The national media's reporting on this story has been nothing short of shameful.

At Thursday’s White House briefing, William N. Bryan, the acting undersecretary for Science and Technology at DHS, told reporters:

We’ve identified that heat and humidity is a weakness in that chain. We’ve identified that sunlight, solar light, UV rays, is a weakness in that chain. That doesn’t take away the other activities, the White House guidelines, the guidance from the CDC and others on the actions and the steps that people need to take to protect themselves. This is just another tool in our toolbox, another weapon in the fight that we can add to it. And we know that summer-like conditions are going to create an environment where the transmission can be decreased, and that’s an opportunity for us to get ahead.

Bryan said his team has seen the “powerful effect” that solar light has on the virus “both on surfaces and in the air.” They’ve seen a similar effect with both heat and humidity.

Bryan presented a chart which shows the dramatic effect that these three variables have on the virus which can be viewed here.

He explained that, under normal circumstances, COVID-19 has a half life of 18 hours (on surfaces). “Normal circumstances” is defined as temperatures between 70 and 75′ and humidity of 20%.

If humidity is increased from 20% to 80%, the half life decreases to six hours (on surfaces).

If humidity remains at 80% and the temperature is increased to 95′, the half-life drops to one hour (on surfaces).

Next, Bryan adds the effect of solar light. A scenario is a summer day, the temperature is between 70 and 75′, humidity is at 80%. The addition of solar light will reduce the half-life of the virus (on surfaces) to two minutes which is pretty stunning.

The situation is different for aerosols (saliva droplets in the air). Under normal circumstances, indoors (no solar light), temperature is between 70 and 75′ and humidity is at 20%, the half life is approximately one hour. If you step outside on a summer day, with temperature and humidity remaining the same, the half life plunges to one and a half minutes. //

The DHS has also tested the effects of of various disinfectants on the virus and Bryan said, “I can tell you that bleach will kill the virus in five minutes, isopropyl alcohol will kill the virus in 30 seconds, and that’s with no manipulation, no rubbing.”

Across the country, hospitals shut down 'non-essential' procedures in preparation for a surge of coronavirus patients that never appeared. //

So we stayed home, businesses closed, and tens of millions of Americans lost their jobs. But with the exception of New York City, the overwhelming surge of coronavirus patients never really appeared—at least not in the predicted numbers, which have been off by hundreds of thousands.

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. //

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. //

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. //

Public officials responsible for the lockdowns will no doubt claim that without these draconian measures, our hospitals surely would have been overwhelmed. And who knows? Maybe they would have. It’s an unfalsifiable assertion.

Two new studies suggest that President Trump was right in early March when he guessed the fatality rate for coronavirus is under 1 percent. //

New data from random antibody tests conducted in New York State suggest that as many as 2.7 million people statewide have had the coronavirus. That along with the just over 15,000 deaths that have occurred leads to a fatality rate for the virus of .5 percent according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Nate Silver calculated the 7-day average of each state’s number of newly-reported cases of COVID-19 and, in the following Twitter thread, placed each one into a category that indicates where they fall on the COVID-19 curve. The number of new cases is a leading indicator.

Most models, such as the IHME, look at the number of new deaths per day by state. Deaths, as we’ve learned by now, are a lagging indicator. These figures can be viewed by clicking here. Click on the drop-down menu which says “United States of America,” for any state or country.

Silver found that all 50 states are either currently at their peak or beyond. //

DaveM_2 • 2 hours ago

Notice how the more restrictive actions are being mandated after the peak?

Ben-Israel: Simple statistical analysis demonstrates that the spread of COVID-19 peaks after about 40 days and declines to almost zero after 70 days. //

Tel Aviv University Professor Isaac Ben-Israel is the chair of the school’s Securities Studies program, the chairman of the National Council for Research and Development and also serves on the research and development advisory board for Teva Pharmaceutical Industries. He appeared on an Israeli television program (Hebrew) earlier this week to discuss his latest project. The Times of Israel reported on this story.

According to The Times, Ben-Israel plotted the rates of new infections in nearly a dozen countries including: U.S., U.K., Sweden, Italy, Israel, Switzerland, France, Germany, Spain, Singapore, and Taiwan. He concluded the following:

Simple statistical analysis demonstrates that the spread of COVID-19 peaks after about 40 days and declines to almost zero after 70 days — no matter where it strikes, and no matter what measures governments impose to try to thwart it.

