The microscopic face of our fears/CDC
The pandemic coronavirus now sweeping the country is revealing some interesting differences in how Americans young and old, rich and poor, liberal and conservative view the realities of life and death – not to mention the inherent trades offs between safety, freedom and economic health.
PEW Research Center polling found similar results and noted a big generational difference influencing opinions.
That block led the Democrats wanting to continue an indefinite, stay-at-home lockdown. These results should not come as a surprise.
When Americans were polled by Gallup in November 2018, “the economy” topped the list of issues of concerns for Republican and Republican-leaning voters. It was number six on the list of concerns by Democrats and Democrat-leaners who put “health care” at the top of their list.
The economy and health care are now in a life-and-death struggle.
SCAN is a public health surveillance program set up on March 23 to try to get a handle on the spread of COVID-19 in the greater Seattle area. In order to do this, it has been recruiting volunteers wanting to be tested for the disease. They can request a “Swab-and-Send” kit by logging on to the SCAN website,” the organization says, then swab themselves and send the kit back.
As might be expected in a situation like this, most of the people – 2,700 of 4,092 – requesting kits as of April 6 reported a “COVID-like illness.” As it turned out, according to the report, 1.2 to 2.2 percent were found positive for COVID-19, or SARS-CoV-2 as the disease has been referred to Europe and is increasingly referred to in this country.
A portrait
The data also revealed something of a portrait of the people worried about having the disease. The majority were:
- White
- Female
- Wealthy
- And 30 to 49 years old.
“At this time, SCAN is not yet achieving a representative sample of the population in the greater Seattle and King County region,” the authors of the report admitted. “Relative to our population, SCAN participants differ in terms of age, geography, income, race/ethnicity and other factors. These differences are documented below, and we are working to reduce them. However, all results and conclusions of this report are limited by this lack of representativeness.”
Certainly there were people who volunteered to participate in the study purely because they wanted to contribute to science. It is impossible to sort out those people, but assuming that they generally trend in the same directions as the majority of people participating because of concerns about personal illness the data is interesting:
- 67 percent of SCAN participants were white although they comprised only 59 percent of the population in the study area.
- 52 percent were age 30 to 49 in an area where only 31 percent of the population fits in that age block.
- 31 percent reported earning $150,000 or more per year in an area that boasts only 6.3 percent of the population making that much money.
The numbers for those most fearful are strangely at odds with who should be fearful. The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University documents SARS-CoV-2 as a killer of old people, not those in their 20s, 30s and 40s.
The risk rose rapidly with age, however. The Italians calculated that a man over 60 admitted to an Italian hospital with SARS-CoV-2 had a near 7 percent chance of death and it went up to near 30 percent for a man over 80.
Italy is somewhat unique. The country’s hospitals have a deadly problem with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Many of those in Italy were weakened by COVID-19 only to die after contracting bacterial pneumonia that then raged out of control.
Italy, the Oxford Centre noted, has the “highest rates of antibiotic resistance deaths in Europe.” It accounts for about a third of such deaths in Europe.
Minorities
Along with age and general health-compromising medical conditions, race also appears to be playing a role in the U.S.
“In Michigan, 33 percent of COVID-19 cases and 40 percent of deaths have occurred among black individuals, who represent 14 percent of the population. If New York City has become the epicenter, this disproportionate burden is validated again in underrepresented minorities, especially blacks and now Hispanics, who have accounted for 28 percent and 34 percent of deaths, respectively (population representation: 22 percent and 29 percent, respectively).”
Why the SCAN data shows minorities and old people less concerned about SARS-CoV-2 than younger, wealthier, white people is unexplained. So, too, the opposite.
Some experts on infectious disease have observed that SARS-CoV-2 acts almost like two different diseases in the way its attacks the young and the old differently. Dr. Robert Katz, the founding director of Yale University’s Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, caused a stir when he wrote an op-ed for the New York Times (NYT) suggesting the government recognize this oddity and act accordingly.
“Why does this matter?” he wrote.
