caulfield12

For the perhaps the tenth time here, AP and Reuters reported 42,500 urns at the time of Qingming Festival, which literally means tomb sweeping/cleaning. Conservative websites went by some theoretical satellite imagery with sulphur dioxide in the air. The numbers in that first 4-6 weeks were undoubtedly 60-80% to even 100% off because the hospitals were overrun and many older people died at home....there was no bus or taxi or subway, they were all shut down and shortages of ambulances. Only private cars could get you there, which are only owned by 15-20% of population. It was also miserable, cold rainy winter weather at that time. Many got sick going out in in the rain and returning home after being turned away from hospitals, yet thrir time waiting had exposed them and eventually entire families. If you count the number of normal deaths over a 3+ month timespan in NYC, you would end up with roughly 30,000-32,5000 “expected” or naturally predictable deaths. Once again, everyone was take away immediately be teams in haz mat suits, no funerals, they were all immediately cremated and ashes put in storage. So those 42,500 urns were there to take the ashes that had been piling up in crematoriums (we have just 2-3 major ones that deal with the entire city) for three plus months before the urns could be interred and people could actually go out for the first time. So sure, instead of 4000 reported Covid-19 deaths....8-12,000 is definitely possible, but the same story applies to Italy, Spain, UK, France and the US undercounts as well.

Because he cared more about the trade deal and relationship with Xi Jinping (and Kim, Putin, Erdogan, MBS) than hundreds or thousands or millions of Chinese people. His only concern would be about their ability to buy pork, corn and soybeans from Iowa farmers, rather than Brazilian....or Wisconsin dairy products. Two big, wonderful, beautiful oceans. We have the best oceans, the best borders. That was enough protection. It worked largely through two World Wars, right?

You keep talking about don’t play politics, yet you’re relying on evidence that you simply don’t possess about China. Come here and look at the locked gates that are still up 4 months later blocking off every residential community from main streets. Retesting millions five months later when we have under 20 asymptomatic cases. The cost is down to $32 (all government subsidized) for the nucleic acid and pharyngeal swabs. How much at those private testing labs without health insurance, $300-500, roughly? Does everyone in the entire country have an app tracking/tracing contacts with infected? Green, yellow and red run by algorithm and tracked by GPS. One infected person gets on a bus, the entire bus or subway train is quarantined? Quarantine hotels/convention centers for people before they’re showing symptoms and admitted to hospitals....then 14 day quarantines away from family after clearing? Tracking devices on bracelets or ankles are being used in the US? Thousands of dollars in fines or mandatory jail time for breaking quarantine (only about 15-20 people in Hawaii so far.) Blocking off entire provinces from each other for months on end...with checkpoint after checkpoint after checkpoint on highways. All food deliveries with printed temp checks of every worker from cook to delivery guy...3-5 involved at each step of the process. People literally locked into their apartments. Heavy fines for spitting or infecting others if you knowingly went outside while sick. Nobody could go out for 4-6 weeks, all food ordered online and delivered. Other than that time period, just one person every two days who was temp checked and had to sign in and out with national ID card. People incentivized by the govnt for reporting “suspicious or potentially” sick people to the police or neighborhood association. People rounded up by the police for trying to buy medicine from pharmacies or turned away from hospitals because they were sick but no space available....so many ended up dying undiagnosed at home (60% undercount). Quarantined 80% of cases inside of one province....brought literally every single infectious disease specialist, mobilized nurses and most experienced doctors from Shanghai, Beijing, Army medical teams, built two mobile hospitals in 10-14 days to quarantine the 2000+ most critical patients away from everyone else, delivery after delivery of PPE through the airport that was shut down and dedicated solely to pandemic logistics. Entire city locked down from Jan 23 until April 8th. KG out for an entire eight months. Most primary/elementary and middle school students still not back, only 9th and 12th because they have national exams which have been pushed back to July for the first time in history. You have a culture where grandparents, aunt/uncles or the neighborhood and apartment complex looks after all the younger kids, allowing parents to work. Not a single day care exists. If anything, people are working an extra 4-6 hours per day at home compared to reporting to the office...on call literally 24 hours per day, because the boss always knew you were at home and would send messages throughout the night expecting an immediate response.

