Posts Tagged ‘covid19’

Big Media Want You Scared

Posted: April 7, 2020 by julietteochieng in News/opinion
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by baldilocks

I’m okay. No pestilence; nor am I aware of any family member or friend who has it. I do keep a very long prayer list consisting of names, however.

I just want to point out something.

Yesterday, there was this.

CBS News has picked up the story of the woman who claims her hospital gave her no protection to take care of COVID-19 patients.

But CBS News apparently didn’t check the story because, as they say, it was too good to check.

Imaris Vera, part-time nurse and part-time Instagram model, claims she quit her job at a Chicago area hospital – still unnamed – because the hospital didn’t provide nurses with proper equipment around COVID-19 patients.

All we’ve heard is howls from governors and CDC officials for us not to take away gear from first responders. Save the PPE and the N-95 masks for the pros. So at first blush, the story looked like it might be true.

Then it started crumbling.

And, today, there was this.

President Donald Trump reportedly owns a stake in a company that produces hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malaria drug he has repeatedly touted as a coronavirus treatment even though his experts say there’s no strong evidence it works.

Trump “has a small personal financial interest” in Sanofi, the French drugmaker that makes Plaquenil, the brand-name version of hydroxychloroquine, The New York Times reported Monday.

In addition, Sanofi’s largest shareholders include a mutual fund company run by major Republican donor Ken Fisher, the paper said. Trump’s three family trusts, as of last year, each had investments in a mutual fund whose largest holding was Sanofi, according to the Times.

Mike Cernovich presented the financial documents and figured out that President Trump’s stake in Sanofi is worth no more than $435. And, considering that Sanofi hasn’t owned the patent for Panequil (hydroxychloroquine’s brand name) since 1995, there are likely dozens of generic versions of the drug, since it is used to treat several conditions: rheumatoid arthritis, malaria, lupus, etc.

But we know what media’s intended implication is: that President Trump is pushing hydroxychloroquine as a cure for the Wuhan virus in order to enrich himself.

Besides both  being distortions of reality by Big Media entities, these two vignettes are small parts of an overarching goal: to keep fear and hopelessness stoked in the collective psyche of the American public.

It’s like this. If the public believes that the president is just in it for himself and there is in actuality no pharmaceutical cure, they will be willing to accept a more radical cure — like changing presidents.

Big Media will keep trying. And that’s why the president’s daily Wuhan virus press briefings are so important.

And it’s why several Big Media entities hate these briefings and refuse to cover them.

Keep an eye on all of them, especially now that most of you have the time to do it.

Juliette Akinyi Ochieng has been blogging since 2003 as baldilocks. Her older blog is here.  She published her first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game in 2012.

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Report from Louisiana: The Exponential Numbers

Posted: April 6, 2020 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – Coronavirus hit close to home this week; my husband and I learned of the death of our friend Ann who fell victim to this virus. One moment alive and well, the next moment she’s gone. It’s a terrible, terrible thing.

Here in Louisiana, we have over 13,000 positive cases and as of yesterday, 477 deaths, and over 1,800 in hospital. Officials are warning that this week will be bad and that everyone should avoid going anywhere at all unless absolutely essential. We are taking that seriously in my house and have only left home twice this week for quick grocery trips. I would love to do curbside pick-up for groceries, but the wait time for your order is two weeks!

Meanwhile, people are practicing social distancing with various degrees of seriousness. One couple I know attended a birthday party at a friend’s home this week, while another person I know met up with her girlfriends in a parking lot to share a bottle of wine and “hang out.” Even the caretakers of LSU mascot Mike the Tiger are taking more careful measures than some people I know.

Some states have already declared this school year officially done, but we are still awaiting that call. Our “stay at home” order extends until the first of May, so it seems highly unlikely that we would have to report back with only three weeks left, yet that call has still not been made.

The border between Louisiana and Texas is closed and checkpoints have been established at the state line. Commercial traffic is allowed to pass freely but everyone else must be screened and fill out paperwork before entering Texas. This is obviously causing travel nightmares.