“I am deeply concerned that the social, economic and public health consequences of this near total meltdown of normal life — schools and businesses closed, gatherings banned — will be long lasting and calamitous, possibly graver than the direct toll of the virus itself. The stock market will bounce back in time, but many businesses never will. The unemployment, impoverishment and despair likely to result will be public health scourges of the first order.”
How much Trump’s erratic behavior and the Trump Derangement Syndrome epidemic in the media is complicating a rational discussion of how to deal with the pandemic in the U.S. is worth its own study.
Whatever the case, protests against the lockdown have now broken out in parts of the country. Politico describes them as “right-wing anti-lockdown protests,” but not all of those questioning the lockdown are conservatives.
Trade-offs
Anchorage’s Donald Craig Mitchell – an attorney, author and old liberal who was deeply involved in the development and implementation of federal Native policy in Alaska, two weeks ago wrote an op-ed for the Anchorage Daily News (ADN) that thoughtfully laid out a case for largely ignoring the projected deaths among elders and saving the economy for younger Americans.
“After weighing the pros and cons, my view is that a national lock-down whose objective is to reduce the number of mostly Boomers who may die to a number below the 2.2 million the researchers at Imperial College have estimated is not worth the economic, and attendant social, damage that a lock-down will inflict on everyone else,” he concluded. “And I get to say that because I am a 73-year-old Boomer who until three weeks ago had been planning on living for another ten or twenty years.”
Mitchell’s view appears to reflect that of some number of other Boomers. His column did not run in the ADN, though Mitchell has been one of the newspaper’s featured writers.
Mitchell does not expect it to be published. His queries as to what happened to the piece have gone largely ignored. The state’s largest newspaper is not a media outlet noted for challenging journalistic orthodoxy, or any other orthodoxy for that matter.
And Mitchell’s Grandpa’s-gotta-die-sometime take on the prevailing fear of the day is undeniably blunt, as is his assessment of the economic crisis facing the country and the world.
“There are 128 million households in the United States. A recent survey the Federal Reserve conducted revealed that 20 percent of those households have less than $400 on hand, and another 20 percent would have to struggle to pay an unexpected $400 bill,” he wrote.
“On average there are 2.6 individuals in a household. If you do the math, there are 133 million Americans who live pay-check to pay-check. And there undoubtedly actually are tens of millions more.”
For some of those with financial means – as well as for those wrapped in the arms of what have become economically protective American bureaucracies – the pandemic has become an extended spring break.
For others – those with pitiful little cash on hand – the lockdown is quickly becoming a financial disaster.
Mitchell’s April 10 take on the issue is reprinted below. One significant correction is in order since it was written. The pandemic model created by the Imperial College of London that projected 2.2 million American deaths has been revised in part because of social distancing, which slows the spread of the disease, and shifts in the infection fatality rate, which indicate more people than once thought are getting sick and recovering, or being infected without ever suffering symptoms.
Other models produce different numbers, but all are well below the earlier forecast of millions dead. For comparison sake, a total of approximately 2.8 million people die in the U.S. in a normal year.
What should be done
By Donald Craig Mitchell
“Iatrogenic” is a medical term that means an illness that has been caused by treatment. For example, when doctors vaccinate children against polio they know the vaccine will give one in every 2.4 million children the disease.
But preventing millions of children from being crippled is worth making one terribly unlucky child sick. But what if rather than one child the vaccine gave a thousand children polio? Or a hundred thousand? Or a million? At what point is the harm an iatrogenic illness causes not worth the benefit derived from the treatment?
That can be a difficult question for the medical profession to answer. The same can be said when considering the national response to the coronavirus pandemic that is disrupting day-today life in America in ways that a month ago would have been unimaginable.
According to a study by researchers at Imperial College in London whose findings finally belatedly got the attention of Donald Trump, by the time the pandemic abates 81 percent of all men, women, and children in the United States will have been infected. Of that number, 4.4 percent will need to be hospitalized, and 2.2 million of those who are hospitalized may die, most, but by no means all, of whom will be Boomers sixty years of age or older, many of whom have an underlying medical condition such as emphysema, cancer, or heart disease.
The researchers at Imperial College also said nothing can be done to reduce the number of deaths except to try to “flatten the curve” by suppressing the rate of infection so that the finite medical resources that are available can be used as efficiently as possible.
