the fires,” Trump told reporters during a tour of a Ford manufacturing plant in Ypsilanti, Mich., when asked if he was concerned about a second wave of COVID-19.

Trump expressed confidence in the country’s ability to contain future outbreaks, referring to them as “embers.”

“Whether it’s an ember or a flame, we’re going to put it out. But we’re not closing our country,” the president continued.

We know this virus is not some Andromeda Strain virus that will kill humanity. While I’m skeptical that a vaccine will ever materialize, we have learned much, much more about how the disease spreads, treatments are being developed, and we’ve learned that you really aren’t at risk if you are relatively healthy and under 60.

Giving a firm message that the federal government will not participate in any shutdown, no matter what some governors may do, sends a strong message and will definitely up the political cost of a Michigan or Pennsylvania or New York or California going bonkers…again.

This...seems an extreme mandate.

Finally!

We were told that states lifting their lockdowns would bring about untold tragedy, death, overflowing hospitals, and general destruction of civilization, yet according to a new study by JP Morgan, it would appear that the states lifting lockdowns are getting better, not worse.

CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla posted the bank’s research that shows a fascinating decline in infection rates by states ending their lockdowns.

“JPMorgan has a devastating piece arguing that infection rates have declined — not increased — in states where lockdowns have ended, “even after allowing for an appropriate measurement lag.” (Kolonavic),” tweeted Quintanilla.

Quintanilla also noted JP Morgan’s discovery of the same pattern happening in other countries that have released their lockdowns.

“Same goes for various countries, adds JPM. “This means that the pandemic and COVID-19 likely have its own dynamics unrelated to often inconsistent lockdown measures that were being implemented,” Quintanilla continued.

Weighing the risks.

A popular meme pretends that government officials are foolish for allowing trips to Wal-Mart, but discouraging corporate worship in the midst of COVID-19.

By John Poindexter, Robert McFarlane, and Richard Levine

May 19, 2020

“Come not between the dragon and his wrath,” King Lear enjoined, but this we must do to upend the wrath that has emanated from the most powerful foe America has faced. As terrible as the coronavirus crisis is, we must imagine a world ten or 20 years from now, in which the People’s Republic of China’s nominal gross domestic product is 50 percent larger than that of the United States.

What power would an unconstrained China wield? What force of arms would they muster to intimidate and to control?

If China’s actions in the coronavirus catastrophe offer any window into this communist regime’s machinations, deceitfulness, and debasement of human life, it is that the threat they represent is unlike anything America has faced.

At the inception of World War II, many strategists conjectured that both Germany and Japan were destined to lose the war; their populations and economies were too small, and their access to raw materials too tenuous, to be able to wage a protracted war against the Allies. Later, the Soviet Union posed a great challenge.

Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, CIA analysts predicted the Soviet economy would surpass America’s. This calculus drove many costly American decisions. Today, America’s GDP is at least 12 times Russia’s. China, however, is seemingly destined to outpace the United States in GDP during the next 20 years. Indeed, China has plausibly already overtaken the United States, if GDP is measured by Purchasing Power Parity (PPP).

It is ironic that four American actions enabled this ascent: first, American scientific aid to end famine in China; second, President Carter’s diplomatic recognition of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and his commitment that the U.S. government engage with elements of the PRC; third, President Clinton’s facilitation of the PRC’s ultimate ascension to membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and his expansion of Chinese access to dual-use (civilian/military) technology; fourth, President Obama’s embrace of the PRC as a non-adversarial peer state, which completed the PRC’s envelopment of America’s institutions. //

It is logical to assume that after some initial point, Chinese political, military, and intelligence officials realized this outbreak of a new virus could be used to damage the economies of the West and thus facilitate Chinese hegemony. Given China’s history of pandemics, its political establishment must have had planning documents in place to serve the Communist Party of China’s interests, should such a scenario of a novel pandemic unfold. Manipulating data would be central to any such operational plan.

On May 7, the PRC recorded its dead in Hubei Provence, whose capital is Wuhan, at 4,512, out of 4,637 for the entire country. According to Chinese authorities, 125 fatalities occurred in all other provinces, which comprise 1.38 billion people.

If the virus did experience exponential growth, and doubled every day, in 28 days it should have infected 268 million people. A 1 percent mortality rate would thus result in millions of deaths, not fewer than 5,000. Even if the PRC underreported its losses by a factor of ten or twenty, these figures do not make sense.

Are there scenarios that explain these numbers? One explanation would involve an accidental release from the virology lab at Wuhan that was almost immediately recognized, engendering swift and firm containment procedures within China, but denied to the rest of the world by China’s continuance of international travel from the virus’s point of origin.

The second scenario is related, but crueler. Given China’s research into biological warfare, it is conceivable that entities within China may have sought a naturally occurring virus that would be just transmissible and virulent enough to cause massive disruption in Western countries, but could be limited and mitigated, given the regime’s foreknowledge, within China. Allied intelligence must determine if either scenario took place. //

China appropriates national assets worldwide in loaded energy and development deals. The pandemic will only accelerate this unless countervailing action ensues. In Djibouti, China holds 77 percent of debt. Kenya, Angola, Nigeria, and Zambia were all on the cusp of asset appropriation before the present crisis.

China has lent African nations $124 billion from 2000 through 2016. The largest portion of each loan is not generally provided to the borrower, but spent in China to finance Chinese-made inputs and trained labor. The recipient country, in effect, finances jobs and manufacturing in China. The reward for targeted countries is to have their assets appropriated, due to loan non-performance.

