OK, who besides me finds it weird that April 15th is almost like any other day—except for the fact that the government is giving people money tax-free for no reason except they watch cable/satellite news and believe what they’re told. I know tax protestors have advocated for a system where April 15th would be just be another day but somehow, I don’t think this socialist scheme is what they had in mind.
Also, is it me or did you notice that Democrat governors want to keep their states shutdown for many more monthswhile Republican governors are beginning to open their states and rev-up their businesses? Folks, the latest draconian directives from Sacramento and Los Angeles are exactly the opposite of what we need—no surprise there except these folks need a stream of other people’s money to keep the utopian/socialist dream alive.
For example, today Los Angeles County leaders proclaimed that all 12 million plus people must wear a face covering or not be allowed outside of their homes for the next several months (Actually, at this point, it was indefinitely). Are they adopting Sharia Law or something just as wacky? Imagine Southern California with no sporting events, amusement parks, concerts, or other gatherings—including churches? Yet apparently, none of this is allowed thru at least the summer. In other words, no tourists allowed, and the locals will be punished to boot. FYI: Disney is bleeding 30 million a day in lost revenue and this could drive them into insolvency.
Did you read Newsom’s restart plan yesterday, talk about tilting at windmills? Remember, in terms of fatalities, Covid-19 is not as bad as the average flu season and the mortality rate might be even lower if the numbers coming out now hold true. Its as far from Spanish Flu, Black Plague, and Ebola as you can get. Yet, our governor wants to make it as difficult as possible for us to get back to work.
I have to agree with those that say Covid-19 went thru California before anyone—except maybe Trump—was even paying attention. At the same time Dr. Fauci and other were saying it was no big deal (late January), Covid-19 was going thru California like wildfire. Yep, in the timeframe of late January and into February, it was everywhere, so by the time social distancing and all the rest were in vogue in March, most of us had already had it. The biggest trigger to the spread was those celebrating Chinese New Year in later January. People returning home from China spread this virus worldwide and simultaneously. (Plus, I think it was here before then anyways.)
There is no way New York could be the epicenter in the United States.Ground zero was California; but earlier. Now that antibody tests are coming online, we will have the opportunity to see if I’m right. I have friends being tested now that think they had it in early February. I think my wife and son had it during that time as well. This is herd immunity. When enough people in a population develop immunity to the disease, a disease can’t easily spread to new people because it runs out of hosts.
Folks, Garvin Newsom’s Presidential aspirations are riding on how he deals with restarting California. If other states recover before we do, he’s toast on the national stage. I think he’s listening to the wrong people and will muff this up. Newsom’s linking our fate with Oregon and Washington is not a bright idea. The good side is that his leadership failure in California will be used to protect the rest of the nation from his failed ideas in 2024.
One last random thought. Does 4/20 seem like an odd day to restart education in our part of California? Hitler’s birthday, Columbine anniversary, and make pot legal day. Also, I think the Sith Lord is celebrating another birthday.
Folks, I hardly watch any television but seeing the behavior of those that do is always a treat. The insanity I witness (and overhear) at work and in the grocery store check-out line is breathtakingly uninformed.
After being closed for a good six or seven weeks, the Elk Grove Unified School District is hoping to roll-out another four or five weeks of instruction for this school year. Seems like it took a while to greenlight the concept (this is the third week since the shutdown) and now they are giving teachers an additional month to figure out how to implement the details. The goal is to have the district “go live” with online instruction for the last week of April with all instruction terminating by the end of May. All schedules year round to traditional are included in this new and truncated calendar.
Please note my son’s private school went live (K – 12) with full blown instruction in all classes on their third day following a shutdown. Ditto for many other public-school districts. Why Elk Grove is taking their ever lovin’ sweet time is a mystery. Why they need another month now that they have a plan of action is ridiculous.
Meanwhile, teachers have been given the green light to make suggestions to parents for online resources (which is good) but teachers are still forbidden to continue with any new material for their children (which is bad). I guess the lowest common denominator governs not just the student’s but the teacher’s instruction as well. Sad.
I’m left with many concerns and questions besides the ones I’ve already mentioned. Will the grades count? If so, will they be weighted the same? What about teachers that don’t even know how to check email? (This is not a rhetorical question because a bunch of teachers get stumped when asked to press the “Any Key.”) What about AP classes or special ed classes? Both extremes pose challenges. What if Johnny or his folks want the district to supply the computing device and/or internet access?
The District’s correspondence makes it clear that their relationship with the union comes before the children. No surprise to me. Had they let their principals take the lead, instruction would be happening for most children, but education is a top-down world. This experiment in “Distance Learning” will result in an uneven quality of education; limited by the abilities of the teachers. Hopefully it will encourage a few to either retire or up their tech skills.
Anyway, it looks like my pronouncement of no more school this year, may be proven wrong. Let’s just see what happens. Whether it can be called distance daycare, or entertainment, or education may be in the eye of the beholder.
China’s newest gift to the world, the dreaded Corona virus, has finally caused a level of disruption in my life. It started on Monday as I stopped at the Save Mart grocery store located near my office. I happen to get there most days about 6 AM which is when they open. I typically buy one beverage item on my way to work. This week, I have been greeted with hoarders each day. As the week goes on, their numbers have increased. I estimate that today there were 60 to 70 people there to greet me. All self-check-out lines were purposely down to keep people from breaking the hoarding rules which are enforced at the cash registers. Last week, when they opened, there were only two or three folks in line counting me. I’ve never seen grown humans so excited about toilet paper in my life.
Save Mart 6 AM line on west side of store 03/20/20
Also, in the last week, our church threw in the towel and cancelled all services. The church has many elderly members but good grief, this is ridiculous. They hope to hold services on Easter… like you better. Meanwhile, if you know a good set of catacombs anywhere, I’d be interested in going to their services. I thought we had faith not fear. See what happens when you get shaky on Predestination and Unconditional Election? Oh well, guess it wasn’t meant to be.