As we monitor these numbers, these daily death toll reports, be sure to check out Stacy McCain’s post in which he does some pretty interesting analysis of the numbers:

There is an enormous variation in the death rates, with Italy’s rate being about five times higher than the U.S. rate, and the death rate in Washington State, Michigan and Louisiana being more than twice the rate in Florida and Texas. Will these rates change? Maybe, but the fact is that the same virus is having different impacts in different areas, and the “experts” on TV are doing a bad job of explaining this differential, insofar as they are not completely ignoring it. While I don’t claim to be an “expert,” my hunch is that it probably has something to do with viral load at first exposure to the virus. If you attend a two-hour event with dozens of other people, some of whom are infected — or if you’re on a two-hour commercial airline flight, or riding New York City’s subways on a daily basis — then your initial exposure is likely to be a high viral load. On the other hand, a brief encounter with an infected convenience-store clerk will expose you to a lower viral load, and if you do become infected, your case will probably be milder. That’s not an “expert” opinion, just a common-sense interpretation of what some experts are saying, and one which would seem to fit the available data.

This brings me back to my friend that went to a birthday party. What was the exponential exposure?

I’m afraid that a lot of people are not taking all this seriously enough and won’t until it hits too close to home.

Stay safe, friends, and stay home.

Pat Austin blogs at And So it Goes in Shreveport and is the author of Cane River Bohemia: Cammie Henry and her Circle at Melrose Plantation. Follow her on Instagram @patbecker25 and Twitter @paustin110.

President Trump’s deregulation efforts have saved a lot of lives

Posted: April 2, 2020 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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I’ve maintained for many years that government regulations do far more harm than good.  Unfortunately the Coronavirus crises has more than proved me right.  Government red tape cost the lives of many Americans early on during this pandemic and the deregulation efforts by President Trump will have saved a substantial number of Americans before the crisis is over.  If you think I’m being melodramatic check out the Townhall article The Red Tape Pandemic by John Stossel.

The number of test kits available when the crisis began to unfold was disgrace and directly attributable to government regulations.  This had a major impact on how far and how fast the virus spread across the United States.  The Townhall article explains how a much larger number of test kits in South Korea resulted in a much less dire situation than we now face here.

Coronavirus deaths leveled off in South Korea.

That’s because people in Korea could easily find out if they had the disease. There are hundreds of testing locations — even pop-up drive-thru testing centers.

We can compare that to what happened here due to the low number of test kits.

In America, a shortage of COVID-19 tests has made it hard for people to get tested. Even those who show all the symptoms have a difficult time.

Why weren’t there enough tests?

Because our government insists on control of medical innovation.

The shortage of test kits was caused by government regulations.

When coronavirus appeared, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made its own tests and insisted that people only use those CDC tests. But the CDC test often gave inaccurate results. Some early versions of the test couldn’t distinguish between coronavirus and water.

Private companies might have offered better tests, and more of them, but that wasn’t allowed. The World Health Organization even released information on how to make such tests, but our government still said no. Instead, all tests must go through the government’s cumbersome approval process. That takes months. Or years.

Hundreds of labs had the ability to test for the virus, but they weren’t allowed to test.

As a result, doctors can’t be sure exactly where outbreaks are happening. Instead of quarantining just sick people, state governors are forcing entire states to go on lockdown.

At the same time, many people who show no symptoms do have COVID-19. Without widespread testing, we don’t know who they are, and so the symptomless sick are infecting others.

The shortage of test kits was relieved by President Trump relaxing regulations.

A few weeks ago, the government finally gave up its monopoly and said it was relaxing the rules. There would be quick “emergency use authorizations” replacing the months- or years-long wait for approval. But even that took so long that few independent tests were approved.

So President Donald Trump waived those rules, too.

Now tests are finally being made. But that delay killed people. It’s still killing people.

Doctor and nurse shortages have also impacted the Coronavirus crisis.  This issue was solved by a combination of President Trump and the governors of many states.

In some states, there’s a shortage of doctors or nurses. That, too, is often a product of bad law — state licensing laws that make it illegal for professionals licensed in one state to work in another. Trump said he would waive “license requirements so that the doctors from other states can provide services to states with the greatest need.” Then it turned out that he could only allow that for Medicare; he didn’t have the power to override stupid state licensing rules.

Fortunately, many states finally waived harmful licensing laws on their own.

