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Stop Ignoring the Different Needs of Rural Areas and Cities Responding to COVID-19

Article by J.D. Tucille in "reason":

One-size-fits-all, top-down policies are poor matches for communities of widely varying density, character, risks, and concerns. Unusually for a modern politician, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey acknowledged this last week. When asked why he was less eager than his counterparts elsewhere to order statewide restrictions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ducey answered:

We want to make decisions that protect public health first and foremost, but also take into account that we have a large state and things are different in Tombstone than they are in Tucson; they're different in Gilbert than they are in Globe. I'm going to respect local leaders' decisions.

As COVID-19 spreads across the country, it affects different places in different ways, with some of the starker contrasts being those between cities and rural areas. Ignoring those differences doesn't just paper over reality; it may exacerbate existing national political tensions.

As I write, New York City is the new epicenter for COVID-19 infections in the U.S. It's a center for international travel, drawing visitors and people on business from all over the world, with a dynamic culture and a thriving economy. The city is also very densely populated, with over eight million people concentrated so that there are 27,000 of them per square mile. Those factors make New York—the city where I was born—a prime incubator not just for ideas and prosperity, but for new diseases.

"New York is far more crowded than any other major city in the United States … All of those people, in such a small space, appear to have helped the virus spread rapidly through packed subway trains, busy playgrounds and hivelike apartment buildings," The New York Times reported this week.

Fortunately, as befits a prosperous metropolis, New York City is also home to a long list of hospitals, many of them world-class. That doesn't mean they won't be overwhelmed—they're getting slammed, with worse to come. But they're top-notch institutions with excellent personnel and resources.

By contrast, Yavapai County, Arizona—where I now make my home—has a total population of around 232,000 people in an area half again as large as Connecticut, with 26 of them per square mile. Dispersed as they are, people in Yavapai County face less danger of infection than do the residents of urban areas.

Unfortunately, that doesn't mean the place gets to sit out the pandemic; COVID-19 is here, and my wife is masked and hoping for the best at her pediatric clinic every day. But it is less of an all-pervasive threat.

Another difference is our medical infrastructure: A thinly populated area with resources to match, Yavapai County has the Yavapai Regional Medical Center, the Verde Valley Medical Center, and a Veterans Affairs facility, for a total of fewer than 400 beds. Which is to say, like other rural areas, Yavapai County offers a lower risk of contagion, but very limited capacity for helping those who do contract COVID-19.

Looking at the characteristics of these very different worlds, and having lived in both, it's difficult for me to imagine pandemic approaches that make equal sense for places where exposure to others is inherent in exiting an apartment as well as those where "social distancing" is life as usual.

That urban-rural difference is reflected in people's views of the pandemic.

"The people most likely to say the disease threatens 'day-to-day life' in their communities are those living in urban areas in states that have seen relatively high numbers of cases," with suburban and then rural residents lagging well behind in their perception of danger, Pew Research reported last week.

As does everything in our tribal world, this difference of opinion has political implications. Urban to suburban areas tend to be Democratic, and rural to exurban areas tend to be Republican, which is part of the reason that the country is split into warring camps. That shows in polling about COVID-19, with Pew finding many more Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (44 percent) than Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (26 percent) seeing the virus as a threat.

Other polls find similar partisan differences, with an NPR/PBS-NewsHour/Marist poll reporting that a majority of Democrats view the virus as a "real threat" while Republicans see it as "blown out of proportion." Likewise, a Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 30 percent of Republicans had suffered disruptions to their lives from the virus, compared to 49 percent of Democrats.

That last poll is especially interesting, since it's not about perceptions but experiences. It suggests that largely urban Democrats are experiencing a different pandemic than largely rural Republicans. That makes sense. By and large, the two groups live different lives, geographically and culturally distinct from one another. Their experiences in many ways are going to differ as a result; COVID-19 is just one more part of the divide.

That divide doesn't have to be world-shaking if it's one based on choices. To live in an urban area is to choose to experience life differently than people who live in a rural area. But that divide can be deepened and widened if it's made worse by decisions imposed from the top without regard for differences in needs, values, and experiences.

Yet top-down and one-size-fits-all appeals to a lot of people who either don't understand or don't give a damn that other people live different lives.

Describing the national pause in economic activity as "worse than the problem," President Trump says he "would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter." He calls for a quick return to normality that might work better for some areas than for others depending on the local severity of the pandemic and people's ability to weather a lockdown with jobs and businesses intact.