The last few days at work have taken a turn into the Twilight Zone. Note to self, don’t say, “it’s just a bad flu” in the presence of a room full of state workers that get their news from cable TV providers. It’s a most unpleasant feeling when they glare at you for trying to talk sense. Anyway, management is trying to implement “social distancing” by reducing the number of people in the office at any one time. Thus, they are having us work six hour shifts and then work from home for the remainder of our day. Please understand that logic and common sense take a back seat to this random directive. If you can imagine working in an accounting office with no access to your files or accounting program. We are given nothing to do at home but watch the email box for three hours at a time. No fears. We get a full check while all this going on.
The wife has it worse. Earlier this week her district cancelled school for the rest of the year. Today in a joint release, the district and their union not only told teachers that they can’t provide their children with learning opportunities—many of which are currently free on the Internet during this current social upheaval—but if any teacher knows of a fellow teacher that dares to try to help their students learn during this extended break, said teacher is to be reported by other teachers so the violator can be disciplined. Yep, we got it in writing. Teachers who try to continue teaching will be punished. Caring forbidden, conforming mandatory. Welcome to California. For those keeping tally, just another reason to leave the state.
Contrary to the instructions of the County of Sacramento and Governor, some of us boys met last night at a local “speak easy” to shoot the breeze. I think our group was below the current gathering size eligible for the automatic death penalty—currently set at ten individuals. The topics didn’t really matter, it’s just getting out of the house for our regularly scheduled gathering.
California bars closed, designated non-essential
Short of the governor declaring martial law or California falling into the sea, the family will be taking a road trip in the coming months. We will get to see if the rest of the country is as worked-up about this illness as are people here in California. I have heard mixed reports on whether this is the case in other parts of the country.
Folks my most immediate gripe has been the difficulty of finding eggs and bread in the pillaged grocery stores in this part of Sacramento County. We’re not greedy, we just want our usual breakfast on Saturday morning. Last night, after half a dozen trips to various places, I finally scored a dozen eggs. Thanks, Chief for your personal recommendation and direction in guiding my quest. I’ve purposely not hoarded anything but try to buy only what I need and live life as normally as possible.
Panic and worry are not on my radar over this Corona virus. I think thousands of people are walking around with it and have no symptoms. I base that on the number of celebrities, sports figures, and politicians that are getting it. They only know because they have doctors that can use their patient’s station in life to get a test. Those of us with McDonald’s medical plans (talkin’ about you Kaiser) are just fighting over scraps. I think most folks will never know that they had it and that’s probably for the best.
Frankly, unless you’re in a high-risk group, this whole thing is as overblown for most of us as Y2K. Lest you think I’m just saying crazy stuff, take a look at the Bloomberg news article about deaths in Italy. Over 99 percent of the people dying had preexisting conditions.
More than 99% of Italy’s coronavirus fatalities were people who suffered from previous medical conditions, according to a study by the country’s national health authority.
The new study could provide insight into why Italy’s death rate, at about 8% of total infected people, is higher than in other countries. The Rome-based institute has examined medical records of about 18% of the country’s coronavirus fatalities, finding that just three victims, or 0.8% of the total, had no previous pathology. Almost half of the victims suffered from at least three prior illnesses and about a fourth had either one or two previous conditions.
The average age of those who’ve died from the virus in Italy is 79.5. As of March 17, 17 people under 50 had died from the disease. All of Italy’s victims under 40 have been males with serious existing medical conditions.
Folks, people in Italy smoke like chimneys, so many had compromised respiratory systems. Italy is also the “Florida” of Europe. Many people choose to retire to this country. Italy has a climate similar in many respects to California.
Again, for the vast majority of us, this virus is just an inconvenience. I think we could have dealt with this without putting the economy on hold and citizens under house arrest.
Today, people at work were asking me if they should be afraid of the police stopping them and whether they risk going to jail just for being outside of their house or driving to and from work.
It doesn’t help when the guys on the radio during my morning commute were joking about being issued passes proving they work for an industry designated as critical in case police ask them for papers while commuting to work.
Johnnie Does Johnnie Does has been left to run the office by himself. His boss is over 60 and is totally freaked-out after watching wall-to-wall coverage of the end of the world in real time. As a respite, his boss has decided to flee the office and seek refuge on the links of his favorite golf course; thus living life 18 holes at a time. His boss thinks this is his best chance to ride out the Corona Virus outbreak and remain married. The reason golf is a logical choice is that the foursomes have agreed to space their balls at least six feet from each other thus upholding social distancing while allowing commerce to be conducted as gentlemen should (less the handshake anyway). As a concession to the unwashed massed, players have agreed to celebrate the 19th hole away from the Club House.
Troll Troll is completely unaffected by the current crisis. He is a gamer living in his parent’s basement. Usually, his mom has three squares a day ready and waiting for him in the kitchen. When his folks are out of the house, Troll gets meals delivered to his doorstep. His mom does his laundry and takes care of him. His only chore is to dump the trash each week. Despite the Corona chaos being broadcast on television, Troll is as happy as a kitten in front of a fireplace on a cold winter’s day. Troll is looking forward to getting his $1,000 from PresidentAndrew YangDonald Trump and plans to spend it on his dream date with Hope Hicks. Troll is very patriotic and wants to do his part to stimulate the economy.
William By day, William is a nonessential government worker, and thus shows up dutifully to his Dilbert-like cubicle every day virtually unnoticed by management. During these times, he is comforted by the knowledge that the rest of his family is safely home surfing the Internet and watching Netflix. He is convinced that their Summer Vacation started really early this year, but as always, his routine continues unabated. The only downside is that the private school attended by Junior has suspended classes, but is still expecting the balance of tuition for the school year. Once home, William still enjoys walking the blog dog around the deserted park near his home and editing posts for our readers.
