[Formerly Matt Drudge Report] If you’re out and about today, Ole and Lena’s Fuel Depot, in Wautoma, is selling regular unleaded gasoline for 89 cents a gallon and midgrade for 86 cents, cash prices, according to Gasbuddy.com. The price is as low as 91 cents in other parts of the state, like Baraboo.
In the Milwaukee area, prices are ranging from 99 cents to $1.29 per gallon for regular unleaded, GasBuddy says.
#7
It's important to not give them clicks. Getting ready to write a plug in that will inform you if you are about to give a click to a site you put on a black list.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/18/2020 9:14 Comments ||
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#8
And not only did Drudge's tone change, the site became just another Yahoo with nothing but click bait rubbish.
#13
#10 Yes I visit that site as well and The Liberty Daily. Steve Turley has been an uplifting conservative site as well. Over a year I have avoided Drudge.
[Red State] In mid-March, President Trump announced his 15-day plan to shut down the economy. His administration’s hope was that we could "flatten the curve" and "slow the spread" of COVID-19. Toward the end of that period, the situation was reassessed and the decision was made to extend the shutdown until the end of April. By now, most cities and regions of the US, including New York State, the epicenter of the pandemic, have managed to achieve this milestone and Americans, currently ending our fifth week of the quarantine, are growing restless.
The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel writes, "The goal of the shutdown was never to eradicate the disease—an impossibility absent a vaccine. The lockdown was designed to buy the health sector time, to make sure all the cases didn’t hit at once in a crush that would overwhelm hospitals, à la Italy."
Politico reports that, according to comments House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made during a two hour conference call with her caucus this week, her conditions for ending the shutdown have changed. She said that "Trump was putting Americans in grave danger if he rushes to reopen the economy at the end of this month." The Politico story said, "Until a robust testing and contact tracing system is in place, [Pelosi believes] it would be impossible for the president to guarantee Americans a safe reentry into their normal life."
Knowing that the longer the lockdown remains in effect, the deeper and more prolonged the recession will be, Democrats would like to see it continue for as long as possible. They are acutely aware that a slow economy will hurt the President’s chances of reelection.
Strassel writes:
By these standards, no lockdown may end until the Trump administration can "guarantee" a "safe" world in which people return to "normal." The feds must stand up a testing system capable of hunting down and snuffing out each new infection. There can be no more outbreaks, and reopening cannot "significantly add" to existing counts (and the press reserves the authority to define "significantly.") The unsaid corollary is that Mr. Trump will be held politically responsible for reopening in any way that fails to meet these baselines—on the hook for each subsequent death.
Politico reports that House Democrats are working on their "own plan to reopen the nation" which will "require adequate testing and contact tracing to prevent a second outbreak." They will ask "each state to submit a plan.
#1
"Stretch" never ceases to amaze. But, the Dems were always jealous of the robust economy even before COVID-19 and were hoping the economy would go south, again, invoking Trump Derangement Syndrome.
#2
Several days ago, the wife's newspaper said, in a front-page article, 'as soon as the deaths stop, we can begin to think about re-opening the economy'.
That's the only reason I scan her paper - to look for such gems.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/18/2020 12:28 Comments ||
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#3
Fauci pretty much said that all activity in the US should stop in perpetuity until the deaths stop. How absurd.
What’s missing from the White House reopening plan—and what is urgently required—is management of expectations. The administration needs to keep reminding the country of the original mission—to flatten the curve. And it needs to define quickly its own measure of success
#6
The deaths are the price of gerbilization. Say it at every press conference. Tell people the deaths will continue but the living can't stop for the dead. Garnish Gates and Soros money and use it to unwind their sick dream. Take Kochs money too.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/18/2020 16:30 Comments ||
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#7
White house needs to remind folks that flattening the curve means extending the end date so that we have fewer folks in the hospital at the same time. It does not mean ending the virus.
There will be additional spikes as they open the economy and the left will turn each into Trump's failure and the end of the world.
[Roanoke Times] A walk a day may keep the coronavirus away, or at least keep it from killing you.
A University of Virginia researcher who studies the protective effects of exercise said Wednesday that endurance exercises — running, brisk walking, swimming, jumping — prompt our muscles to make an antioxidant that travels through the blood to our hearts, lungs and kidneys.
It then binds to organs, awaiting intruders.
"I use an analogy they are like a Patriot missile stationed somewhere, waiting to defend," said Zhen Yan, a professor in UVa’s departments of medicine, pharmacology, and molecular physiology and biological physics.
Yan said his research shows these antioxidants — known as extracellular superoxide dismutase, or EcSOD (pronounced by saying each letter) — can be transferred from a mouse genetically engineered to produce an abundance of the protein into a normal mouse, which can then withstand acute respiratory distress syndrome, a leading factor in COVID-19 deaths.
"Exercise capacity is inversely related with all kinds of mortality. So if you can exercise better, run faster, jump higher, lift more weight, you are less likely to die. That is the best predictor for mortality, including, I think, COVID-19," he said. "run faster, jump higher" = get a pair of P.F. Flyers
Yan is developing two different ways of getting more EcSOD antioxidants into people — one is through developing a medication, and the other is by extracting it from one person’s blood and sharing it with another.
While these take time to develop and test, Yan said anyone can start today to build their own supply of antioxidants.
They just need to get moving and stimulate their muscles to produce it.
"At the gene level, a single bout of exercise, like you go running today, will start to stimulate the expression of this gene. It’s like taking medicine. One dose of medicine doesn’t mean you get enough protection," he said. "I would say it takes a few weeks to gear up this and get to the level that you can get a benefit from this."