His doppelganger, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, insists "there should be a uniform federal standard for when cities and states should shut down commerce and schools, or cancel events." He also wants the federal government to nationalize the production and distribution of medical supplies—a terrible idea under any circumstance, and one that's bound to interfere with communities' ability to find their own way through this crisis by subjecting them to decisions made far away.

Of course, Trump is playing to a Republican, heavily rural base, while Cuomo strokes his own urban, Democratic supporters. Neither seems to see any reason why the response might need to vary according to local conditions.

Let me emphasize here that I'm not a pure localist. My preference is always for addressing problems without using coercion. Nobody should get to impose their wills on others, no matter how pure they believe their motivations or how wisely informed they claim to be.

But short of leaving people alone, if government is going to do anything, it should act with respect for the differences among us—like the widely varying densities, preferences, and resources of places like New York City and Yavapai County. If political officials don't care that "things are different in Tombstone than they are in Tucson," they risk giving way to even more resentment and antagonism between rural and urban Americans.

https://reason.com/2020/03/25/stop-ignoring-the-different-needs-of-rural-areas-and-cities-responding-to-covid-19/

Should Old People Be Willing to Die to Protect the Economy?

 

Article by Rick Moran in "PJMedia":

The left is going nuts over a statement from the Texas lieutenant governor suggesting that senior citizens should be willing to die in order to get the country back to work and perhaps expose them to the coronavirus.

NBCNews:

Dan Patrick, Texas’ Republican lieutenant governor, on Monday night suggested that he and other grandparents would be willing to risk their health and even lives in order for the United States to “get back to work” amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“Those of us who are 70 plus, we’ll take care of ourselves. But don’t sacrifice the country,” Patrick said on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

Is it even a question of "sacrificing the country"? If it is, Patrick is "all in."

“No one reached out to me and said, 'As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that America loves for its children and grandchildren?' And if that is the exchange, I'm all in,” Patrick said.

New York Governor Cuomo remarked, "My mother is not expendable," which is strange because Patrick wasn't talking about old people being "expendable." But Patrick left himself wide open for attack.

CNN:

"My mother is not expendable," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said in his press briefing Tuesday. "And your mother is not expendable. And our brothers and sisters are not expendable. We're not going to accept a premise that human life is disposable. We're not going to put a dollar figure on human life."

How we got from being "all in" to wanting old people and everyone else to die is a typical left-wing assault on reality. But Brit Hume had a far more thoughtful response.

Media Matters for America:

"Well, I think he's essentially saying something that's not terribly different from what the president and Governor Cuomo have been saying. Which is that this, what we're living in now, this circumstance as we try to beat this virus, is not sustainable. That the utter collapse of the country's economy, which many think will happen if this goes on much longer, is an intolerable result. And that, he is saying, for his own part, that he'd be willing to take a risk of getting the disease if that's what it took to allow the economy to move forward. And he said that because he's late in life, you know, that he would be perhaps more willing then he might've been and a younger age. Which seems to me to be an entirely reasonable viewpoint."

"Now, I guess a lot of people think that, you know, as your previous guest just suggested, that, you know, any kind of risk with anybody's life is intolerable. And I think, you know, we live with the risk of, you know, seasonal influenza every year and thousands upon thousands die from it. But we do not, as has been pointed out, shut down the economy to combat it."

When Dr. Ezekial Emanuel penned an article in The Atlantic saying he would be content to die at age 75 if it meant being less of a burden to society, he was actually cheered by the left for his willingness to sacrifice himself for the rest of us. Emanuel wasn't advocating euthanasia or assisted suicide. He was stating a personal preference.

This is exactly what Lt. Governor Patrick was doing. And he was making a larger point about the absolute necessity that every rational observer agrees with: it would be wrong to destroy the economy under almost any circumstances, but especially for a disease that is very selective about who gets seriously ill.

There is a fundamental conflict between health professionals and politicians that is, perhaps, inevitable, but nonetheless disturbing. If we were to do everything possible to stop the spread of this disease to save lives, the economy would collapse and civil society would disintegrate. The "cure" would be worse than the disease.

Trump's decision on when we should return to work is not going to be popular with public health officials, but it may be an economic necessity. And since this is an election year, it's likely that his political opposition will get hysterical over his decision, accusing Trump of "not caring" whether people live or die or, that he's deliberately trying to kill people.

Is Trump right or wrong? History will have to be the judge of that.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/should-old-people-be-willing-to-die-to-protect-the-economy/ 

Five Reasons Why Many Doubt The COVID-19 Hysteria

LoveBreedsAccountability

Riding the same roller coaster as the rest of the nation, I’ve bounced between reverent and frustrated with regard to the Chinese Wuhan Virus and our nation’s response to it. In this piece I’ll do my best to explain my skepticism and frustrations in a way that hopefully even the most certain of alarmists will be able to at least listen to, if not understand and possibly even appreciate.