But to be effective suppression needs to last until a vaccine is available, which may be as long as eighteen months from now. If it does not the rate of infection soon will return to what it was before the actions to flatten the curve were initiated.
In recognition of that reality, California Governor Gavin Newsom has issued an executive order that mandates that all forty million residents of the nation’s most populous state “stay home or at their place of residence,” not for thirty or sixty days, but “until further notice.”
But the Imperial College study concludes by noting that, while “suppression is the only viable strategy at the current time,” it is “not at all certain that suppression will succeed long term” because “no public health intervention with such disruptive effects on society has been previously attempted for such a long duration of time.”
Insofar as those disruptive effects are concerned, there are 128 million households in the United States. A recent survey the Federal Reserve conducted revealed that 20 percent of those households have less than $400 on hand, and another 20 percent would have to struggle to pay an unexpected $400 bill.
On average there are 2.6 individuals in a household. If you do the math, there are 133 million Americans who live pay-check to pay-check. And there undoubtedly actually are tens of millions more.
Insofar as their collective fate is concerned, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis now estimates that by the end of June as many as 47 million Americans will be unemployed. If they are that will be an unemployment rate of 31.1 percent.
By comparison, during the worst of the Great Depression the unemployment rate was 25 percent. The social consequences of massive unemployment are potentially dire. The Los Angeles Times has reported that “gun sales are surging in many U.S. states, especially in those hit hardest by the coronavirus.”
And Francis Suarez, the mayor of Miami, has expressed fear that the social order in his city could deteriorate to the point of becoming “apocalyptic” because “people get pretty desperate when they don’t have some of the basics.”
Doctors Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, the most knowledgeable and trusted members of the White House corona virus task force, have said that if the entire nation is locked down like Governor Newsom has locked down California, and if the lock-down continues until a vaccine is available, rather than 2.2 million, 100,000 to 240,000 Americans still are going to die.
After weighing the pros and cons, my view is that a national lock-down whose objective is to reduce the number of mostly Boomers who may die to a number below the 2.2 million the researchers at Imperial College have estimated is not worth the economic, and attendant social, damage that a lock-down will inflict on everyone else. And I get to say that because I am a seventy-three-year-old Boomer who until three weeks ago had been planning on living for another ten or twenty years.
On March 22 Donald Trump, who undoubtedly has never heard of iatrogenic disease and knows nothing about the ethically difficult choices it can present for the medical profession, reasoned to the same conclusion and then tweeted: “We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.”
But then in a meeting in the Oval Office Doctors Fauci and Birx persuaded him to reverse course and recommend that the nation stay locked down and that the economy remain shut down until April 30. But then a day later he obfuscated the April 30 date by vouching that by June 1, rather than May 1, “we will be well on our way to recovery” and “a lot of great things will be happening.”
I hope that by June 1 great things are happening. But I have no expectation they will be. Which is why it is not just regrettable but profoundly tragic that three weeks ago the president of the United States was not willing to level with the American people by telling them: “Over the next eighteen months more than two million mostly Boomers who get infected with the coronavirus may die before they otherwise would have. I am sorry about that. Watching that happen is going to be awful. We will do absolutely everything we reasonably can to help them, but that is what is going to happen.
So while Boomers and individuals who have an underlying medical condition should stay home and keep their social distance until the coronavirus pandemic runs its course, everyone else needs to continue living their regular lives, which are organized around going to work and spending money and running up debt on their credit cards to buy stuff much of which they really don’t need in order to keep the consumer-driven economy on which we all depend up and running.
If that sounds cynical and lacking in empathy it is not. What it is is realistic. Because as George Friedman, one of America’s most respected geopolitical forecasters, has concluded:
“Canceling social life for months is likely the path for defeating the virus. But it cuts against not only the economy but, even more, what it means to be human. Social distancing is another way to say that we should halt the most human of activities in order to suppress death. But humans play with death in all sorts of contexts, because it is social and necessary.”