Because they wanted to build out their own (more complicated) tests that could supposedly test for more things simultaneously...so part of it was being a bit stubborn about utilizing preexisting infrastructure, the other part was general distrust of the WHO or pretty much any multi-national or multi-lateral organization.

The only quarantines at the time were literally those who were coming from here in Wuhan. Unless you somehow had contact with someone that was known to be infected (and how could you you possibly determine they were an asymptomatic carrier?), it was impossible to get a test. Plus, we are miles behind the majority of Asian countries (not just China) in usage of health code apps, tracking and tracing apps, mobile payments for delivery of food and grocery online, built out last mile logistics and delivery systems. How many thousands of people contracted it from single trips to crowded or overcrowded grocery stores?

Because we let European travelers into JFK and Newark....mostly from Italy and Spain...for an appreciably longer period of time after cutting off China. You can be sure the official lab testing on the various strains in NYC/NJ done somewhere down the line will officially back up the heretofore anecdotal evidence.

(Blake) Snell is weighing whether risking his health and possibly being quarantined from friends and family is worth what, for a quality ballplayer, will be a small portion of his career earnings. For those of us who will never make $1.6 million in a year, his mind-set might be difficult to appreciate. But here’s a portion of his quote that did not receive enough attention: “If I get the ’Rona, guess what happens with that? Oh, yeah, that stays — that’s in my body forever,” he said. Athletes might be better equipped than the average citizen to survive COVID-19, but even if they survive, their lungs can be damaged for life. They can also wind up quarantined in a hospital for weeks, anesthetized, with a large tube running down their throat. Know of any owners willing to take a risk like that for $1.6 million? https://www.startribune.com/souhan-public-should-side-with-rich-not-wealthy-in-mlb-pay-debate/570548292/?ref=nl&om_rid=48311239113&om_mid=784051657

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-52703265 Here’s how Australia crafted a bipartisan, non political response. Mike DeWine, Charlie Baker and Larry Hogan are three of the most popular (Republican) governors in the US right now. All of them had strict lockdowns. The three least popular responses are Florida, Georgia and now Texas. Each of them opened up more quickly.

Yes, endlessly promoting a drug that you have no idea about, just a hunch because your buddy Rudy Giuliani and Fox News reporters and economist Peter Navarro are behind It...actually harmed and potentially killed those with serious heart problems. Instead of devoting resources to PPE procurement and a real vaccine, we for weeks obsessed with therapeutics and aspirational hope drugs that were never properly tested. That’s just bad science. Those new ventilators were needed anyway because 25% of the 10,000 on-hand were outdated or broken, and will be there in the stockpile for the US and the rest of the world (sell/loan/donate) when the next pandemic hits. It doesn’t belong to the Federal government, it belongs to the people. What country should we be compared to? China and India? On Fox News for weeks, it was Sweden, right? Germany? Italy? Spain? Russia? Brazil? The only two countries that come close to us on population are Indonesia and Brazil. But Japan, South Korea, Singapore, HK, Taiwan, Australia/NZ, Germany....all industrialized, first world countries with at least fairly or relatively comparable GDP numbers. If we’re supposed to be the greatest country in the world, how can we be doing worse than nearly every country but the UK, Italy, Spain, possibly France and likely Russia (by the end). How can we be doing worse than India, for example, or Iran?

He didn’t shut down the country because it wasn’t a novel coronavirus, like SARs and MERs. There was and is no vaccine. There might never be one. The R nought/factor of contagiousness number is markedly higher than swine flu. Swine flu didn’t do permanent damage to peoples’ bodies, particularly the lungs/immune system. The flu kills at a 0.1 to 0.2 rate. This is at LEAST 6-12 times worse...and could be 15-20x because we still don’t know how many have actually had it, have developed antibodies or immunity. We do know for a fact that some people are getting sick twice.