UNINFORMED DATA

First, our leaders are drawing conclusions and enacting purported solutions all predicated on wildly incomplete data. Or, more specifically, fear in reaction to that wildly incomplete data. And I know at some point you have to use the data you have. If you’re in an airplane that’s lost power and is heading for a mountain, you use your parachute if you have it. You don’t sit there waiting for more data that will hopefully afford you a better solution. And I know many people who are a lot smarter than I am will insist that’s the position we’re in now. But I also know some of these people who are a lot smarter than I am have a track record of lording their intelligence over the rest of us and promising the most dire consequences if we don’t submit to their precise demands immediately. How many times so far was “Climate Change” (which FWIW always has been and always will be infinitely ubiquitous) — how many times was that supposed to have already created devastating consequences that never came? I couldn’t have argued my way out of a paper bag with the scientists and experts who made those predictions. But here we are. Still alive. (Arguably some days for the worse because we still have to sit through their incessant lecturing about how we’re all idiots for not doing exactly what they all say we must.) My point is, the data on COVID-19 started off as garbage (thanks, Communist China!) and is only now trickling in with any kind of usefulness. And as the data gets more informed, the threat appears less dire. And while pundits and politicians and others who derive power through fear will continue promising you that the sky is falling, I’m sitting here extremely skeptical of their predictions and confident that the numbers will continue showing a decline in serious risk no matter how scary those numbers are marketed to sound in headlines and on cable news.

WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THAT 
TALK ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH?

Poor Queen Latifah and Nick Jonas. They put their hearts on their sleeves to help the medical community impress upon us all the importance of good mental health. And now that same medical community is telling them to sit down and shut up because it’s better we all go crazy amid fear and social and economic destruction, than even consider not necessarily succumbing to full blown terror amid yet uninformed prevention efforts. Health insurance giant Cigna was so concerned about you having good mental health that they ran ad campaigns (featuring Latifah and Jonas) encouraging you to tell your medical doctor all about the stress your girlfriend’s brother’s boyfriend was creating for you by constantly talking about — oh, I don’t know … shooting from the hip here — how great President Trump is. But that’s all out the window now. Your mental health and stress levels, tied for virtually all of us to our financial security, don’t mean a damn thing if they get in the way of decimating every shred of our nation’s social and economic order so we can slow the spread (not stop, contrary to what many of you have been spouting) of a virus that appears less dire with each passing day but we all agreed to completely freak out about early on and that’s our story so damnit we’re sticking to it. The case has been made many times: Is the damage we’re doing socially, economically and (I’ll add) to the mental health of our citizens worth the “abundance of caution” we’re being forced in many cases now by law to comply with? I’m not entirely convinced it is.

And all of you sitting there saying, “Well if you want everyone to die, that’s your problem!” — you’re no more credible than I am. Because right now we’re guessing. And I think mental health does matter. And rather than just forget what we’ve all learned about that in recent decades, it should be factored in as the majority of our nation is losing their sh*t right now over this and that’s not healthy either.

DISMISSAL OF COMMON SENSE

The people most invested in promoting how dire the situation is are acting like literally every guideline they espouse isn’t “day one stuff” when it comes to general hygiene and contagion mitigation.

Yes, wash your hands.

No, don’t lick doorknobs.

Yes, stay home if you’re sick instead of infecting everyone else.

No, don’t cough on people.

Yes, promote additional precautions for those most susceptible.

It’s all day one stuff.

But having replaced common sense with a deference to inciting panic, we’re being administered these guidelines as though they’re brand new intelligence that we only learned last week and are all that can save us from total extinction. Imagine if every time you came to a red light, 25 people surrounded your car screaming at you to put your seatbelt on. The vast majority of us will already have our seatbelts on. But these mobs of people are all over the streets surrounding cars, stopping traffic, shouting at people with “intelligence” virtually all of us already had. That’s what it feels like to a lot of us when we can’t even open our inboxes without finding another 15 emails from vendors we used one time 10 years ago who are telling us all about how careful they’re being and how careful we need to be. And mind you we’re not at home reading these emails because we want to be. We’re home because instead of going about our daily lives while asserting the common sense we all know and understand, we’re forced to leave our jobs and halt the entire economy so we can sit around being yelled at about these things.

The overwhelming majority of “advice” we’re getting is nothing more than virtue signaling the value of common sense we all already had, and that’s a real detriment to selling the seriousness of something.