Chief The Chief is in his TP with extra T.P. and hand sanitizer. In addition, he is reportedly violating social distance requirements with a willing and lonely squaw (not related to Elizabeth Warren). Once the whites have been ravished by this plague, Chief is hoping for saner public discourse and a restoration of civil liberties for his people.
Jake the Snake Jake is bummed that the Church threw in the towel so easily on cancelling services. Jake figures they survived the Black Plague, Protestant Reformation, and Inquisition so what’s a few runny noses? Plus his favorite gym has bolted its doors and ESPN has resorted to calling Poker a sport. Oh what times we live in?
We trust that you and yours are safe and that by the dawn of Easter Sunday, we will see the end of this disruption to our way of life.
President Trump declared Sunday March 15, 2020 as a National Day of Prayer. While people like me were happy about the announcement, some folks were just “triggered” by the news.
As usual, Trump made the announcement on Twitter.
It is my great honor to declare Sunday, March 15th as a National Day of Prayer. We are a Country that, throughout our history, has looked to God for protection and strength in times like these… No matter where you may be, I encourage you to turn towards prayer in an act of faith. Together, we will easily PREVAIL!
…Trump has previously given other days the designation during emergencies.
At lunch on Friday, I tried to have a factual discussion with a coworker about Obama’s response the H1N1 v Trump on Corona. (It was at our lunch hour that day when the President was going to declare Corona a national emergency.) Like most people, he never knew anything about H1N1 even being a problem but because of the 24/7 coverage, he thinks everyone that gets Corona will die.
I tried to give him the three dates, first US case, declaration of public health emergency, and declaration of national emergency. The question that I was building up top was this, if Trump is so evil then why did he declare a national emergency when there are less than 50 deaths while Obama waited until over one thousand had died? (For those of you lacking math skills, the interval for Obama was six months and about six weeks for Trump.)
He kept interrupting me as I built up to my question and informed me that Trump was purposely withholding testing and medical treatment from Americans. Furthermore, he said Trump did not care and Trump was willing to let regular Americans die just to promote himself. He also was demanding that everyone — sick or healthy—be tested today. I explained the medical protocols used and that testing is only done for high risk people or if the results will affect a patient’s treatment and recovery, quoting the Center for Disease Control and Prevention amongst others. It was an exercise in futility.
(As you continue reading this account, I’m sure the biblical phrase of “casting pearls” will come to your minds too.)
For those of you living outside of California, sadly this is the predominant view of way too many people living on the Left Coast. Is it any wonder that Bernie Sanders easily won the Democrat Primary here?
In an effort to show him the compassionate side of Trump, later that night, I sent a copy of Trump’s Twitter message declaring a National Day of Prayer on 03/15/20 with the this note “This is one reason that we like Trump.”
I’m trying to give him concrete and unfiltered examples of what is happening before he is told by whoever he listens to (which clearly is not me) how to feel about it. The fact that Obama never once in his 8 years as President declared a national emergency as a cause for prayer would never occur to this guy.
After a short time, this was his response.
Yep, when I think of a Christian heart, soul and behavior trump is first person to come to mind. The last time he prayed was the last time I dated a super model.
Then he responded with a screen capture of Trump praying with Terrance Williams and some others in the Oval Office of the White House with his caption of “This is one reason why I hate him.”
Oh, I looked up Michael Steel, the guy that retweeted the post and made a snarky comment, on Wikipedia. He is some NeverTrumper guy on MSNBC. Seems like his page has been scrubbed of anything about him since he left politics, or he hasn’t done anything worthwhile since then.
I then got some even crazier stuff from Mr. Trigger about Trump being “Our Jesus replacement.” Again, where do you get this crap, I have no idea. It just makes me even gladder that I cut the cord many years ago.
FYI: Mr. Trigger makes no claim of any religious affiliation and gets to church only at weddings and funerals, if he is forced to, but he is always telling me what God thinks about Trump. He calls people that support Trump cultists. He also says Trump lies every day. I often get asked how can I support a guy that has lied over 18,000 times since taking office? Of course, he offers zero evidence or a single example… even when challenged. I guess he thinks that what he is saying is such common knowledge that everybody just knows it. Weird.
The irony is that Trump is the most honest guy to run for office. He does what he says and says what he does. There is no duplicity in him, especial when compared to the political class in Washington.
After three years of this, I finally got frustrated and fired this off to him.
Have you ever thought maybe Trump is telling the truth and CNN is not? All I get from you is “he lies” yet when I bring you facts, even from Democrat sources, somehow instead of looking at it, you go off on Trump thinks he’s God, Jesus Christ and king of the world, etc. I get a rant from you and not a discussion. Oh, and you often tell me what God thinks about it or how can I be a Christian if… As I keep trying to tell you, I believe people should be held to the same standard regardless of party or income. When I try to point out inconsistencies in how he is treated, you dismiss them out of hand and don’t care to look at the evidence. Today is only the latest example. Today you even accused Trump of purposely trying to kill Americans to benefit himself. You constantly argue feelings and don’t care about facts; especially if they might just prove you wrong. Dialogues are based on facts not feelings. Today when I showed you that your assumptions were wrong you just attacked Trump all the more. When he asks for prayer, which he has done several times before, again you opine on God. Its not a partisan request, it’s a patriot one. Sadly, you can’t ever consider that it might be a genuine act.
I realize the guy is spiritually dead but the “eyes that don’t see” and “ears that can’t hear” describes Mr. Trigger to a T. He has no awareness of the world around him. He is a most unhappy and miserable creature. He is imprisoned and bound in his own closed mind more surely than anyone in a forgotten gulag in Siberia. This guy spends his spare time searching for more chains to bind himself even further.
Watching his behavior makes me think of a C.S. Lewis book I read many years ago about people in hell taking a holiday in heaven and finding it so unpleasant that they were not able to get back to hell fast enough. Unless God kicks his mental and spiritual doors down and shines His light on this dude, he will stay lost.