A hoax meaning something CREATED by the Democrats alone....by Soros/Gates/coastal elites and liberal think tanks and the deep state (how many Inspectors General can one president fire?)...with the solitary goal of destroying Trump’s reelection chances. How many times did he say it was going to go away...it would magically disappear, poof, just a few cases from China, the heat or UV light would destroy it...to arguing that he actually knew it was a pandemic before even the WHO declared it?

Here’s the problem with the China flight ban....it still let in an additional 30-40,000 coming from China past that date. Most importantly, we refused to similarly stop travel from the EU, well....because of Steve Mnunchin, Jared Kushner and the stock market again. And those tourists were more desirable politically, I guess? If the stock market was struggling in late February or early March, we would or could have saved 85-90% of those who died. South Korea has 15x the population of density of the US. 249 deaths. Total. We were pulling down those numbers in 2-3 HOURS. We spent more time on hydroxychloroquine than creating any type of national or Federal plan. We promised a test of everyone when the capacity was 75,000 at best, and nowhere near the 4,000,000 being hyped that was in the pipeline and always just a matter of days away. Trump and Scott Morrison of Australia are essentially the same political animal...Trump pitted governor against governor, and the Federal government vs. states in terms of the PPE supply chain. But here’s what one of the most partisan leaders in Morrison did. But instead of offering the most partisan response in the world (UK would also have to be up there), Australia made every decision a bipartisan one with consensus or total buy-in behind it, every piece of messaging had the blessing of both sides of the political aisle before going forward to the public. And that’s the type of leadership we will never consistently see out of Donald Trump, because he always puts himself first. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/world/australia/new-zealand-coronavirus.html Australia 99 deaths, New Zealand 21. That’s 120 for two countries combined. That 120 per day is now what you’re hoping to limit the state of Iowa to for every day in the month of June. 4.25% of the world, over 1/3rd the cases and soon to be 1/3rd of the deaths. But that 90,000 to 150,000 (since nearly every scientist is asserting the undercount in the US and around the world is around 60%) is not really such a big number, right? And most of the people dying are old and/or “unhealthy” minorities anyway, not our OWN neighbors, right?

Throughout the Gospels, you can find Jesus teaching on the characteristics of His Kingdom people as they reflect the character of God in the world. The Church was never about brick and mortar. It was always greater than that. It was about a way of being in the world. Jesus tells Peter he is the rock of the Church. He affirms His disciple Peter’s faith and character, and says that he will be the foundation of the Kingdom community as it grows. Jesus isn’t hiring Peter—a fisherman by trade—as a subcontractor to erect a building with a steeple. He only notes Peter’s devotion, and tells him to continue the Kingdom work he’d already begun. He is to steward the people of God: no building campaign, no weekly services. https://relevantmagazine.com/god/remember-bible-never-mentions-building-called-church/ Very simple, Greg, Church and community are more than a building. The answer would be to go where the people are most in need, to help in whatever way you can, as long as you’re not endangering yourself or others. For some, it might mean an online donation, for others, it’s getting actively involved through Habitat for Humanity projects. Faith without works is dead. All that said, I vehemently disagree with going after conservative churches over their non profit status (especially fundamentalist or charismatic churches), but also disagree just as strongly with the idea that every single worshipper should be coached how to vote instead of thinking for themselves. For every argument about abortion, there’s one just as compelling about the death penalty or peace and social justice issues that are at the heart of the New Testament. To summarize: “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” The prosperity or Trump Gospels don’t really make a compelling argument that the GOP is on the right side of the argument at the moment. Then again, I must have received a different lesson from 18 years of Catholic catechism.