It’s also increasingly inexplicable why we’re quarantining virtually the entire population and decimating our economy and upending social order and begging the government to burn trillions of dollars of our money to at least partially ease the pain maybe hopefully for some of us, instead of just quarantining the elderly and immunocompromised and letting the rest of us get on with our lives. Has the entire medical community forgotten the value of herd immunity? By holing us all up in our homes — which in millions of cases has meant bringing college kids home to their older parents and grandparents — we’re slowing the spread to the herd, many of whom would be so devastated by COVID-19 that we wouldn’t even know we had it because there would literally be no symptoms. This is insanity.

Quarantine the elderly and immunocompromised. Let the rest of us get back to work. Try actually thinking about the “dangers” you’re warning us about like the reality that many of us wouldn’t even know we had the virus, and let us build our immunity and not just slow the spread but stop it.

VALUE OF CRISES

Some old common sense measures are being treated as new, and new common sense measures are being ignored, in large part because tremendous power is derived through crises. The media absolutely loves having everyone out of work and at home and glued to their TVs while psychologically paralyzed by fear and legally mandated not to do anything else. And the politicians love being out there telling us about how awful things would be if it weren’t for the extraordinary measures they’re taking to save us. Even my guy, President Trump, appears to be going along with the media’s narrative in what will likely end up being a political boon for him.

Earlier in this piece I mentioned the Climate Change doomsday alarmists with whom I could’ve never intelligently argued but who have been wrong every time and still insist the sky is falling and the only saving grace will be upending our way of life and doing exactly what they tell us to. Well, let’s face it: the COVID-19 doomsday alarmists sound pretty much exactly like all the rest of them.

DISTRUST OF MEDIA

Finally and most importantly, lack of trust in the corporate media. One of their favorite attacks on President Trump these last 4 years has been that an inability to trust him broadly would make it hard to trust him during a time of crisis. As noted in my most-read piece since the terror related to the Wuhan Chinese Virus took hold, I’m now saying the opposite: My lack of trust in the disgraced and discredited corporate media makes it impossible for me to trust them now. I believe — no, I know — they are the reason this entire panic blew up to the levels it did. And when the panic and fear were clearly setting in, of course the healthcare community gladly took their seat at the table and begin asserting their own worst-case-scenario authority. If I had a nickel for every time a doctor gave me doomsday advice because in reality they just wanted me to do at least some part of what they were suggesting, I’d be a rich man. Well, I’d be rich as long as I saved my nickels instead of investing them. Because the media has repeatedly shown me that they’re more than willing to create whatever carnage is necessary in order to destroy President Trump and endanger any American who dares to support defend him. And that includes standing by not just idly, but gleefully, while the terror and panic they incite absolutely obliterates the stock market and with it the financial livelihood and security for millions of Americans.

CONCLUSION

We’re a long way from being able to make informed decisions based on good data, and instead are making potentially terrible decisions predicated entirely on fear, and both of those assertions become increasingly evident as more data comes in about both the threat of the virus and the damage done by our response to it.

We’re in such a state of panic and fear that we’ve completely abandoned any deference at all to good mental health and the important role it plays in our overall well being as individuals and amid our communities. As a friend noted, do you think the senior citizens we’re all so concerned about aren’t as if not more worried about their retirement accounts being completely wiped out in a matter of days over this thing?

We’re treating old common sense like it’s new and new common sense like it doesn’t exist, and that makes it hard to take any of this as seriously as the finger-wagging virtue signal crowd sanctimoniously groan on about.

The people prolonging and arguably worsening the collateral damage are people who never derive as much power or capital as they do during crises. That, too, is an inescapable reality that you don’t have to be jaded to be mindful of.

The media — having spent 4 years sinking to once unthinkable new lows, including but not limited to normalizing violence as an acceptable response to speech so long as that speech is insufficiently critical of President Trump — have lost all credibility, and they more than anyone else are responsible for the onset of hysteria that kicked everything into the unrecognizable state of panic and disorder that we’re now all living amid.

So do me a favor. Meet me back here in a month. And then again in a year. And then again — I dare you — in five years. And when all the data is collected and we’ve all moved on to other things, tell me again how the social and economic carnage that will inevitably be manipulated in the near-term by the corporate media and Democrats in an effort to create political carnage, was actually warranted.