If the West slides into steep recession, developing nations may sell whatever they can in national riches to China for cents on the dollar. The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative will thus be realized. This avarice is the PRC’s Achilles’ heel.

America must exploit this weakness by offering African and developing nations an alternative to the BRI. Facilitating opposition to Chinese aims among these nations must be a central component of a new U.S. strategy. America must exploit China’s susceptibility to client-state erosion. We must innovatively marshal hard and soft power to unseat the PRC from its footholds in Africa and elsewhere. //

10 Actions the United States Must Take

The problem is not the Chinese people, nor their proud heritage that stretches back thousands of years. It is communism. We must challenge China:

1. Return all production of our medicines, medical supplies, and equipment to the United States or to countries that are our allies;
2. Enact severe limits on Chinese graduate students in all scientific subjects; shutter all Confucius Institutes at American universities until they be stripped of their propagandistic mission;
3. Entrench principles and restrictions so that China can buy no more of our corporations, universities, or national assets;
4. Help deny, across the world, the ability for China’s Huawei to deploy its 5G networks, systems, phones, and devices, as tools for espionage, industrial and otherwise, could be implanted in these systems;
5. Threaten to extend tariffs substantially if the PRC does not make all virus data and sites available to our scientists, so that we may understand fully the genesis and the spread of the present pandemic; the PRC must also release any COVID-19 whistleblowers and eliminate all wet markets;
6. Put into law criminal penalties for any American company or individual who shares proprietary or sensitive information with China, when such information has application to our defense, high-technology, or energy-related industrial base;
7. Accelerate Freedom of Navigation passages and exercises through waters that China falsely claims, with maximum U.S. naval power expressed; in this, we should include, when possible, ships of the British, the Australian, and the Japanese Navies;
8. Undertake determined efforts to deny China’s Belt and Road Initiative, especially in Africa; extend alternative terms to key nations on the brink of asset appropriation due to China’s predatory lending practices;
9. Announce a new military package to reinforce Taiwan’s defensive capabilities. To this end, we should consider the sale of the F-35 due to the deployment of the advanced Chengdu J-20 fighter by China. This sale would either be as a replacement for the pending transfer of less-advanced F-16Vs to Taiwan or as a supplement to this force;
10. Radically reduce IP theft. Explicate that China’s economic expansion would have been impossible without their theft of American technology; produce and distribute lists of American technologies and products stolen or copied by China; urge other free countries to do the same, so that the world will recognize this danger. //

During the present pandemic, China’s most abhorrent exports may be fear and disinformation. Twice before this crisis, and in the living memory of many Americans, our nation has experienced pandemics. According to the CDC’s website, during the 1957 Asian Flu, “The estimated number of deaths was 1.1 million worldwide and 116,000 in the United States.”

The U.S. population in 1957 was 172 million; thus, adjusted for our present population, the Asian Flu would have killed 222,000 Americans. Of the 1968 Hong Kong Flu, the CDC has written, “The estimated number of deaths was 1 million worldwide and about 100,000 in the United States.” America’s population in 1968 was 201 million; adjusting for today, the Hong Kong Flu would have killed 164,000 Americans. Neither pandemic altered American economic life. //

The way we have answered this pandemic is not repeatable: our array of actions cannot be mounted if another wave or pandemic strikes. This is our gravest sin: we have shown China, Russia, and Iran, as well as terrorist actors, that our nation may be brought low if faced with a new pathogen.

To establish deterrence so a future malevolent actor sees our capacities both to endure and to respond, America must exact a high price from the People’s Republic of China. In this cause, we must seek the support of all the free nations of the world.

If America had done a tenth of what China has done to the world, even given the most charitable view of their acts, the PRC would do anything to make us pay. If we are not willing to act, and decisively, we are leaving the field to an unhindered, unremorseful, and ravenous state with a degree of relative economic power that we have not faced since the War of 1812.

He's right. //

“New rule: The next time we have a worldwide pandemic, we have to come up with a better solution than everyone becomes Howie Mandel.”

If you’re not familiar with the reference, Howie’s famously OCD and germophobic.

Bill noted that everyone loves Howie, but his disorder is “a disease.” And it’s a great struggle:

“He can’t touch a doorknob or wear shoes with laces ’cause they might touch the ground.”

“[N]ow, of course, everybody’s making the joke that ‘Howie had it right all along,'” Bill noted.

Nevertheless:

“No, Howie would be the first to tell you that he has a disease that [messes] up your life. … No wonder he says, ‘It was always a curse.

This is simply a logical extension of the Democrat contempt for the weak and helpless unless they can vote multiple times

Daniel Arlein has already had COVID-19. In March, the 36-year-old small business owner and DJ, who lives in Brooklyn, tested positive for the viral infection .... //

Since the new coronavirus is highly contagious (meaning a large percentage of the population would have to get it to slow its spread), the human toll of reaching herd immunity without a vaccine would be staggering. And that’s assuming that once a person gets sick, they stay immune for a long time. But at this point, we don’t know if that’s the case. //

“The disease sort of stops increasing at the point when you reach herd immunity, but there’s still lots and lots of people infected. It only slowly goes down, and on its way down, [it] infects another third of the population,” said Richard Neher, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Basel in Switzerland. “If you drive a car and suddenly you switch off the engine, it doesn’t stop instantly.” //

Lowering the boom.