As long as nobody that gets sick blames their governor for opening up too quickly and providing them a false sense of security...as long as nobody who goes outside without a mask expects to get priority treatment in a hospital or have their medical expenses reimbursed when they are on a ventilator or have a lifelong debilitating lung condition as a result. It has been pointed out hundreds of times in this thread already...but why do we even need a president if he’s deferring to state governors on every single decision? Whatever accidentally goes well, he will attempt to take credit for (since he’s just going on gut instinct and the fact an uncle went to MIT) and whatever goes wrong, it gets blamed on the governors, right? If Trump didn’t care more about reelection (the definition of power hungry), he would have simply declared in February or March that the health of the American people will always be my priority, first and foremost. That this crisis is a health care crisis, and that only by addressing that first will the economy start to rebound for all Americans. We all know the answer. Regardless of the individual actions of politicians, you can’t force now people to spend when every bone in their body says they should save or conserve resources. It won’t make the majority of people feel safe to return to church, to sports events, to concerts, to fly, to stay in hotels, to malls, to go to a movie...to even go out to eat. As we have now learned, businesses run on just 15-25% margins. Many will not survive, no matter how many want to go out and enjoy the summer. You just can’t wish or hope or con or brand your way through a pandemic. Other than food prices, there’s a tremendous amount of deflationary pressure in the economy. Yet our president wants negative interest rates for the first time in American history. He’s just used to borrowing money and not paying it back. But Americans over 60 still value their lives, they care about the future cost of living, their drugs...and especially the world being left behind for their grandchildren. As it turns out, intentionally dividing the country has now made it virtually impossible to get everyone back on the same page...and that is ultimately a failure in leadership. It’s one thing to win an election, it’s quite another to successfully govern it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/nyregion/new-york-city-doctor-suicide-coronavirus.html But what about the top doctors in their fields who are overwhelmed when the virus runs out of control and only triage is possible...which is already the case in numerous rural community hospitals like Gallup, NM? Being in KS, one has to be aware of Native American populations getting sick, migrant farmworkers and meat processing workers getting sick, military bases (Ft. Riley), homeless veterans, etc. https://www.kcur.org/health/2020-04-06/leawood-kansas-group-seeks-emergency-support-for-struggling-rural-hospitals Rural hospitals face “catastrophic cash shortages” brought on by the COVID-19 crisis and need congressional action to save them, according to a Leawood, Kansas, advocacy group that represents hundreds of rural hospitals. In a letter Monday addressed to the leaders of the U.S. House and Senate, the National Rural Health Association asks that 20% of the $100 billion in funding for hospitals in the CARES Act, the $2 trillion coronavirus response bill passed by Congress last month, be set aside for rural providers. It also asks Congress to accelerate Medicare payments, ensure that rural hospitals can access the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and pass legislation to provide additional funding for rural health care providers. The PPP, also part of the CARES Act, is a $350 billion program aimed at enabling small businesses to keep current workers or rehire those who were laid off. “The loss of revenue over the last few weeks due to the inability to provide non-emergency care is destabilizing core health services in rural America,” the letter states. Rural hospitals were hurting before the pandemic, with about half of them posting financial losses. In the last 10 years, 128 rural hospitals have shuttered, including six in Kansas and seven in Missouri, according to the University of North Carolina’s Rural Health Research Program. Just last month, Sumner Community Hospital in Wellington, Kansas, abruptly closed. The owner of the hospital, Kansas City-based RHG Consolidated, blamed a revenue shortfall and lack of patient demand. The closest hospital is about 25 miles away, in Winfield, Kansas.

Because the mask and haircut storyline has dragged on for so many weeks, there has to be a catharsis/conclusion. Or for the same reason Jose Abreu debates never die, although they just might fade away.

https://www.ft.com/content/97dc7de6-940b-11ea-abcd-371e24b679ed This is one of the Top 5 articles that captures the the overall picture so well...definitely confirmed some apprehensive feelings about Dr. Redfield and Dr. Birx. It is as though we knew for a fact that 9/11 was going to happen for months, did nothing to prepare for it and then shrugged a few days later and said, ‘Oh well, there’s not much we can do about it,’” says Gregg Gonsalves, a public health scholar at Yale University. “Trump could have prevented mass deaths and he didn’t.”