This is why I and many others have a hard time taking the Chinese Wuhan Virus as seriously as the virtue signaling corporate media, and frankly the corporate crowd more broadly, are all demanding of us. And while I may not be able to debate the “experts” in brilliantly colorful academic terms, meet me back here when the dust has settled and the evidence is in that you blew it all out of proportion. and the paper trail is clear that the media manipulated it all for political reasons. And we can have a more informed conversation then. In the mean time, I’m sorry. I’m not buying it beyond what I would during any other viral spread. And worse, I think you’re trying to scare us because you thrive — for a variety of reasons — off of our fear.

Real Curve or Vanity Metrics?

from @TheScalpeledge via Threadreader

I have performed medical work around the world for over 20 years. I was in the Middle East during H1N1 and in Africa while Ebola was raging. Physicians should follow the facts and data and report the actual metrics.

Vanity Metrics make nice bright circles on a map but actual metrics are needed to assess a situation. Why do we only report #of cases and not number of hospitalizations. Why no context on number of deaths and hospitalizations vs. population size?

For the past 3 weeks we have been inundated with story after story about “potential ventilator” shortages. A close look at reports from news agencies reveal the same key words and phrases indicating coordinating messaging.

Everyone looks at number of cases which is meaningless.

Look at hospitalizations and deaths.

Now 3 weeks later there is no run on hospital ICU beds. 90% of people infected who will show symptoms do so in 5 days. Still no run on ICU beds. Why won’t anyone adjust course.

Active Coronavirus numbers don’t even approach last years flu season- 60 million cases, 257K hospitalizations and 18K+ deaths (CDC).

Currently we have 1175 hospitalizations and 696 deaths due to COVID-19 and over 70% of deaths are in CA, NY, WA.

In a nation of 330 million!

Have the positive patients stay home (1%), not the entire nation(99%). Peer review studies on active COVID19 pts. show <5% transmission with direct contact in public. Good hygiene &social spacing will seize the day. Shelter in place will shutter communities & cripple a nation.

Hey Mom

China’s Censorship Helped Start a Pandemic.

Zach Weissmueller for ReasonMagazine

China's Censorship
Helped Start a Pandemic.
Can Free Speech End It?

Zach Weissmueller | 3.23.2020 5:15 PM

Li Wenliang…died at 2:58 on February 7, 2020…We deeply regret and mourn this.

When Wuhan Central Hospital announced the death of the 34-year-old ophthalmologist on the social media site Weibo, there was an outpouring of sadness and anger in China.

It was one of the first signs that something far more troubling was happening in the city of Wuhan than the Chinese government was letting on.

When Li had tried to alert his colleagues via WeChat that he was witnessing an alarming spike in respiratory illnesses, the local government forced him and eight other people to sign apologetic admissions of "rumor-mongering." It was the beginning of a disinformation campaign that would help turn a crisis into a global pandemic.

Chinese officials later assured the public that they'd found no human-to-human transmissions of the viral pneumonia Li had posted about and that the disease was "preventable and controllable."

In January, government officials shut down the food market where they suspected the disease had originated. Nine days later, a 61-year-old man who regularly shopped at the market became the virus's first known fatality. But what government officials failed to tell the public was that his wife—who had never visited the market—also caught the virus, meaning that it was transmittable among human beings.

As the hospital ward filled and workers began to fall ill, China's politicians still refused to acknowledge for weeks that human-to-human transmission was happening, even staging a 40,000-family potluck in Wuhan and instructing hospitals not to use the words "viral pneumonia" on lung scan reports.

As the death toll in China climbed, the national government pointed its fingers at local authorities; Wuhan's mayor said his hands were tied by a national law requiring approval from central authorities before declaring an epidemic.

In late January, Li texted a New York Times reporter from his hospital bed: "If the officials had disclosed information about the epidemic earlier, I think it would have been a lot better. There should be more openness and transparency."

Concern for the need to better guide public opinion on the issue turned out to be part of President Xi's rationale for refusing to disclose human-to-human transmission for several weeks.

In February, authorities jailed an activist who dared criticize Xi's handling of the crisis. A journalist reporting stories from Wuhan that were critical of the government's response disappeared, as did a wealthy tycoon who publicly blamed the Communist Party's speech restrictions for worsening the spread.

As the first U.S. patients began testing positive, the Trump administration downplayed the threat.

"Is [COVID-19] real? Yes, but the flu is real," White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told a crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 28, before claiming that media were only beginning to pay attention to the outbreak because "they think this is going to be what brings down the president."

Trump had recently told the press that COVID-19 cases in the U.S. would likely be "close to zero" in a few days, and he later claimed the outbreak was "very well under control." In response to a reporter's question about the lack of early CDC testing for the virus on March 13, Trump replied: "I don't take any responsibility at all."