It’s good that governments finally removed some rules.

This National Review article Deregulate to Help the Private Sector Fight Coronavirus also proves that government regulations have been costly in the fight against Coronavirus.

Amid the humanitarian and economic crisis brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, an intelligent policy response can save lives and livelihoods. In addition to the many measures being introduced and passed into law, including economic-stimulus measures and funding for testing, one critically important government response is to cut red tape and regulatory burdens that stand in the way of a quick and impactful response from businesses that can meaningfully help in the crisis.

The level of food and necessities has stabilized in the past few days.  One deregulation effort by President Trump’s administration helped bring that about.

since 1938, federal regulations limit most commercial truck drivers to eleven hours of driving time in a 14-hour workday. The restriction is intended to reduce accidents caused by highway fatigue. The rule doesn’t necessarily encourage safety, however, as truckers may be forced off the road at the end of their workday in areas not hospitable to truckers…Last Friday, after the president’s declaration of a national emergency, the Department of Transportation announced a nationwide exemption to the 82-year-old rules. Now truckers can help deliver badly needed supplies more quickly and efficiently while still safely splitting their required ten-hour rest period into two separate breaks instead of having to all take it at once.

Hopefully when the Coronavirus pandemic is over we will remember that government regulations made the crises worse and relaxing the regulations had very positive results. When it comes to getting rid of government regulations we need to go much further

Report from Louisiana: Unfocused

Posted: March 30, 2020 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – We are now three weeks into this quarantine business, so how’s it going for you? I thought I would be so productive and get some projects done, make some progress on my book, do some inspired writing…nah. Not happening. My creativity is dry as a bone. Gone.

I did a little blog post about that on SIGIS, and got a lot of unexpected feedback with people feeling the same way, which was reassuring in a way. It’s not just me.

It feels a little like the days and weeks following 9/11, to me. An overwhelming powerlessness and anxiety. Turns out there are a lot of people feeling this same way.

I’m incredibly frustrated with the inability of people to follow simple directions and stay home. Once again, this church in Central, Louisiana held services yesterday with 500 people in attendance this week, which thankfully is about half of what he had last week.

Pastor Tony Spell of the Life Tabernacle Church says, “The virus, we believe, is politically motivated, …We hold our religious rights dear, and we are going to assemble no matter what someone says.”

He’s not alone in his commitment to disregard the stay at home order issued by Governor Edwards. In New Orleans, a growing epicenter of COVID-19, authorities had to break up a large gathering this weekend where people gathered for a Second Line event. Video on social media shows revelers in the neighborhood drinking, dancing, and playing music. Now, warrants have been issued.

In an attempt to slow down the spread of COVID-19 in Texas, Governor Greg Abbot has put a travel ban of sorts in place. If you travel to Texas from Louisiana, you have to fill out paperwork indicating where you will self-quarantine for the next fourteen days. This does not apply to commercial traffic and the like, obviously.

The grocery stores are beginning to level out however there is still no toilet paper, Clorox wipes, or hand sanitizer anywhere and there has not been for three weeks. My grocery store, apparently depressed by the long empty shelf, now is stocking laundry baskets on that aisle.

The big-box stores in our area, Sam’s Club, sometimes gets those items in; Saturday morning the line to get into Sam’s wrapped around the building as they let in twenty-five people at a time. Hundreds of people in line, much closer to each other than six feet, mind you, and VERY close to each other the closer to the front of the line they got. Insanity.

I’ve mad a couple of quick grocery store runs and have found that some people are keeping their distance but there are others who completely disregard your personal space. I was looking at the eggs yesterday when a man leaned right in front of me and grabbed a carton.

I’m looking at grocery delivery services now or curbside pickup; the turnaround on curbside pickup is days out however. If you need something quickly, too bad.

At any rate, this is our new normal. With Trump’s federal distancing extended to the end of April, I expect that our school year is effectively done, which saddens me somewhat.

Now, if I could just get my creative spark back.

Pat Austin blogs at And So it Goes in Shreveport and is the author of Cane River Bohemia: Cammie Henry and her Circle at Melrose Plantation. Follow her on Instagram @patbecker25 and Twitter @paustin110.

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