If you do not agree with George Friedman and me that’s fine. Because at this extraordinary moment in world history every American gets to decide for him and herself what the right thing to do is. But you owe it to your children and grandchildren, your neighbors, and your nation to think through why you have decided
Categories: Commentary
Open Alaska
(Sung to “Take Me Out To The Ball Game”)
Let’s go get the Corona,
Let’s go gasping for air;
We will infect our neighbors and friends
A round of sickness that just never ends…
Let me hack and cough on my family,
If they fall dead it’s a shame…
For it’s one, two, three breaths they’re out
And you’re all to blame.
Frank Baker
April 2020
But Frank, they aren’t falling dead anymore than they would be from the flu. That is the problem.
Let me ask you this, what are they going to do next November or 2 years from Now?
Play ball…
This ought to get a few more conspiracy theories going…the CDC was sending out covid tests that “were contaminated with the coronavirus” because of problems like “researchers entering and exiting the coronavirus laboratories without changing their coats, to test ingredients being assembled in the same room where researchers were working on positive coronavirus samples”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/us/coronavirus-live-news.amp.html
Wait, there’s more this time from the UK…
“Testing kits which were headed to the UK have been found to be contaminated with coronavirus.” https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/world/coronavirus-testing-kits-heading-to-the-uk-found-to-be-contaminated-with-covid-19/ar-BB11YhSx
Canada had a bunch of tests contaminated by “mould” https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/04/10/ontario-received-100000-contaminated-unusable-swabs-for-covid-19-tests.html
WA University just sent some test back because of some other contamination.
The list goes on and on.
Steve O,
Sounds like there is no conspiracy to it…quite possibly many people who sought the test were contaminated with the virus from the “swab”.
I knew from a young age not to stick any foreign objects up my nose…no matter what the government talking heads think is best.
Steve-O, I hate to do it, but I am going to add a little to the conspiracy theories:
1. China fueled virus panic in America through the media and social media.
2. DJI Drones being used by the police to monitor social distancing are Chinese.
3. Our 5G equipment is all made and designed in China. China is the 5G leader. Pentagon 5G network? Hmmm.
This in itself should cause pause.
Earlier this week, Pennsylvania started to include “probable deaths” in its fatalities. As a result, the total number of coronavirus deaths grew by 276, then 360, in successive nights, almost doubling the number of deaths in the state in two days. The Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) subsequently removed 200 deaths from its count after facing mounting questions about the accuracy of the count.
Bryan, speaking of “probable deaths” New York just added almost 6000 to their official count.
There is something I have read nothing about yet. And that is – what is the cost of dying of COVID-19? Say you have insurance. Or you have assets/savings. And in your last days the hospital does what hospitals do … they milk you for all you are worth with high priced procedures. Even if they are pointless. What are hospitals billing COVID-19 patients? Is dying of COVID-19 worth $2 million to hospitals? What’s the cost of use of a ventilator? $10,000 an hour?
The medical industry surely doesn’t want a cure for cancer. There is too much money to be made on “treating” people that are dying of cancer. So how could it be any different with COVID-19? Hospitals know they can make a lot of money by slowly killing people with coronavirus. It’s got to be a gold mine for them. And of course they want to “flatten the curve”. That means they won’t drive away any high-paying customer due to capacity limits.
It’s probably too early. But eventually reports of insurance bills for COVID-19 hospital time will emerge. And I bet the amounts charged will be astounding and obscene.
Lots of good thinkers here at Camp Medred…
Sites like these (outside of the Mark Zuckerberg fake book monopoly) are important now more than ever.
For some reason ADN has blocked all comments on Covid during the “plannedemic”?
I keep hearing over and over on the radio that Covid 19 is to blame for all the economic hardships and folks out of work..this is not true.
Most of the hardships Americans are now currently facing were directly caused by our government’s response to the threat…aka the mandated “Lockdown”.
Most states have not seen a true spike in the number of citizens who died last month.
Alaska is a prime example…less than 10 people died in AK with the Covid footstamp and 60,000 are unemployed?
How many other Alaskans died last month?
How many suicides during the lockdown?
We have been down this road before in America with a failing government…a revolutionary war, a civil war, a great depression and many significant economic “recessions”.
This current “beta test” from the Globalists is far from over….our privacy, civil liberties and savings accounts are all on the chopping block.