U.S. officials' attempts to downplay the crisis likely worsened the spread by slowing the reaction times. But there's an enormous difference between a country that jails dissenting voices and a country with strong First Amendment protections.

The media and political class have derided Twitter and Facebook for lacking adequate gatekeepers, but it was through these platforms that medical professionals, technologists, epidemiologists, and everyday citizens bypassed the mainstream media and the government to implore their fellow citizens to act.

A Seattle-based medical team defied the CDC to run tests and discovered an outbreak in the city and sequenced the genome, and a member of that team wrote a Twitter thread that got the word out about the value of "social distancing" long before the federal government did.

Yale social scientist and physician Nicholas Christakis explained the science of disease spread and promoted social distancing in threads shared thousands of times.

On January 30, technologist and venture capitalist Balaji Srinivasin asked on Twitter, "What if this coronavirus is the pandemic that public health people have been warning about for years?" Then he began encouraging the cancellation of events, pleading for more early testing, and warning about the lack of reliable information coming out of China.

He was critical of early media coverage that often downplayed the threat of the outbreak with facile comparisons to the flu, and he criticized flippant dismissals of Silicon Valley companies that began taking precautions early.

"Of course this non-issue turned out to be very much an issue," he told Reason's Nick Gillespie. "And they weren't simply getting the story wrong, but they were actively attempting to shame and silence the people getting the story right. And some of them, you know, later insincerely apologized, others wrote columns about how they got the story wrong, this slightly more insincere way. And then once Trump started adopting their early talking points about how the virus was just the flu, several of them have reversed themselves and pretended, you know, they'd been taking it seriously all along."

As the government continues to stumble, the decentralized response has been forthcoming, with individuals voluntarily self-isolating after the "flatten the curve" chart was circulated widely on social media. Doctors in Seattle defied the federal government to test for COVID-19; states like Colorado implemented their own drive-thru testing stations; and mayors and governors began taking measures to protect the spread within dense city centers.

But to keep the decentralized response going, information channels will need to remain as open as possible. To this day, dissenters in China are being muzzled or worse. And the Trump administration has classified several top-level coronavirus meetings.

American social media is chaotic, confusing, and full of bad actors and misinformation. Wild speculation abounds. But that wild, freewheeling conversation keeps us safer than a censored press, or even a free press controlled by professionals.

The contagious spread of information is in a race against the contagious spread of the disease. It is a powerful weapon in this global emergency.

FDA Relaxes Rules...

Scott Shackford for ReasonMagazine

FDA Relaxes Rules 

To Allow for More Ventilators, Finally

Restrictions have been loosened to help ramp up production.

3.24.2020

Biomedical equipment specialist Dean Edwards conducts depot-level maintenance on a ventilator at Tobyhanna Army Depot, Penn. (U.S. ARMY/UPI/Newscom) 

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is easing up on some regulations so that ventilators can be manufactured and implemented more quickly to respond to the spread of COVID-19.

In new guidance issued on Monday, the FDA said that it will practice "enforcement discretion" by allowing manufacturers of ventilators to allow for some modifications of hardware, software, and materials. This allows manufacturers more flexibility in response to supply shortages that could keep them from ramping up production.

The new guidance will also allow for the quicker addition of new production lines and alternative production locations, meaning that if other companies that have space to install production lines of their own (GM, for example, has offered unused space in its shuttered plants) those companies are free to do so. Of course, non-medical manufacturers have massive logistical challenges and it may still take months for them to actually be in a position to make ventilators. The FDA's temporary "discretion" will only remove some bureaucratic barriers.

The FDA is also temporarily easing up on regulations about where ventilators can be used, allowing ventilators that are authorized for use in one environment to be used in others. For example, a ventilator that is approved only for home use may now also be used in a health care facility. Devices used to help people with sleep apnea may now be legally modified to help people with COVID-19-related respiratory problems.

These are all welcome actions but they should have happened much sooner. There was ample warning that COVID-19 was coming to America. New York City, which has become a massive viral epicenter, is now worried about running out of sufficient ventilators.

Today, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) complained that the White House hasn't used the Defense Production Act to mandate the manufacture of new ventilators.

But the Defense Production Act isn't a silver bullet. It could take months for new supply lines to develop (though I do have some faith that rapid innovation could occur). Executive fiat can only do so much.

Cuomo should be demanding to know why it took so long for the FDA to get out of the way.