When I talk with him about anything of substance—except himself—sooner or later he closes his mental eyes, covers his ears, and starts screaming, “La. La. La. La. I can’t hear you” and tries really hard to change the subject. I’ve had my fill of his folly. Sadly, I live in a State of 36 million most of whom are just like him.
Yesterday, President Trump declared the Corona virus a national emergency. Now, Mr. Hannity you may properly compare Obama waiting six months from the time he declared a public health emergency on H1N1 to the time he declared a national emergency (April 26, 2009 and October 26, 2009 respectively) versus Trump doing it about six week later (January 31, 2020 to March 13, 200 respectively).
Folks, what’s bothered me is why did Trump do it? After consulting with my wife, I decided that its because Trump wants to solve this, get it behind us, and move on. He doesn’t want to leave this lingering but has chosen what basketball calls a “full court press.”
Knowing that I keep calling Corona “just the flu” (which it is) and saying I think these precautions are overblown, my liberal buddy wanted to know if I thought the declaration for a national emergency was right or wrong. My answer, in his eyes, was evasive. I said, some decisions are clearly right or wrong and sometimes we need some time to lapse to know if it was the right call. I said in this case, I think the decision is in the latter category. Trump made the call and that’s why he gets the big bucks. Let’s just wait and see.
A Whole New World
What I marvel at is the widespread shutdown of our way of life because of this virus. As I keep saying, its not Ebola. We have cancelled more air travel than during the 9/11 attacks. Stopped cruise ships, shutdown churches, concerts, baseball, football, soccer, basketball, hockey, golf, conventions, movie theaters, schools, etc. This decision has impacted a huge number of businesses and people’s lives. Those parts of society that have not shutdown have changed how they do business. We look with suspicion on strangers and are prone to avoid interacting with people.
If Trump had declared Martial Law and suspended, elections, Congress, and the Courts, would it look much different?Yet he not only has the support of Congress but the Courts and all 50 States. How did we get here? What really bothers me is how easy and willing we were to allow all this. Trading freedom for perceived safety is the stock and trade of Liberals.
The great irony in this disruption is that Trump is being praised by the very Democrats that have been fearmongering that he would suspend liberties and become the ultimate ruler, dictator, monarch, etc. In the last few days, Trump has been praised in glowing terms by California Governor Garvin Newsom and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Heretofore, both men have been adversaries of the Trump Administration on almost every issue.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo
So too, local and State governments and their agencies are looking eagerly to the Federal government for aid and leadership. They have set aside partisanship and are praising the federal response.
I guess when the niceties are over, you know that the crisis has passed.
Vaccine News
Meanwhile, yesterday Johnnie Does sent me word that one company says they have a vaccine for Corona ready to start testing.
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ +1.3%) unit Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies is collaborating with Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center on the development of a preventative vaccine against COVID-19.
Preclinical testing is underway. The parties expect to identify a candidate by month-end and commence a Phase 1 study by year-end.
The vaccine will be based on Janssen’s AdVac and PER.C6 technologies.
In addition, another company has announced a possible vaccine.
March 12, 2020 /CNW/ – Medicago, a biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Quebec City , announced today that they have successfully produced a Virus-Like Particle (VLP) of the coronavirus just 20 days after obtaining the SARS-CoV-2 (virus causing the COVID-19 disease) gene. Production of the VLP is the first step in developing a vaccine for COVID-19 which will now undergo preclinical testing for safety and efficacy. Once this is completed, Medicago expects to discuss with the appropriate health agencies to initiate human trials of the vaccine by summer (July/August) 2020.
Also, yesterday, Chinese billionaire Jack Ma said he is donating 500,000 Corona test kits and 1,000,000 face masks to the United States.
Chinese billionaire and Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma said he will donate 500,000 coronavirus testing kits and 1 million masks to the United States and urged international cooperation to fight the health crisis.
In addition, Ma has made an even larger donation to the EU.
Testing… Testing… 1… 2… 3…
Lastly, I’m wondering what effect the declaration of a national emergency is having on FDA protocols and vaccine approval. One of the dumber things that our civilized nations do is not recognize each other’s testing methods of drugs and medical procedures. Here in the US, our FDA will not respect any testing done by the EU nations and vice versa. Ditto for other nations. I think that we need an international body, treaty, something, that allows a testing regime that is respected by everyone. It would also need some sort of patent and liability protection too. Curing people should not be so dependent on which country that you live in.
Also, it is clear that too many of our pharmaceutical eggs are in the Chinese basket and the Corona crisis is another opportunity to illustrate this.
Eighty percent of active ingredients in America’s pharmaceutical and OTC drugs — you know, the stuff that actually makes your medicine work — come from China and India, according to Rosemary Gibson and Janardan Prasad Singh, authors of the new book China RX: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine.
Many of the drugs that Americans depend upon, including birth control pills, antibiotics like penicillin, vitamin C and even cancer drugs, are made in China with little regulation.
… Gary Cohn, then chief economic advisor to President Trump, argued against a trade war with China by invoking a Department of Commerce study that found that 97 percent of all antibiotics in the United States came from China.
While the Department of Defense only purchases a small quantity of finished pharmaceuticals from China, about 80 percent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) used to make drugs in the United States are said to come from China and other countries like India.
In order to address the growing security and safety concerns about Chinese-made pharmaceuticals, some suggest that the United States switch to India as an alternative API supplier. However, doing so would be no different from rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It is true that many Indian pharmaceutical firms are leading API manufacturers but India depends on China for sourcing nearly three quarters of APIs in generic drug formulations. The disruption in the supply chain notwithstanding, switching to India for the supply of APIs would only make the drugs sold in the United States more expensive: APIs and chemical intermediates from China are 35 to 40 percent cheaper than Indian ones.
Final Thoughts
Besides Disney which owns ESPN, theme parks, and 40 percent of Hollywood movies, the person getting most hurt by the Corona crisis is Bernie Sanders. States are moving or considering cancelling primary elections and cancelling further debates with he and Joe Biden. Bernie just can’t catch a break.