Stay focused, speak up and stand up for your rights…once they are gone they rarely return.
There may be a day soon when it is no longer safe to carry a cellphone around with you as this is the “transmitter” that will now analyze your every metric.
“Unlike traditional contact tracing, which tends to rely on human interviewers to ask subjects where they’ve been and who they’ve been in contact with, the Apple-Google initiative would use Bluetooth technology and location or proximity data to track people’s where abouts.”
https://www.foxnews.com/tech/aclu-says-google-apple-coronavirus-contact-tracing-effort-poses-significant-risk-to-privacy-civil-liberties
Judge Nap on Fox:
“Napolitano pointed out that Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s stay-at-home orders are “made-up laws.”
“The only laws that we have to obey and the only laws for which we can be punished for not obeying are those enacted by the legislature,” he added.
“The bad news is that the police are not in a position to distinguish. The good news is once these cases are tried when the pandemic is over, there isn’t a judge in the country who is going to recognize the power of the governor or a mayor to make up a law off the top of his head, to make up a punishment off the top of his head requiring people to comply with it. “
Bryan,
I would say the police are in a position to distinguish and are beginning to step out…
“The sheriff of a Washington county that was home to the first documented coronavirus case in the U.S. lashed out at Gov. Jay Inslee (D) this week, saying his office is refusing to enforce the governor’s stay-at-home order…
Snohomish County Sheriff Adam Fortney shared a Facebook post on Tuesday in which he accused Inslee of having “no plan” and “no details” amid the ongoing pandemic.”
(Thehill.com)
The bad news is that once law enforcement begins to say they will not follow government mandates we are now entering into the relm of “revolution”.
I know this topic may stress some out but the history on this is clear.
When military and police refuse unjust laws or actions from elected officials…this is a type of “revolution” by definition.
Remember when the National Guard refused Berkowitz’s request for 24hr patrols in the city?
Many officers and soldiers feel the lockdown is pure bullshit and at least one car in the Anchorage protest had an Army sticker on it?
I have been reading about our trajectory on this arc for years…we are seeing the same type of collapse that began in Yugoslavia in the 90’s.
Basically we go from a first world economy down to a third over night.
Republicans and Democrats are requesting more and more money…some for small businesses, some for large corporations and a tiny fraction for the people.
The problem is thatvhyperinflation will take hold as more and more unearned money enters the economy…that cart of groceries will double in price overnight.
I was always looking out for fascism coming in the front door, but never thought it may sweep around the back.
Looking at women like Gretchen Whitman and Jacinda Ardern (from New Zealand)…along with many of the state “health czars” across America, I would now say that feminism was the beginning of the type of fascism that has taken hold in the world today.
P.S. remember when Jacinda Ardern just disarmed a majority of New Zealand last year?
None of what is occurring is “coincidental” these days!
While I am not a big fan of the “Judge”, he does bring up an obvious point everybody seems to be overlooking:
“Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano said on Tuesday that stay-at-home orders from governors across the U.S. are unconstitutional because creating laws is a power delegated solely to legislatures
“The government has to recognize that the rights that are in the Constitution still exist in bad times as well as in good and it has to treat people equally,” Napolitano told “Fox & Friends.”
“If you can get in a line of cars to buy a cheeseburger at McDonald’s, you can get in a line of cars to express your opinion about the government.”
Of course I read the article and found it informative and interesting. I read Medred every day without fail, and have done so for decades. I’m also sure that as a professional journalist he takes pride in his mastery of the language and strives to use proper grammar. Everyone makes mistakes, and most journalists, I’d assume, would like to correct them, especially when made in the headlines.
Is it just me or does anyone else get pissed off to hear working folks called “non-essential”? I may be a working class redneck but I was taught to respect working people. The central planners may start missing the tax revenues generated by the ones they call “non-essential”. It’s chilling in a 1939 way to hear leaders use that term.
They actually have found a way to even divide the working class here in a way, making some feel more important than others, and the remainder unimportant.
You should of held strong Craig…. never let em break you.