Hypocritical Media Downplays Wuhan Virus For Weeks, Then Critiques Fox News For Shifting ‘Rhetoric’

Chrissy Clark reporting for The Federalist

Mainstream media outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Vox, have criticized Fox News for allegedly promulgating lies about the severity of the widespread Wuhan virus. But their critiques land with a thud, as these same outlets also played a role in downplaying the crisis.

On Monday’s edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” host Tucker Carlson showcased the mainstream media’s inability to hold themselves accountable for initially pushing a relaxed narrative about the coronavirus in late January and early February. 

“None of these people cared about you. They didn’t care about protecting public health, or sharing accurate information. They cared about being virtuous,” Carlson said. “They put their wokeness above your life as they always do.” 

Here are just some examples of the mainstream media claiming the virus was no big deal:

1. Vox: This Isn’t A Deadly Pandemic

In a since deleted tweet Vox tweeted, “is [coronavirus] going to be a deadly pandemic? No.” Vox tweeted this on January 31, two days after the White House announced they were creating a coronavirus task force and would expand their travel ban to China.

2. Washington Post: Coronavirus Isn’t So Scary

In a “perspective” article, retired Harvard professor wrote for the Washington Post how the cognitive biases in our brain make coronavirus seem scarier then it actually is. 

The article was published on January 31 and was titled, “How our brains make coronavirus seem scarier than it is.”

3. Washington Post: The Flu Is Worse Than Coronavirus

In an article titled “Get a grippe, America. The flu is a much bigger threat than coronavirus, for now,” published February 1, the Washington Post’s Lenny Bernstein wrote that the flu poses a larger threat to the American public, as coronavirus does not appear to be fatal.

“Clearly, the flu poses the bigger and more pressing peril; a handful of cases of the new respiratory illness have been reported in the United States, none of them fatal or apparently even life-threatening,” Bernstein wrote.

4. Washington Post: Be Wary Of The Racist Government

In another “perspective” article, Wendy Parmet and Michael Sinha wrote that an aggressive government response to coronavirus could be problematic for “marginalized populations.”

Essentially, the authors were arguing against an aggressive government response to the pandemic for fear of “racist” policies.

5. New York Times: Fear Spreads Faster Than Coronavirus

On February 18, the New York Times published an article that claimed fear was spreading faster than the coronavirus in Europe. After 40 cases were confirmed, the New York Times decided to highlight the supposed “stigmatization” that came with having the coronavirus and how it hurt people’s feelings.

Three weeks later, Italy shut down completely and thousands of people died.

6. CNN: Racist Attacks Are More Threatening Than Coronavirus

On February 21, CNN claimed “racist assaults and ignorant attacks against Asians” were spreading faster than the coronavirus itself.

According to CNN’s “experts,” rampant ignorance and misinformation about coronavirus has led to racist and xenophobic attacks against anyone who looks East Asian.

Apparently, the real plague in America isn’t the deadly virus that is shutting down the global economy and killing thousands, it’s actually racism.

‘Wales Is Closed’: Wealthy Londoners Told to Stay Away from Countryside

 

 Article by Victoria Friedman in "Breitbart":

The government has told city dwellers to not break travel restrictions by going to their second homes, with coastal and rural communities becoming increasingly frustrated at being overrun by wealthy coronavirus refugees.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government laid out that Britons should remain in their “primary residence”, and not travel to their “second homes, camp sites, caravan parks or similar”. The guidance explained: “Not taking these steps puts additional pressure on communities and services that are already at risk.”

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Michael Gove gave a stern warning to second-home owners on Sky News on Tuesday, saying in no uncertain terms should they be risking “spreading the virus across the country and nor should they risk putting a strain on the NHS in other parts of the country. The advice is clear: stay at home.”

However, The Times reports that second-homers from London continue to flood into rural and coastal areas, including to Wales, Cornwall, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Scotland, despite the travel restrictions.

This has led to many locals calling for tighter restrictions to keep them safe. Twenty-seven miles outside of the popular tourist destination of Conwy, one resident had strung a banner under a road sign reading: “Wales is closed.”

The town’s tourism board is also urging visitors to stay away, with their website banner reading: “Visit Conwy. Later.”

The website continued: “Please do not visit Wales at this time and avoid all unnecessary travel within Wales. Following these guidelines will save lives. We look forward to welcoming you back in future; but for now, let’s all #staysafe.”

Welsh doctor Eilir Hughes told the BBC last week that an increased number of second-home owners returning to Gwynedd was putting pressure on local healthcare services, saying: “It really does place a great strain on our infrastructure and our services.”

Dwyfor Meirionnydd MP Liz Saville Roberts also said last week that she was “extremely concerned” at reports of a substantial increase in the population of areas in her constituency which she put down to holiday homeowners.