Analyzing the growth and decline of new cases in countries around the world, showed repeatedly that “there’s a set pattern” and “the numbers speak for themselves.” //

It is a fixed pattern that is not dependent on freedom or quarantine. There is a decline in the number of infections even [in countries] without closures, and it is similar to the countries with closures. //

When asked about the high morbidity rate in Italy, Ben-Israel replied, “The health system in Italy has its own problems. It has nothing to do with coronavirus. In 2017 it also collapsed because of the flu.” //

As some are predicting, the virus may come back in the fall. So, confirming or debunking Ben-Israel’s findings in the meantime would be extremely good to know, especially for those with compromised immune systems.

At least one guy in DC understands the Constitution and American history //

We’ve tried what the ‘experts’ said. We’ve gone along with their stupid models. We’ve stood in line to get into stores. We’ve seen friends and families put out of work and had businesses crushed by stupid and illogical diktats from people who would be more at home in Stalinist Russia than in the United States. We’ve just about had enough and President Trump seems to recognize that and that, my friends, is a very good thing.

If you think the virus is bad, wait till you see what mass poverty does. //

One thing that is undeniable is that being poor comes with health problems. Your healthcare isn’t exactly Cadillac, your diet has a higher chance of being bad, and the stresses of raising a family with little money can induce its own health problems. It’s a sad fact of life and one that we’ve been dealing with since time immemorial. In fact, epidemiologists refer to poverty as the “cause of causes.” //

According to the University of California San Francisco, your wealth is one of the best gauges for success or failure of the human health condition:

“Socioeconomic status is the most powerful predictor of disease, disorder, injury and mortality we have,” says Tom Boyce, MD, chief of UCSF’s Division of Developmental Medicine within the Department of Pediatrics. Socioeconomic status is a term that often includes measurements of income, education, and job prestige – individually or in combination. The predictive power of income alone is perhaps most obvious when considering life expectancy. Impoverished adults live seven to eight years less than those who have incomes four or more times the federal poverty level, which is $11,770 for a one-person household, whether you live in Silicon Valley, the Rust Belt or the rural South. //

Imagine being in isolation as you watch your bills come due and no job to show for it. Imagine not having much help in the way of finances.

You’re alone, you can hardly afford food, you’re jobless, and you don’t know when this will end. Hope starts to look like a stupid concept and ideas start to roll through your head that aren’t safe. //

Meaning this virus is far more infections than we thought and way more ineffectual for the vast majority of people who have or had it.

With that known, we can come to some easy conclusions. The effects of poverty are hard to escape. No matter what, it’s going to affect your health and you’re likely going to die earlier because of it. Infection by the coronavirus is hard to escape too but it’s far less likely to even put a dent in your day. Some people will become sick and sadly some will even die as many have already.

This is tragic, but a far greater tragedy will definitely occur if we stay locked up in our homes as our country crumbles around us.

As night falls in New York City, a dedicated team of medical professionals show up for work at the Samaritan’s Purse emergency field hospital in Central Park. This is the story of the night as they battle the deadly COVID-19 pandemic in the tents.

They don't care if you die, they just want you to shut up and do what you're told

Sweden’s unusual approach to fighting the coronavirus pandemic is starting to yield results, according to the country’s top epidemiologist.

Anders Tegnell, the architect behind Sweden’s relatively relaxed response to Covid-19, told local media the latest figures on infection rates and fatalities indicate the situation is starting to stabilize.

“We’re on a sort of plateau,” Tegnell told Swedish news agency TT. //

“The trend we have seen in recent days, with a more flat curve -- where we have many new cases, but not a daily increase -- is stabilizing,” Karin Tegmark Wisell, head of the microbiology department at Sweden’s Public Health Authority, said on Friday. “We are seeing the same pattern for patients in intensive care.”

The history of pandemics, from the Antonine Plague to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) event, ranked by their impact on human life.

COVID-19 has us all thinking about public health, but looking back, there have been many pandemics before, and we persist in spite of them.

On Wednesday, Fox News’ Bret Baier reported the stunning news that officials have “increasingly high confidence” the COVID-19 pandemic originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a Level 4 biological testing lab located in Wuhan, China. My colleague, Bonchie, posted about this last night here.

Baier appeared on “Hannity” last night to discuss the information he has learned. His sources believe the virus was accidentally transferred from a bat to an intern working at the lab (patient zero) who unknowingly began spreading the virus into the population of Wuhan.