Alaskans First: No Sir, I meant the remark to be taken literally, and nothing but compliments to the author. A reader who would assume the author’s ignorance might not read on, and would miss out on an excellent article. Mr Schmidt was kindly and respectfully trying to help. Combative people, Sir, are the reason we have wars and murder and black eyes and mayhem. Not a ‘glaring’ error then. A subtle typo if you will, or, if you won’t, then I love the original title “Whose afraid” even better than my birthday.
Y Cooper. Fair enough. I accept what you said without question. Thanks for clearing it up. Onward!
The natives are restless today…
Dave , you are awesome. Best humor ever . Your scalp and teeth would look great hanging on my ponies mane . Wanna come to a feast tonight 😉
DPR,
We’re in uncharted waters,either direction probably leads to pain.
Hopefully we feel our way forward,stubbed toes and all.
Dave , heres where you are wrong. These are very charted waters . We moved away from tyranny in 1776 , and weve been dealing with disease and economics for thousands of years . History is our guide . The way forward is clear . Follow science and liberty. Personal responsibility and choice must be the path . Anything less is a step backwards. Real plagues have close to roughly 50% death rate . This glorified pandemic barely registers on the disease scale. .002 up-to 2 out of a hundred infected Irrational Fear is the issue at hand for us now and how we are being led around by our lizard brains. ( flight response) Dont fall for being pushed into irrational decisions. We dont need surveillance, big government or bail outs . We need government out of tge way as much as possible. A constitutional based government is plenty. No sense in giving them any extra power.
DPR,
Alright buckaroo, whens the last time you lived thru a global pandemic, that literally threw the training wheels off the cart….
thats what I thought….
And no,we haven’t been dealing with pandemics for thousands of years, think through the statement.I know what your saying, but words do matter.
Best of luck,I suspect we haven’t hit max pain yet, but we’ll know when we get there.
When sh*t hits the fan,I tend to turn to life metaphors,for me its always living/working on the ocean.Even though I haven’t slept in a forepeak or aft cabin since ’01.Things tend to happen in waves, you can anticipate where your going to be, but you never really know where your are till the deck starts yawing or listing.
Dave , i feel sorry for you . Yes words do matter . I never said we have been dealing with pandemics for thousands of years . You made that up . Though it is likely we have . I said weve been dealing with disease and economics for thousands of years. Which is the case . Large difference. Theres lots of history to be studied before you were even born. My moma always said never make fun of things people can’t change and im starting to suspect your brain needs some assistance. Im using kid gloves on you .
This example of -bailout create money situation -could very well be a final match to the dollar . Creating some form of global currency. The globalists wet dresm . Rebalancing power away from rabble rousing inventive liberty espousing Americans . When America is financially Enslaved a bastion of freedom falls . Central planners and a one world government becomes more likely. The ultra smart globalists have worked out the pros and cons profit loss sheets and America must fall to accomplish their long term dream . Its time to pull the wool off your eyes and join together as Americans throwing asside the divisive concept of party and fight for the( liberty )of future generations. Resist Tyranny. Resist globalists fear mongering,Exercise free choice. Craig’s science based logic and facts is true method of offense to stop the destruction of free thought and mistakes created by panic based decisions . Knowledge is power.
Living in fear of getting sick is no way to live. Don’t allow yourself to be scared into being a mask wearing germaphobe afraid to interact with other people.
I agree – cancel culture is shouting down any discussion of other options. Poverty kills too. 550 people unemployed per virus death seems like a high ratio. Slowly real and high quality data will leak out and people can assess their own situations. I’m a bit freaked out by the mainstream suggestions that liberty be suspended until we get jabbed with with a vaccine that does not exist yet. They talk like that as if it is a real option for unemployed people who need work now.
The virus is like a cancer, and the total economic shutdown is like chemo. We were killing the patient to try to save them based on when we thought it was wildly malignant and metastatic. Now that we know that to be false, we need to switch treatment methods.
I would just add that now that antibody tests/studies are emerging, the latest from New York suggesting that as many as 2.7 million (!!!) people have been previously infected, that the official theory up until this point has been proven false by orders of magnitude.
The easily lead “chicken little” types comprising the bulk of our society need to take a deep breath and ask themselves a question that is nearly brutal in it’s simplicity: if the science states that lock downs had no effect on the spread, then why are we still locked down at all?