While reports in Kent of overcrowded seaside towns this weekend — before Prime Minister Johnson’s enforced lockdown — prompted Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield to condemn visitors for completely ignoring social distancing recommendations, saying: “This is NOT OKAY!… This is a DEADLY virus — stop spreading it to my vulnerable constituents!”

The Labour MP later backed the prime minister’s orders for people to stay in their primary residences, saying: “Those second-homers who’ve descended to the Kent coast in droves are putting the lives of my constituents at real risk as they don’t seem to understand that #StayHomeSavesLives applies to them too!”

The Scottish government expressed fury over the weekend at the influx of travellers to the islands and Highlands.

Fergus Ewing, tourism secretary and  MSP for Inverness and Nairn, said: “I am furious at the reckless and irresponsible behaviour of some people travelling to the Highland and Islands. This has to stop now.

“Let me be crystal clear — people should not be travelling to rural and island communities, full stop. They are endangering lives. Do not travel.”

While the Mirror reports that residents in St Ives, Cornwall, have written messages for second-homers in the sand, one reading “Locals Only!” another saying, “Tourists Please Go Home.”

Similar exoduses were seen in the United States, where America’s elite took to their private jets to fly into Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and other summer colonies for rich and powerful, leaving residents upset at the prospect of their supermarkets being cleaned out or their local hospitals being overwhelmed if there is an outbreak.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/03/25/coronavirus-city-dwellers-told-stay-away-countryside/

One of those evil billionaires...

Christine Favocci for The Western Journal

One of Those Evil Billionaires Bernie Sanders Hates 

Just Pledged Millions To Help Hospital Workers

Bridgewater Associated founder Ray Dalio and his wife, Barbara, pledged $4 million to help hospital workers pay for child care as well as feed needy families in their home state of Connecticut. (Roy Rochlin / Getty Images)

Choosing billionaires as his villains of choice is a terrible strategy for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, especially now that so many are giving away their fortunes to help those affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

While the Democratic presidential candidate rails against billionaires (it used to be millionaires until he became one) and thinks they shouldn’t even exist, stories about wealthy individuals who are contributing to the cause are popping up every day.

On Monday, the Journal Inquirer in Manchester, Connecticut, reported another such example as Ray and Barbara Dalio and Dalio Philanthropies pledged $4 million to help hospital workers pay for child care as well as feed needy families in their home state.

The largest portion of the donation will be spent on providing child care for Connecticut health care workers. The $3 million will cover day care expenses for approximately 1,000 children for eight weeks while their parents are at work caring for the sick.

Barbara Dalio said she was moved by the news of hospital workers whose children were suddenly home alone following school closures. “To us, they are heroes. The least we can do is make sure their children are taken care of while they’re on the front lines providing medical care,” she told the Journal Inquirer.

The remaining $1 million will be distributed to Connecticut organizations that will provide enough food for around 35,000 needy residents for 10 weeks.

While Sanders impugns wealthy business leaders as though they somehow cheated the system for a windfall, Ray Dalio is a self-made businessman.

His company, Bridgewater Associates, started in his two-bedroom apartment in New York City shortly after he earned his MBA from Harvard Business School. From those humble beginnings, Dalio built his fortune, which Forbes now pegs at $18 billion.

Even as the Dalios and their philanthropic organization give millions away, Bridgewater Associates is not immune to the fallout from coronavirus. The company, which is the largest hedge fund firm in the world, was hit hard as its major funds took a tumble along with the markets, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The Dalios aren’t the only wealthy philanthropists pitching in to help during the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Jack Ma, co-founder of technology giant Alibaba Group, generously donated masks, protective suits and coronavirus testing kits. The first round of donations took off for the United States on March 15.

Business Insider calls Ma the “richest man in China” and reports his net worth at over $38 billion, which is more than enough to raise the ire of the democratic socialist Sanders and his “Bernie Bros.”

Billionaire Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg also pitched in as he announced Sunday that his company will donate 720,000 respirator masks it had purchased to protect employees during wildfires.

In Italy, where the virus has ravaged the country with nearly 64,000 citizens infected and over 6,000 dead, 20 of the country’s billionaires — including fashion designer Giorgio Armani — have pledged over $44 million to fight coronavirus in their country, according to Forbes.

Billionaires continue to give more than their “fair share” to the effort, compelled not by the government but by their own altruism, giving lie to Sanders’ line of attack.

Bernie’s tired communist theories were already showing signs of wear long before the coronavirus reached American shores, but now Sanders himself has become an anachronism.