During Sean Hannity’s opening, he said, according to multiple sources, in their efforts to cover up the origins of the virus, “the Chinese erased data, destroyed samples, doctors and journalists disappeared, and China shut down domestic travel to and from Wuhan, but they did not stop international flights to and from Wuhan. In other words, they protected their own country, but were willing to expose the rest of the world knowing the risks.”

The sources also told Baier that the World Health Organization (WHO) assisted China in their cover-up efforts. Both China and the WHO deny these allegations. //

If it is proven that the CCP stopped air traffic to and from Wuhan to contain the spread of the virus, but continued to allow travel from Wuhan to foreign countries, it would be a game-changer. China will truly become a pariah on the global stage. I can’t imagine anything President Xi could say or do to redeem himself.

The other major takeaway from this story, if true, is it would become clear that China’s attempts to accuse the U.S. of bringing the virus to Wuhan were an outright lie. We know that, of course, but this would prove it beyond any reasonable doubt. Maybe Democrats would finally believe it too.

Most recent pandemics have at least one thing in common: they began in Asia or Africa. The reasons why may surprise you. //

All the coronaviruses that caused recent epidemics, including the COVID-19, jumped from bats to another animal before infecting humans.

A photo on social media showing Africa's second-highest mountain from Nairobi made many Kenyans cry foul. But the photo — shot on a day free of pollution, because of COVID-19 restrictions — is real.

The key lessons for epidemic response are to act fast but act locally. That is what African countries should be doing.

Africa's health systems are already overstretched. Covid-19 demands an emergency response at scale and that begins with governments.

African hospitals need testing kits, basic materials for hygiene, personal protective equipment for the professional health workers, and equipment for assisted breathing.

African countries cannot close its fresh produce markets or people will starve. But market goers can readily work out how to reduce the risks of transmission, through measures such as better hygiene, crowd control, and physical barriers such as polythene sheeting at point of sale.

Another proposal is that each household should designate a single person to buy food, and the market authorities provide that person with an identifier such as a coloured bangle. The designated shopper would then be isolated from other household members on returning home. Some markets could be temporarily relocated to safer sites.

There is a clear element of eugenics in the proposals to pursue herd immunity as a strategy against the pandemic. //

So while there is talk about safety, there is little evidence that most countries intend to take serious steps to contain the outbreak, or that they have the capacity to do so in the immediate future. The prospect that states and markets might just let people get sick, albeit perhaps at a slower pace, is a very real one.

Governments would be better off learning from countries that effectively contained the virus. They need to prioritise people's health over free-market economics. In the end, there can be no prosperous human economy when people are ill, dead or traumatised.

U.S. officials warned in January 2018 that the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s work on “SARS-like coronaviruses in bats,” combined with “a serious shortage” of proper safety procedures, could result in human transmission and the possibility of a “future emerging coronavirus outbreak.” //

While China has stated the virus emerged from a seafood market in Wuhan, U.S. officials are skeptical of the claim, with National Review detailing how the Wuhan Institute of Virology posted jobs in November and December of last year to show how they had been working on “long-term research on the pathogenic biology of bats carrying important viruses,” which had “confirmed the origin of bats of major new human and livestock infectious diseases” in December. //

“The idea that is was just a totally natural occurrence is circumstantial. The evidence it leaked from the lab is circumstantial. Right now, the ledger on the side of it leaking from the lab is packed with bullet points and there’s almost nothing on the other side,” a U.S. official told Rogin.

A year ago, we wrote this… //

As brilliant as Orwell was, something continuously struck me as incorrect as I read 1984.

Orwell’s government – was extraordinarily competent in its totalitarian imposition of technological power.

“In Reality – no government in the history of man has ever been even remotely close to that competent.

“For Orwell’s Big Brother dystopia to become Reality – Big Government would need private sector help.

“Enter private sector Big Tech.

“Big Tech has delivered much of the technology Orwell envisioned….

“(I)t’s Big Tech doing the spying – not Big Government….

“The ONLY way Big Government can impose Big Brother – is to partner with Big Tech.”

Flash forward to now. We’re in the midst of the titanically stupid China Virus shutdown.

And every tyrant – at every level of government – is not letting the crisis go to waste. //

“Witnesses at Thursday’s Senate Commerce ‘paper hearing’ on big data and the coronavirus pandemic largely agreed on one major point: The outbreak underscores the need for a federal privacy law.”