Every man and woman in America should be asking this question. At the top of their lungs.
There are of course other, deeper and more pointed questions for the coolly cynical, but that one right there would be a good start.
Brian is right . Maybe his rhetoric is over the top but his message is true .to many items are adding up yo point to a possible extension of the coup effort against The united states by the Democratic party . Yes it’s unknown if this latest virus is an on purpose subversive attack. It could be a case of never let a crisis go to waste . Heres the connections i see that indicate a possible premeditated attack on trump and thus tge USA . Trump rocks tge world boat extremely . Wheres his weak spot ? Wheres his world wide allies weak spot ? The economy. The Globslists have had major angst at trump and his allies success. How do you stop their success? Total economic disruption. Worldwide. I dont think china caused this but maybe thrir in on it , it’s unlikely, mostly they are just capatalizing on it as would be predicted by a smart globalist , it was an accident in the chinese mind . I think the top bankers, investors and globalists thought this weak plague situation out . They are smart . They’ve had their plans and models in place for years . ( its a 9/11 hoax on a grand worldwide style) So heres some connections. Obama’s government which is bushes government which is rockfeller soros Rothschild government ( fact ) funded a lab in who han china for millions ( fact ) pulls some strings to have a lab modified virus “accidentally” released . The who director has direct connections with communists and Obama associates. Who down plays the dangers of the virus and suggests faulty methods to slow it down . Saying its not human transferable- dont stop international flights ect . ( fact) this creates worldwide spread . The globalists know trumps a buisness man and not an epidemiologist , you cant fight a virus like a politician and you cant make a desl with it (chink in armor) now the globalists want poir people as economic slaves , they want complete surveillance and control of mans finances. Only liberty for me and not thee. Heres where bill gates and the technocrats come in to assist the agenda and could have been predicted or planned. Bill gates shows his true colors by saying America should have treated the virus like china did .(perhaps the most un American statement i ever heard) turn neighbors against neighbors, destroying the economy, ultimate surveillance, a world currency, permanent suspension of civil rights, turn feds against ststes , counties against feds and states , destroy family stability, get people hooked on the next government bailout- stimulus- free money ect = beggars and the virus attacks snd kills the old who so happen to over represent trump voters . All this furthers tge enslavement of humanity and destroys American independence. I left a lot out for brevity . The facts point in tge direction of a coup on steroids and at a worldwide level. It couldn’t have been planned better. Maybe im wrong but looks unlikely. Fight back . Keep the liberty to make your own decisions and keep economic freedom. Without it we are are slaves. God or heroes save us if what i say is true . Remember never underestimate your enemy and our enemies are the most depraved humanity has seen .
DPR, I am going to go out on a limb and stick with the Chinese intentional release of the Wuhan Red Death virus. The Chinese in general look at Democrats as usual idiots and they are. The know they are coward, pajama boys by nature. They know they have no loyalty to their country and the Chinese have no respect for them. But, the Dems serve a purpose. They know Ellaine Chow, the Bidens, Kerry, Obama, universities, the media can be bought off to help with the fall of America. They know those Globalists will keep the Chinese $$$ supply chain open at the detriment to America. The Chinese are not “Globalist’s per say. They use the Globalist’s greed against them. Take Bernie, a Socialist, not the fluffy Sweden kind, but the worst kind, a SOVIET Socialist who almost got the Dem nod..
Who is to say the Chinese do not have a vaccine already stockpiled? My guess is they do. The Chinese know all about this virus and know it generally targets the elderly and the compromised. The “Party” spends hundreds of millions supporting the elderly and vulerable. To lose 40-60 million people they wouldnt even blink an eye. Hell, they were throwing elderly patients alive in the furnace a few weeks back.
Plus, they get to destroy world economies and profit from their fall.
We just added $5 trillion to our debt (sadly we couldnt do anything else, unlike like Obama who spent $trillion on welfare programs) with a snap of a finger. The world economies will suffer over $50 trillion in debt..
This my friends has a greater effect then a nuclear bomb without the mess.