The biggest winner in all this besides the President is the Babylon Bee. They have done parodies of banning all travel to California and what will parents do if the government won’t raise their kids for them. Both of which are legit news stories this week. Is it any wonder that Snopes gets mad when people think their stuff is real news?
Schools are closing their doors across the area sending a seismic shockwave for parents scrambling to find child care for the next few weeks.
Sacramento County public schools have a quarter-million students and 400 schools. Even if only half of those parents would have to stay home, you could see how it would impact our economy.
Radio talk show host, Rush Limbaugh, has repeatedly said that the Corona virus making its way around the planet is nothing more than a bad cold.
This coronavirus? All of this panic is just not warranted.
I’m telling you, when I’ve told you that this virus is the common cold? When I said that, it was based on the number of cases. It’s also based on the kind of virus this is. Why do you think this is COVID-19? This is the 19th coronavirus! They’re not uncommon. Coronaviruses are respiratory cold and flu viruses. There is nothing about this except where it came from and the itinerant media panic.
This of course has drawn the ire of folks predisposed to hate the most popular talk show host in America. My question today is to look at the science and see if Rush is right.
Cold or Flu
Silly me. I actually thought there was a difference between cold and flu but that difference is arbitrary. You really can’t tell. I took a look at the highly partisan website for the Center for Disease Control (sarcasm intended) that describes both.
Because colds and flu share many symptoms, it can be difficult (or even impossible) to tell the difference between them based on symptoms alone. Special tests that usually must be done within the first few days of illness can tell if a person has the flu.
Flu and the common cold are both respiratory illnesses but they are caused by different viruses. Because these two types of illnesses have similar symptoms, it can be difficult to tell the difference between them based on symptoms alone. In general, flu is worse than the common cold, and symptoms are more intense.
Testing for Flu
A number of flu tests are available to detect influenza viruses in respiratory specimens. The most common are called “rapid influenza diagnostic tests (RIDTs).” RIDTs work by detecting the parts of the virus (antigens) that stimulate an immune response. These tests can provide results within approximately 10-15 minutes, but are not as accurate as other flu tests. Therefore, you could still have the flu, even though your rapid test result is negative. Other flu tests are called “rapid molecular assays” that detect genetic material of the virus. Rapid molecular assays produce results in 15-20 minutes and are more accurate than RIDTs. In addition, there are several more-accurate and sensitive flu tests available that must be performed in specialized laboratories, such as those found in hospitals or state public health laboratories. All of these tests require that a health care provider swipe the inside of your nose or the back of your throat with a swab and then send the swab for testing. Results may take one hour or several hours.
As I mentioned yesterday, they are working on a rapid test for Corona but it is still being developed.
Not everyone that is sick will be tested.
Not necessarily. Most people with flu symptoms are not tested because the test results usually do not change how you are treated.
Your health care provider may diagnose you with flu based on your symptoms and their clinical judgment or they may choose to use an influenza diagnostic test. During an outbreak of respiratory illness, testing for flu can help determine if flu viruses are the cause of the outbreak. Flu testing can also be helpful for some people with suspected flu who are pregnant or have a weakened immune system, and for whom a diagnosis of flu can help their doctor make decisions about their care.
Here is CDC criteria for testing and unless you are in high risk group or hospitalized, chances are you will not be tested.
Guide for considering influenza testing when influenza viruses are circulating in the community (regardless of influenza vaccination history)
What is Corona?
Coronaviruses are a group of related viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans, coronaviruses cause respiratory tract infections that are typically mild, such as some cases of the common cold (among other possible causes, predominantly rhinoviruses), though rarer forms can be lethal, such as SARS, MERS, and COVID-19.
Coronaviruses constitute the subfamily Orthocoronavirinae, in the family Coronaviridae, order Nidovirales, and realm Riboviria.[5][6] They are enveloped viruses with a positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome and a nucleocapsid of helical symmetry. The genome size of coronaviruses ranges from approximately 27 to 34 kilobases, the largest among known RNA viruses.[7] The name coronavirus is derived from the Latin corona, meaning “crown” or “halo”, which refers to the characteristic appearance reminiscent of a crown or a solar corona around the virions (virus particles) when viewed under two-dimensional transmission electron microscopy, due to the surface covering in club-shaped protein spikes.
Common human coronaviruses, including types 229E, NL63, OC43, and HKU1, usually cause mild to moderate upper-respiratory tract illnesses, like the common cold. Most people get infected with one or more of these viruses at some point in their lives.
Reported illnesses have ranged from mild symptoms to severe illness and death for confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases. The following symptoms may appear 2-14 days after exposure.* * Fever * Cough * Shortness of breath
The CDC calling the spread of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 across the United States “inevitable” has understandably triggered a decent amount of anxiety. While COVID-19—which is thought to have originated in Wuhan, China back in December after jumping from an as-yet-unconfirmed animal host—has a troubling fatality rate of around 2 percent (based on current estimates), the vast majority of people who contract the virus experience only mild, cold-like symptoms.In fact, it’s quite possible that the disease’s fatality rate is artificially inflated; with so many confirmed cases featuring mild symptoms, it’s likely that there are many COVID-19 cases going totally unnoticed.
If you get COVID-19, you’re unlikely to get seriously sick and even less likely to die, especially if you are otherwise healthy. But that raises a troubling question that’s difficult to answer: How do you know if your seasonal sniffles might actually be COVID-19? Here’s a handy guide.
If you have no reason to think you’ve been in close contact with someone who is infected with COVID-19, you should proceed as if you have a cold or the flu. You are unlikely to actually have COVID-19 and, if you do, you are unlikely to get particularly sick.
“Although the focus right now is on COVID-19, seasonal flu remains much more common,” says Preeti Malani, the Chief Health Officer and a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Michigan. “In general, all of us should make an effort to stay home and rest while ill. Everyday respiratory viruses spread easily. Wash your hands, cover your cough. If you haven’t done so, it’s not too late to get a flu shot.”