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/movie-theaters-opening-coronavirus-seating-concessions-safety-guidelines-210001492.html Here’s one for you, Greg. On one hand, you hate high concession prices, and probably thumb your nose at authority by sneaking candy and even drinks into the theatre. Will you allow the power-hungry governor and tyrannical Douglas (KS) Board of Commissioners deny you the opportunity (to support a local theatre or drive-in) to enjoy a summer movie in July, if all the proper precautions are in place? As a movie fan, I personally will never be satisfied watching every single release months later on a big screen t.v., or watching a lower quality version on an Ipad, tablet/laptop or even phone. The overall experience, the sound quality, it’s just not comparable. What say ye? Restaurant and bar owners worldwide say social distancing could wipe out their industry https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/17/business/restaurant-coronavirus-business-model/index.html

HEROES Act would cancel $10,000 in student debt for ‘economically distressed’ borrowers https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/3-trillion-heroes-act-cancels-student-debt-for-economically-distressed-borrowers-154237083.html And while other protections would extend to borrowers holding commercially-held FFEL-program student loans (as well as Perkins loans), a key provision would forgive up to $10,000 in debt for “economically distressed borrowers” who hold private or federal student loans. To be considered an economically distressed borrower, a borrower with student loans as of March 12, 2020, should meet the following criteria: Paying $0 a month on their federal student loans through an income-contingent repayment plan or an income-based repayment plan Or be in default on their private and/or federal student loans (270 days past due) Or if the private and/or federal student loan was in serious delinquency, or 90 days past due Or the student loans were in forbearance or deferment The bill also expands eligibility for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, and also forgives loans held by thousands of borrowers who attended the now-defunct, for-profit colleges Corinthian Colleges and ITT. This might be the most divisive political topic in recent years. Seems nearly everyone has an opinion. Rabbit is the one whose opinion stands out the most right now. (Why they selected two Asian/Chinese students at Columbia who probably never took out student loans for the accompanying picture is beyond me...since international students always pay the highest possible tuition, and 90-95% of the money comes from parents abroad.) I definitely see both sides of this. In the end, it doesn’t set a great example that the most responsible should essentially be held accountable for subsidizing those who weren’t as willing to work hard, forgo Spring Break trips/destination travel, give up endless partying, etc. Those are the stereotypes. Not everyone in financial trouble now chose a frivolous liberal arts degree lacking in an array of realistic career choices that would provide at least a decent standard of living. Lots of kids are born with obvious advantages in terms of parents paying for all or at least 1/2 of school. Definitely. There are tons of shady online programs and lenders that prey on minority students in particular. Yet Betsy DeVos, otoh, isn’t responsible for every individual choice in America made to, for example, bypass two years of community college at home for a more glamorous four year private liberal arts program out of state. I think those students who have struggled and sacrificed to pay for college on their own...who truly appreciated the totality of the struggle just to graduate in 6-8 years instead of 4-5, this would be a slap in the face to all of those who played by the rules and faced the consequences of taking out loan debt instead of pretending they didn’t know what they were signing up for. Collectively, everyone under 40...the sooner we are forced to face the reality of accepting responsibility for our actions, that the government won’t or can’t save us, the better off we will be as a society. Sorry for sounding like a moderate Republican on this, lol. "It's as though we're on a Zoom split screen. One side is deprivation and food lines. The other is a kind of postmodern Great Gatsby.”