Look around any college campus and see the youth of tomorrow. Dumber than before they went in. Better brush up on your Mandarin.
Bryan, you could be right . The Chinese have a horrific record . Almost nothing is beneath them apparently if it gives them a financial edge or a power edge . It seems almost to much though to think they released virus themselves on purpose. Especially as they were only in a financial bind and didn’t have their back to tge wall yet . The Chinese have high tolerance for financial and cultural pain so i find such a gruesome step by them unlikely as their odds of world financial domination was still fairly good . Plus Prestige fallout is enormous. I think it was either an accident and they and globalists / fake democrats are capitalizing on it or more likely the globalists pulled strings to get it into action/ rolling. The globalists backs were against the wall and only something like the corona virus will tip the power balance back in their favor and accomplish their long term goals that are being stymied/ waylaid by trump and what would have been his inevitable election. As well as a shift in world ideology towards national independence. The globalists did what it takes to win . Thats the rules they play by . For keeps . They not only defeat and destroy trump and his legacy but they destroy the integrity of his movement with fear and division/ chaos . The world was turning against them so they pulled out their hole card . A joker to be played as they desire. We have been masterminded into this situation. Keep your eye on the real power holders and its not tge chinese . Dont be fooled . China is just a temporary tool . The globalists are playing the long game . They are destroying America because we are an uncontrollable variable. Hard charging freedom lovers like trump and his followers pop up causing trouble. Globalists found an unaccountable army to do their work.
Bryan, it’s clearly a multi pronged attack on freedom of humanity and to accomplish globalists goals ,while using china as a perfect scapegoat. Perfect cover and deception. ( though the Chinese should still be held accountable for the mess they created )
Spport destroying the economy with the lowest black, Hispanic and female unemplyment numbers of record – check
Stuff Stimulus Bills full of money towards Ballot Harvesting and mail-in ballots to support voter fraud – check
Nope, I am more worried about Communist Democrats over this virus.
“An unjust law is no law at all”
– St Augustine
Last Fall, I read that over 50% of college graduates 35 and under were living with their parents and those employed were working minimum wage jobs. The lockdown is no inconvience for them and $600/week unemployment is a substancial raise.
I know of three instances among my peer group having their kids move back home – the good sort of kids that were independent until their employers had to send them home.
People who vote for Democrats on average get revenue from the public sector more than Republicans. It is the reverse for the private sector. Of course there are plenty of exceptions on both sides but those averages explain pretty much everything.
Democrats, like Cuomo, see the shutdown as a unique opportunity to take control of the country permanently – so why take your foot off the throat of the private sector? They are going to try to finish the job. Voting by mail will guarantee that Republicans never recover.
Thanks for publishing DCM. Even though he was made during WW2, his mind is still weapons-grade.
Typo.
I believe that a grammar check is in order here. The correct title of the article should be “Who’s Afraid?” since it is asking the question “Who is afraid?”, and so the use of the contraction “who’s” is in order.
Maybe he is actually asking whose afraid it is purposely. Some people may possess afraid, may want to claim it, and therefore Craig is being polite as to offer a chance for the lost to find their degree of afraid and own it, as a possession out of the proverbial lost and found bin behind the counter. Is it simply a typo, or a word play for the homophones at heart.
Hey Scott. Great comment! Very insightful and right on point. It really adds to the discussion.
Alaskans First: Mr Schmidt was helping to fix a glaring error. God forbid anyone assumes the author ignorant, which of course we know better. Read on beyond the title, people, and stop kissing chickens!
Y Cooper. You call a typo a “glaring error” Really? Glaring? Are you serious? My response to Scott S was to emphasize that the title meant nothing compared to the content. Criticizing the author for a typo in the title without recognizing the content suggests Scott may not have even read what was said. I disregarded the title and focused on content. And it was very informative.
And exactly what did you mean when you wrote “ God forbid anyone assumes the author ignorant”? Was that a veiled insult? Do you think he is? Sounds like it. Why else would you say it that way. Another insightful comment. Huh?
AF: Scot just called out a typo. Craig appreciates typo corrections, sometimes he even replies a thanks to such posts. And look, the typo is fixed now.