The Ultimate Test

I just recalled what the ultimate test for how serious a pandemic really is: (in descending order) Level 1 - Do you know someone who died from it? Level 2 - DO you know someone who knows someone who died from it? Level 3 - Do you know someone who has it? Level 4 - Do you know someone who knows someone who has it? Perhaps, it is pretty UN-serious when I do not answer "yes" to any of those questions. it also suggests that the reports of infection or death might be exaggerated.

It certainly suggests that the warlike, draconian, extra-constitutional, dislocating measures being taken, to combat a disease that may have as low as a 0.1 % (one out of a 1000) chance of death ONCE infected of course, may likewise be exaggerated.

And if I hear one more jackass say it is an "inconvenience" to lose your job from this or "greedy" to want that job back asap, I am going to have a primal scream!

WHO and COVID and China continued...

WHO also backed up the Chinese in not adopting flight restrictions on Jan 10 and backed up their numbers at that time, too.

The Chinese knew that COVID could be communicated human to human on December 14-21. While WHO continued to support their position it could NOT on Jan. 14.

Dr. Tedros, the Director,  his number 2, Bruce Allward, and the Chinese nationals in the WHO need to resign.

Taiwan and one of WHO's own experts knew it was communicable by humans to humans in December and the WHO ignored these reports.

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If now's mot the time to reform the WHO and call out China, when is it? Whether they are punished now or later does not take the blood off their hands.

(by the way, China pays 10% of what the US pays for the WHO even though they are the same size of economy and they appear to own the organization!)

China and Covid and WHO

January 4 - the WHO praises China's "transparency" in dealing with COVID

January 14 - while the XChinese come to shake hands on the US trade deal, the WHO states that COVID is not spread by human contact

March 11 - after 100 nations are infected with it, the WHO declares COVID a Global Health Emergency

A Southampton University study finds that if China had come clean about this a week earlier, 50% of patients would have not been infected, 2 weeks, 66% and 3 weeks...95%

Because of the WHO and their Ethiopian stooge of China Director and the Chinese, millions were and will be sickened and 100's of thousands died or will die.

They should be glad that all that has happened is a halt in funding for WHO, cancelled flights and finally some new insight and awareness into the clear and present danger China's "diplomacy" and complete disregard for the Rule of Law poses to the West. More will need to be done to loosen their grip on our debate, especially among our elites.

Dr. Fauci, Calling Dr. Anthony Fauci...

Dr. Fauci, I want a second opinion. Or, I should say, I will get one unless you come up with better answers for us for when this shutdown should come to an end.

Your professional opinion is causing me concern not only for you but our well being and peace of mind.

You have said that the guidelines (which are now really executive orders in most states) are an "inconvenience". I beg to differ. Losing your job or business for no economic reason,  losing your schooling, losing your church or losing your ability to live a normal life are not inconveniences, they are disasters and tragedies. They are, in fact, to use a phrase from your own Hippocratic Oath, harm. People are entitled to know when that harm will end and how, now.

You have said that the Shut Down, yes, the Shut Down, with all of the impossible, China-like oppression involved in it (despite all of our oaths to uphold the Constitution and the Bill of Rights) could last EIGHTEEN MONTHS or until a vaccine is developed. Dr. Fauci, I do not think that is a realistic plan or projection and one which has never been applied before. No previous virus of this type saw an end to any stringencies (which were nothing like the ones in place for this one) only when a vaccine was developed. So why are you recommending it here? One hopes that it is not so that we are forced to listen to you and follow your advice as long as you deem it necessary.

You have said that the Virus would determine when and if the Nation would open up again. Again, I respectfully demur. We did not elect a doctor, a statistical model or a virus President. The time honoured tradition in your country is for the direction and management of American affairs to be handled by the People and those it delegates by election. One hopes that that tradition will continue even well before the last person is diagnosed with COVID-19. For, if it does not, much more will be endangered and for much longer than was menaced by Novel Coronavirus.

We have faced countless hurricanes, fires, tornadoes, and cyclones, city wide fires, crime waves, panics, crashes, recessions and a Great Depression, terrorism, the British Empire, the Kaiser, fascism, Nazi Germany, communism, the Soviet Union, the constant spectre of nuclear war, two World Wars, wars of every description, and contagion of every type and somehow have emerged triumphant without the need of a blue ribbon panel to tell us how to do it.

All we want is some reasonable metrics about how and when we can go back to work. And that does not mean doubling down on the Hospitalization, Death and Infection models that have been so wrong so far and telling us we need to wait until April...2021 to get back to work and even then (and this is a direct quote from you) we won't  be able to shake hands. No. If there is more doom and gloom without reasonable explanations, no reasonable metrics or plans for at least partially opening up (for instance, keeping only the sick, exposed or elderly under lockdown) and above all a target date for doing so (as Austria, Denmark, Czechia and Norway, all possessing doctors at least as smart as you and numbers as bad as the US, have done), then the Nation needs to consult someone else as soon as possible.

If you cannot do that, offer reasonable plans to return to normalcy and rely on the good sense of the People who have followed your draconian orders so far and apparently with good effect, then, we will have to simply shake hands, ah, er, I mean bow, and ask you to bow out.

Modelling COVID

It seems to me that the one thing missing in most of those projections as to COVID deaths is a time frame. Once the Headline number of deaths is claimed, no one tells us over what period. For example, it took almost a year for 18,000 to die from Swine Flu. How long will it take for COVID to kill 240,000? Well, on past performance, probably, well...a long time. Even if you believe 12,000 will die every month (and 10,000 have died in the past 6 weeks at least), then it will take almost 2 years to kill 240,000 Americans. But, if you assume that this will mostly be over by July, then about 70,000 would have to die every month. Neither scenario seems plausible on its face with hot spots elsewhere dying down amid maybe 80,000 deaths worldwide. Again, whether it's Ontario or the US, it's time to explain where they're getting these less than model "models" from.

Oh and BTW, the total death toll from the common flu last year in the US was 34,000 with a similar number coming this year. The "Deadly" Coronavirus still trails both it and Swine flu in mortality and infection (33 million common, 60 million swine) with 335,000. All this is boring I am sure to our News mavens but, as the great man once said,"That, too, is reality".
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John M. Farant