Why aren’t you blaming the banks and the administration that created the two PPP rounds that largely failed to address the needs of the majority of small business owners? Do you really believe the WH has responded to anyone writing to them with anything but the same form letter generated largely to create a facsimile Trump signature for the masses/commoners? There are just three Douglas County commissioners. I would think you would largely agree with “Nancy Thellman, born and raised in Douglas County, represents the Second District as Douglas County Commissioner. She lives on a small farm north of Lawrence (Grant Township) with her husband, Scott, and their three children. Nancy was educated in Lawrence public schools, holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing from Kansas University, and a Master of Divinity degree from Vanderbilt University. She is currently an ordained Presbyterian minister.” Which of the three are dictators? If they did anything but open up the county completely...what restrictions exactly would you agree with, if any? If Kansas and Lawrence is just way too extreme/liberal, why not move somewhere like Idaho, Montana, Wyoming or eastern Washington? Texas? Oklahoma? Missouri? Arkansas? Instead of taking the confrontational position of seeing them as comic book evil villains...ask yourself how these commissioners benefit exactly from trying to save more lives by being careful/conservative/cautious? They simply enjoy wielding power? Power has corrupted them? Is being a commissioner there even a half-time position? Why did the non-dictatorial candidates you seemingly prefer lose their positions to this current crop? Finally, 75-85% of America probably needs a haircut.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/almost-time-pandemic-apologies-110001172.html Writer asks for apologies to be made to Gov. Brian Kemp and from Dr. Fauci, fails to understand that the comparison being made in article is actually to the country Georgia (just a handful of deaths) and not the southeastern state in the US. That’s pretty pathetic for someone presumably being paid to write on this topic. And then holding him (Fauci) accountable for the accuracy of the death count when response has been all over the place and the CV Task Force has been forced to use the IHME data all along (147,000+) is pretty rich. What’s particularly pathetic is Dr. Birx going along with the administration and attempting to suppress the death count. Scientists should stick to the science, and there should be one agreed-upon measure for accounting for Covid deaths that every single state in the country has to abide by.

AUSTIN — The Texas Supreme Court late Friday overruled an appeals court’s order that had allowed election officials across the state to temporarily give mail ballots to people who are afraid of being infected with the coronavirus. Attorney General Ken Paxton said the court accepted his argument that mail ballots should not be granted to voters who fear catching COVID-19, If we can avoid the subject of how to possibly discuss “fair and equitable” elections on November 3rd when we’re likely to be in the midst of our “darkest winter”....essentially when you have the combination of winter flu season and Covid Wave V. 3/4 hitting simultaneously, not to mention the 36 people who got sick in Wisconsin because they were forced to stand in lines together voting in a WI SC justice race, which is a fraction of the numbers for a presidential cycle. We can pretend all the protests or anti-media marches are completely divorced from a political prism, but there’s just no evidence that bears that out. I’m not even sure what the middle ground is right now. Probably Ptac and Texsox...and if Dr. Fauci is now a “partisan,” the US is in bigger trouble than I imagined.

AUSTIN — The Texas Supreme Court late Friday overruled an appeals court’s order that had allowed election officials across the state to temporarily give mail ballots to people who are afraid of being infected with the coronavirus. Attorney General Ken Paxton said the court accepted his argument that mail ballots should not be granted to voters who fear catching COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. He said the Supreme Court’s order stops the distribution of mail ballots under those conditions until his appeal is heard. “I am pleased that today the Texas Supreme Court confirmed that my office may continue to prosecute voter fraud and issue guidance on mail-in ballots" while an appeal plays out, Paxton said in a statement. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2020/05/15/texas-supreme-court-puts-mail-ballots-for-those-who-fear-covid-19-on-hold/ Kobach said there have been more than 1,000 convictions for voter fraud since 2000, and that the commission presented 8,400 instances of double voting in the 2016 election in 20 states. “Had the commission done the same analysis of all 50 states, the number would have been exponentially higher,” Kobach said. In response, Dunlap said those figures were never brought before the commission, and that Kobach hasn’t presented any evidence for his claims of double voting. He said the commission was presented with a report claiming over 1,000 convictions for various forms of voter misconduct since 1948. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/report-trump-commission-did-not-find-widespread-voter-fraud So pretty much 29 cases on average nationally (0.58 per state) during the course of 35 national elections over the last 68 years.

I just can’t imagine parents teaching their kids to treat news reporters like this...it’s one thing to watch Fox News or now OAN and for kids to develop subconscious biases from their parents. But, for example, all of these media assaults on Dr. Fauci for trying to protect and save as many American lives as possible? Siding against science on a consistent basis? The guy has served under three Republican presidents and two Democrats before Trump. And the only ones to speak out on his behalf are Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney? https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/remdesivir-gilead-conspiracy/

Another Al Gore documentary is already in the pipeline...