https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/04/23/dhss-bill-bryan-on-what-kills-the-virus-on-surfaces.html

Amid the usual hoo-rah of today’s daily coronavirus task force briefing is a tidbit of information delivered by DHS’s Bill Bryan that looks like it may be the news of the day. A video clip of Bryan’s comments is at the link.

The substance of it is that the airborne virus survives better in indoor environments that are cool, dry and lack sunlight compared to outdoor environments that are warm, humid, and well lit by direct sunlight. The observation doesn’t amount to a prescription for coronavirus therapy, but it does call into question the stay-at-home, indoors, advice some policy makers have been promoting.

As always, skepticism is appropriate. Still, if you are like me, you might marvel at such a finding that perhaps God has a sense of humor. This would be science that even sun-worshipping pagans could get behind.

Regretably omitted from this clip is Carlson’s follow on segment with John Ioannidis of Stanford, who also expressed the view that our coronavirus public policy is substantially time-lagged behind our reliable scientific knowledge concerning the disease. That is to say, we are making public policy on the basis of bad data, guesswork and political opportunism (my words).

If you care about civil liberties and constitutional rights, this should be concerning to you. If you care about social justice, it should be concerning to you, as well (after all, real fascism has a disparate impact on the weakest among us).

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/22/there-is-no-empirical-evidence-for-these-lockdowns/

Tucker Carlson mentioned this study in his opening commentary last night, which I will post separately. The data set the author used is available upon request via a link in the article, for those of you who may be inclined to validate his findings.

Continue reading “sp!ked: There is no empirical evidence for these lockdowns” →

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/new-warning-covid-19-nothing-compared-to-emp-295-million-dead

Among the more irrational criticisms of the Trump administration is the claim that the pandemic threat was well-known, but little to nothing was done to prepare for it.

Continue reading “WE: New warning: COVID-19 nothing compared to EMP, 295M dead” →

One of the more remarkable things (to American ears, at any rate) Dr. Giesecke says in the video is that social distancing has not been the cause of observed declines in case mortality rates. Instead, he claims that “flattening the curve” has been caused by the dying off of the most vulnerable members of society.

That is a somewhat gruesome observation, but it makes sense. I continue to expect that as the true scientific picture of Covid-19 emerges, it will turn out to be a very different disease than the one we have been imagining.

http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/lockdown-socialism-will-collapse/

This link recommended by Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution.

I like the term Arnold Kling has coined, lockdown socialism, because I think it perfectly captures the mind set of many Americans who seem to want more government control of their lives on the premise that the pandemic is a really bad thing.

The same thing happened after 9/11. There was so much public demand for perfect safety from terrorists that government started patting down citizens and rifling through luggage in airports. We could do the same or similar for Covid-19, possibly, too, at the airports.

Link to source.

Personally, I wish the plan was more aggressive, but I don’t pretend to know how to make it so. As always in our times the science is insufficient to the task at hand.

As it is, the “slow-and-cautious” crowd should be very pleased. So should those who want a definitive sense of direction. I expect the compulsive anti-Trumpers will find something to complain about; Joe Biden, for example, has already expressed his disdain.

But all in all, we needed a plan and now we have one. Next pandemic, let’s start by dismantling the CDC and FDA.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/heres-how-monitor-status-your-federal-stimulus-check

I tried to check it out, but the site is experiencing “high demand.” YMMV.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/nyu-scientists-largest-u-s-study-of-covid-19-finds-obesity-the-single-biggest-factor-in-new-york-critical-cases/

Wouldn’t it be funny (strange) if it turns out our social/political overreaction to Covid-19 was based not on a threat to all of us, but to just a few of us? The article doesn’t say that, exactly. But it does tell us something useful about the virus that science is just beginning to confirm.

Link to source.

Six doctors share their thoughts on ending the lockdowns.

I expect Dr.s Fauci and Birx will persist in wanting more medical surveilance of the citizenry, but even that, it seems to me, is losing its aura of urgency.