Lastly, Popular Science says stay out of the emergency room.
If you have symptoms of a cold and have traveled to China, South Korea, Japan, or Italy within the last couple of weeks, you should call your doctor or a hospital and ask how to proceed. You should not go to a doctor’s office or emergency room without calling ahead, as this risks exposing vulnerable people while you sit in the waiting room and interact with doctors and nurses.
How bad is COVID-19
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told lawmakers during a House Oversight Committee hearing Wednesday that COVID-19 — the disease caused by the novel coronavirus — is probably about 10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu.
(Fauci) did clarify that 10 times figure actually brings the new coronavirus’ fatality rate lower than official estimates, which hover around 3 percent. The flu has a mortality rate of about 0.1 percent, so, when considering the likelihood that there are many asymptomatic or very mild cases that have gone undiagnosed, Fauci places the new coronavirus’ lethality rate at somewhere around 1 percent.
Conclusion
Unless you’re a powerful person—financial or political— a member of an at risk group, or a healthcare worker, you will probably never know if the illness that you had was a cold, flu, or COVID-19 because you won’t have the lab work to check.
As we learn more about this illness, the fatality rate is dropping. More milder cases are being diagnosed and our healthcare system is better than many other countries which means more people will recover. The fatality rate is now down to one percent and I think that it will continue to decline.
Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if a year from now we discover that many people had COVID-19 and never knew it.
President Trump has often compared COVID-19 to the flu…
Give the above, whether you want to call it a cold or flu, Rush Limbaugh was correct. “Coronaviruses are respiratory cold and flu viruses.” Thus, COVID-19 is a really bad cold.
Folks, like everything else related to reporting this story, you have heard many contradictory claims made about the ability to test for the Corona virus. President Trump and Vice-President Pence are assuring us that the testing bottleneck has been removed while most media reports claim there is a severe shortage of test kits.Why can’t we even agree about this seemingly nonpartisan issue? Today, I’m going to take a look at this question.
But if you’re not familiar with the tools of molecular biology, the CDC’s testing procedure might as well be written in another language. What follows is a description of how to go from an unknown virus to a diagnostic test in less than a month.
Because we know what the average coronavirus looks like, we have been able to identify areas that don’t change much over the evolution of new members of this family of viruses. And that allows us to obtain sequences of its genome without first isolating the virus.
The first challenge of sequencing a coronavirus genome is that it’s made of RNA rather than DNA. Most of our tools for working with nucleic acids are specific to DNA. Fortunately, we’ve discovered an enzyme called “reverse transcriptase” that takes RNA and makes a DNA copy of it—transcription is the copying of DNA into RNA; this enzyme does the opposite, hence the name. (Reverse transcriptase was first identified in other RNA viruses that need to be copied into DNA as part of infection.) Using reverse transcriptase, researchers were able to make DNA copies of parts of 2019-nCoV as a first step to studying its genome.
But reverse transcription of samples from infected individuals would simply create a mess of DNA fragments from everything present: the patient’s own cells, harmless bacteria, and so on. Fortunately, DNA sequencing and analysis techniques have become so advanced that it’s now possible to just sequence the whole mess, irrelevant stuff and all, and let computers sort out what’s present. Software is able to take what we know about the average coronavirus genome and identify all of the fragments of sequence that look like they came from a coronavirus.
Other software can determine how all these fragments overlap and then stitch them together, producing a near-complete coronavirus genome.
To make a diagnostic test specific to 2019-nCoV, researchers had to look for areas of its genome that don’t change rapidly over coronavirus evolution but have changed enough in this branch of the family that they can be viewed as its distinctive signature. Those sequences can be used to design a means of amplifying a piece of the 2019-nCoV genome using a technique called the polymerase chain reaction, or PCR.
Test Kits
Below is a quote from Politico which is typical of media reports:
A looming shortage in lab materials is threatening to delay coronavirus test results and cause officials to undercount the number of Americans with the virus.
The slow pace of coronavirus testing has created a major gap in the U.S. public health response. The latest problem involves an inability to prepare samples for testing, creating uncertainties in how long it will take to get results.
America needs to distribute hundreds of millions of test kits to identify people infected with the coronavirus now spreading around the world – a massive amount that far exceeds the number of test kits now available.
Vice President Mike Pence and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Tuesday that over 1.1 million coronavirus test kits have been distributed across the U.S. and over 4 million more will be distributed by the end of the week. Unfortunately, that number is woefully inadequate for the task at hand.
Then you see a report like this about two test kits. Yep, two kits for the whole State of Ohio.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Two new coronavirus testing kits arrived in Ohio on Wednesday afternoon, which will allow the state to test 800 to 1,000 more people, Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Amy Acton said after a Wednesday COVID-19 briefing.
Nationwide, there’s been a shortage of testing kits.
Pence is talking millions of tests and then two days ago, I read that only 5,000 people have been tested. WTF?
Public health labs across the U.S. have tested more than 5,000 people, according to the Trump administration. HHS Secretary Alex Azar told lawmakers on Tuesday that U.S. labs’ capacity could grow to 10,000-20,000 people per day by the end of the week.
“Increased demand for testing has the potential to exhaust supplies needed to perform the test itself,” said Robin Patel, president of the American Society for Microbiology. That would limit the testing capacity of public health, hospital and commercial labs alike, she added.
This sounds kind of dire but as I’m reading articles like this, I’m also hearing ads on the radio by private labs offering to do Corona tests. So is there a shortage or not?
The same article that says there is a shortage in government labs, says that the private sector has no such problems.
Commercial labs, which have recently started running coronavirus tests, have not experienced any supply shortages, according to a spokesperson for the American Clinical Laboratory Association.
So there you have it. Virtually simultaneously we have reports of 5,000 to 1.1 millions people tested depending on the source.
To further complicate the question is test methodology.
Complicating the situation, most labs have been running at least two tests per patient — although that could soon change. The CDC issued interim guidelines on Monday that minimize the number of tests required for a diagnosis. The agency says labs can combine a patient’s nose and throat samples into one test, a move experts say will cut in half the amount of supplies used to test each person.
Testing and test kits are often discussed as if they represent a single entity. However, there are a multitude of ways to test for the coronavirus. Different types of tests provide important tools in the battle against this serious infection and contribute in unique ways to our understanding of this virus.
In Ohio, only the highest-risk cases get tested at the state lab — in which patients are elderly, have health conditions or compromised immune systems or are health workers.
Lower-risk cases are being tested by private labs — specifically LabCorp and Quest Diagnostic, as well as at some hospitals, although which hospitals were not specified.
For lower-risk cases, a test cannot happen until there’s an order from a doctor, nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant. And it cannot be ordered until the flu and other respiratory illnesses are eliminated as possibilities.
CDC Test Kits are for governments only not hospitals
CDC’s test kit is intended for use by laboratories designated by CDC as qualified, and in the United States, certified under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) to perform high complexity tests. The test kits also will be shipped to qualified international laboratories, such as World Health Organization (WHO) Global Influenza Surveillance Response System (GISRS) laboratories. The test will not be available in U.S. hospitals or other primary care settings. The kits will be distributed through the International Reagent Resource
Corona test kits were requiring two samples per person (upper and lower respiratory) but the government has reduced the number of samples to one.
That kit was originally going to allow for 300 to 400 people to get tested. Then the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed how specimens could be tested so that two swabs or sputum from a person could be run together, using less chemicals and allowing more people to be tested.
I have quoted extensively the above to show that there is a shortage of CDC testing kits but that other tests are available. Thus the low number reported by many media outlets is strictly the number of CDC tests while the Trump Administration is counting testing at all levels, public and private.
Please note that if you dig into it, the CDC test kit is exclusive to one vendor. Yep, one company is contracted with the government to supply all test kits for the country. Since they can’t keep up with the demand, the CDC has authorized a competing vendor to supply tests also; however, this requires labs using the alternative method to conduct training and retooling before testing can commence.
Qiagen, a major supplier of the kits, confirmed that its product is backordered due to “the extraordinary pace” at which the world has increased coronavirus testing over the last few weeks.
The FDA has also approved a change to the CDC diagnostic test that allows labs to switch from Qiagen’s RNA extraction method to another manufactured by Roche, says Denny Russell, who leads the coronavirus response at Washington state’s public health lab. But getting his lab ready to use the Roche method could take a week in part because technicians will need training to use it.
In the meantime, Qiagen has told customers that it may not be able to fill large standing orders, because it is trying to provide smaller numbers of kits to as many labs as possible, said spokesperson Robert Reitze. The company is ramping up production of RNA extraction kits at manufacturing sites in Hilden, Germany; Barcelona, Spain; and Germantown, Md.
The other issue related to testing is a controversy about whether Trump set aside an Obama regulation to streamline testing.
“The Obama administration made a decision on testing that turned out to be very detrimental to what we’re doing. And we undid that decision a few days ago so that the testing can take place in a much more accurate and rapid fashion. That was a decision we disagreed with. I don’t think we would have made it, but for some reason it was made. But we’ve undone that decision.” — President Trump, remarks at a roundtable with airline executives, March 4
“This was a very big move. It was something that we had to do and we did it very quickly. And now we have tremendous flexibility. Many, many more sites. Many, many more people. And you couldn’t have had that under the Obama rule, and we ended that rule very quickly.” — Trump, additional remarks at the same meeting
The Liberal fact check websites say this claim is false; however, nobody has ever asked Trump what the regulation was, they just assert he was wrong. Folks, being that there is no shortage of Federal Regulations, I think there is not enough information on the public record to say if Trump is wrong or if the media is erecting a strawman argument to beat-up on Trump just because he dared to attack Obama. Does it really matter or are people just playing gotcha because…?
What I do know, is that since Trump’s comment, things are changing to speed up testing as I’ve shown above. Also, the White House has persuaded insurers to waive any copays for Corona testing.
Closing Comments
Besides the tests discussed above, many people are working now on antibody test kits. These would be a simpler test than converting RNA to DNA and so forth; methods mentioned previously. I think the goal is to have a “quick and dirty” test and then if that’s positive, you would then get a more thorough test.
I think that Corona infections will decrease as we leave cold and flu season but it may be back next fall just in time for a possible vaccine. However, if there is a vaccine, I certainly won’t be first in line, talk about being a guinea pig.
Due to the disruption caused to our daily lives by people that should know better, I’m starting a series on Corona Virus. I’m trying to separate, myth, fact, and propaganda. I personally have no fear of getting this virus, but many people seem really freaked-out about it.
I have rarely, if ever mentioned Sean Hannity on this blog. Why should I? I’m a cable cutter and don’t get Fox News, ESPN, and a host of other media. Frankly, I think my life is better without constant exposure to the 24/7 news cycle. (It’s not too later to give up cable news for Lent. Just sayin’.) Anyway, I occasionally listened to his radio show; especially, since impeachment and now the Corona Virus.
Last week Hannity said something so damning about Barack Obama that I thought maybe this was the silver bullet to get thru to my Liberal buddy at work. Before deploying it though, I wanted to get it in writing from a solid Liberal source so he couldn’t easily discount the information. I began to investigate the claim that Hannity made on both his radio and television shows on March 2, 2020. Here are transcripts complete with audio and video respectively. Hannity has also repeated it on his radio broadcasts since that date.
Audio Transcript 02/20/2020 SEAN HANNITY (HOST): Now if you want to compare it, let’s go back to the Biden-Obama administration. It was April of 2009 when H1N1 became a pandemic. It wasn’t until six months later — now, I’ll concede, 11 days after that, the Health and Human Services of their administration said it was an emergency — but it wasn’t until six months later when Obama declared a public health emergency. But at that point, it was already a pandemic. By the time Obama-Biden did it, we literally had millions of Americans infected, and over a thousand people had died inside the U.S.
Video Transcript 02/20/2020 Now we need to put that in perspective. Let us compare this to H1N1. Swine Flu Virus as it’s known. Now, this hit the U.S. in April of 2009. It wasn’t until six months later, in October of 2009 — after more than 20,000 Americans were hospitalized, more than a thousand of our fellow citizens died — only then did President Obama and, yeah, quid pro quo Joe declare a national emergency.
Original Source
So where did Hannity get this claim that President Obama waited six months–until 20,000 were infected and over 1,000 had died–before declaring a public health emergency? The only source is a single article from P.J. Media posted on February 28, 2020 by Victoria Taft. Her post then reverberated thru various conservative websites where it was eventually picked-up by Hannity.
Victoria Taft
While American health officials declared a public health emergency on April 26, 2009, then-Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano downplayed the announcement, calling it “standard operating procedure,” adding that she would rather refer to it as a “declaration of emergency preparedness.” It wasn’t until four months later in October, that then-President Obama himself declared an H1N1 national emergency.
Folks, this claim by Victoria Taft and by extension, Sean Hannity, is really bad for Obama and good for Trump. Below is the timeline for N1H1 and Corona from first US victim (Day 1) until President declared a public health emergency.
Oops, Obama declared a public health emergency on H1N1 eleven days after the first US case while Trump did so after ten days.
Here are timelines of both virus outbreaks
CDC Timeline H1N1
April 15, 2009 First infection in US
April 26, 2009 The United States Government declared 2009 H1N1 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern
Washington (CNN) — President Obama has declared a national emergency to deal with the “rapid increase in illness” from the H1N1 influenza virus.
“The 2009 H1N1 pandemic continues to evolve. The rates of illness continue to rise rapidly within many communities across the nation, and the potential exists for the pandemic to overburden health care resources in some localities,” Obama said in a statement.
December 31, 2019 The World Health Organization (WHO) is alerted by the Chinese authorities of a string of pneumonia-like cases in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people.
January 17, 2020 the CDC announces that it will begin screening passengers arriving from Wuhan at three airports: San Francisco, New York’s JFK and Los Angeles.
January 21, 2020 first US case in Washington State.
January 31, 2020 President Donald Trump issued a proclamation prohibiting non-citizens from entering the United States if they were in China within 14 days of their arrival and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar declared a public health emergency.
So, both Presidents (or Administration health officials under them) declared an emergency within about ten days.
Two Types of Declaration
Folks, various declarations by the President trigger different laws and regulations to make resources available to various states and people in need. While Obama declared a national emergency six months after declaring a public health emergency, Trump has thus far not declared a national emergency for Corona. If you doubt me, search for yourself. The only national emergency declared by Trump is related to the border wall.
Here’s the video of Obama in April of 2009 declaring a public health emergency.
The posts are conflating two types of emergency declarations a president can make.
Obama declared a public health emergency on April 26, 2009 — before a single swine flu death in the U.S. was reported. Such a declaration allows the government to unlock money for antiviral drugs and other medical preparedness measures.
It was in October, after 1,000 U.S. deaths, that Obama made another declaration related to the flu strain, this time a national emergency. That national emergency allowed the U.S. to activate operational plans, such as moving emergency rooms offsite to keep those infected with the virus away from other emergency room patients.
Conclusion
Folks, I’ve dug into this issue with much zeal in hopes of defending Sean Hannity’s claim about Obama’s declaration. However, it is my sad duty to report that Sean Hannity is totally wrong on this aspect of comparing the Obama response on H1N1 and the Trump response to Corona.
The issue where things diverge on the declarations of emergency is the management style employed by each man. Obama, as best as I can research it, was a very hands-off President and let the professionals handle the issue whereas Trump is right in the middle of Corona.
Obama initially authorized $1.5 billion to fight H1N1, whereas, Trump initially asked for $2.5 billion while diverting other money to the fight, pending Congressional action.
Also, Democrats are using Corona as a political weapon against Trump’s reelection; something Republicans did not do to Obama on H1N1. The media is trying to use Corona as a club to beat up Trump like they did G.W. Bush with Hurricane Katrina. In fact CNN has even called Corona, Trump’s Katrina.
Coronavirus as Katrina?: What sunk President George W. Bush and Republicans in his second term wasn’t the war in Iraq. It was his administration’s mishandling of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Whispers have begun that President Donald Trump’s handling (or mishandling) of the ongoing coronavirus epidemic has the potential to have political consequences just as devastating for the GOP.
Suzanne Jones: Photo from Lincoln Club of the Sierras
Folks, it looks like my $25 advertising investment on Facebook is paying big dividends. Placer County Supervisor, Kirk Uhler, is now trailing his challenger, fellow Republican, Suzanne Jones, in the race for Placer County Supervisor, 4th District. When I last looked in on the race, Uhler was up by about 107 votes but after yesterday’s update was posted, he now trails by 180 votes, a swing of about 287 votes.
Here’s the details.
Results March 6, 2020 update Uhler +107
Meanwhile, a few days and 3,643 votes later…
Results March 10, 2020 Jones +180
Just for reference, in Uhler’s 2016 race versus Victor Bekhet, a total of 19,784 votes were cast. Thus I would conclude that Uhler has no hope of beating Jones although the race is within the margin of a recount.
Congratulations to Supervisor Jones.
When you hitch your fate to the Just Us Brothers, such an outcome is no surprise. My only question is will Aaron Park scrub his blog of all the personal attacks on Suzanne Jones (and Tom Hudson) or let them stand?
Lastly, hey Kirk, Aaron always has this outcome when he is given the title of “campaign manager.” Like you, he thrives in the shadows not in the light. For a guy that thinks they’re friends, you don’t pay much attention to Aaron’s track record of mayhem and destruction. An ethical person wouldn’t associate themselves with him. At least now your wife can apply for the director position she’s been coveting without it being a violation of campaign laws on conflict of interest.