Yan is talking about any aerobic exercise that is equivalent to about a 30-minute run. He also recommends weight-lifting exercise, not because it produces EcSOD but because it helps to maintain and build muscle mass.
#2
I've been jogging some to try to avoid gaining too much weight during the lockdown. One thing I can tell you is that you don't want a mask between you and the air when you're jogging.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/18/2020 13:02 Comments ||
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#3
My wife goes out with her walker every other day..she does 3-4 blocks. When it was raining she walked in place inside the house...
She misses her rehab facility which is shut down...
[Politico] ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Africa was supposed to be China’s new stomping grounds. Instead, the novel coronavirus has spawned a growing backlash that threatens to unwind the ties Beijing has carefully cultivated over decades.
The trigger for the burgeoning diplomatic crisis: Anger over the treatment of African citizens living in China and frustration at Beijing’s position on granting debt relief to fight against the outbreak.
China has spent untold billions in Africa since its emergence as a global power, investing in its natural resources, underwriting massive infrastructure projects and wooing its leaders. The campaign has bought China friends and allies in multilateral institutions such as the United Nations and the World Health Organization, undermining the West’s once-reliable lock on the postwar world order while fueling its economy back home.
But that decadeslong quest for influence in Africa was gravely challenged last week when a group of disgruntled African ambassadors in Beijing wrote to Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi to complain that citizens from Togo, Nigeria and Benin living in Guangzhou, southern China, were evicted from their homes and made to undergo obligatory testing for Covid-19.
"In some cases, the men were pulled out of their families and quarantined in hotels alone," the note, seen by POLITICO, said.
The incident, which caused widespread discontent both within Africa and among the diaspora after videos posted on social media showed people of African descent being evicted from their homes, resulting in a rare diplomatic showdown between Chinese and African officials.
#8
It's been said that the only difference with the Chinese and the Europeans is that the Chinese did it without their military. It was all done with filthy lucre.
#10
The US should join them or just start the trend.
Well, it's a bad idea to rubbish our Treasury notes. As the chinks need cash they have to sell them, we can make sure it's at a painful discount. And then we can stop letting them buy more. It will hurt our politicians spend spend spend asses, but that's coming anyway.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/18/2020 16:15 Comments ||
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Sorry, guys — you missed your moment. In other words: NO.
[Breitbart] Executives with the George W. Bush Presidential Center say more globalization of the American economy is the answer to the Chinese coronavirus crisis, not the problem.
In an op-ed published in Real Clear World, Managing Director of the George W. Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative Matthew Rooney writes that the policies of free trade, mass immigration, and globalization must be embraced further by the U.S. after the crisis is over.
Economic nationalism, Rooney writes, must be rejected:
As COVID-19 spreads and stresses healthcare infrastructure around the world, governments and civil society are racing to slow the pandemic by distancing people from one another. Meanwhile, in the United States and in other developed countries, there is a rising chorus of voices who argue that we must deglobalize, dismantle international supply chains, reduce international trade and travel, and close our borders to the world. [Emphasis added]
The danger of a pandemic did not arise because of globalization. Pandemics have appeared periodically throughout history. Deglobalizing will not protect us from pandemics in the future. On the contrary, we will ultimately come to see that global cooperation is key to responding successfully to pandemics. [Emphasis added]
Obviously, in the ongoing crisis, our top priority must be the health and safety of our families, our neighbors, and our national community. We must be prepared to do what it takes to "flatten the curve" of infection, and to spend what it takes to prevent economic collapse. But when the crisis is over, and we have defeated the virus and people are back at work and we are all able to go out for dinner again, we must be ready to come together around a new strategy for globalization that secures its benefits and cures its ills. It will take American leadership and political will, but we know what needs to be done and have successfully met greater challenges in the past. [Emphasis added]
Globalization of the American economy — forged by the Bush presidencies, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama — has had a crippling impact on working- and middle-class Americans for decades and has been exacerbated during the coronavirus crisis.
Since 2001, free trade with China has cost millions of Americans their jobs. For example, the Economic Policy Institute has found that from 2001 to 2015, about 3.4 million U.S. jobs were lost due to the nation’s trade deficit with China.
Of the 3.4 million U.S. jobs lost in that time period, about 2.6 million were lost in the manufacturing industry, making up about three-fourths of the loss of jobs from the U.S.-Chinese trade deficit. Research has revealed that American towns that had their manufacturing bases gutted have been hit hardest with rampant drug addition during the opioid crisis.
#1
Gerbilism is near death. Hopefully urbanism will occupy the next grave over.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/18/2020 2:19 Comments ||
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#2
I suppose there are trade-offs. Do Americans want cheaper products or more expensive ones? What's the average Chinese worker make compared to [unionized] workers here? Do regulations serve as an obstacle? Tax code? Lots of questions.
#3
Buy less. Buy better stuff. I'm no union fan, but slave labor doesn't tickle me either. Taxes suck but better it is collected and spent here than there.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/18/2020 6:47 Comments ||
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#4
And watch the portfolios of those fat cats expand.
I voted for Bush because of the choices but man he has turned into a real asshole on this stuff.
I figure Pope Frank is all on board with this.
What, exactly, is this problem that will be solved by turning most of America into a 3rd world shit-hole while the Bushes, Clintons, Obamas and their rich friends get richer and more powerful?
I expect to hear these scum suckers coming out in favor of the UN income tax any day now.
#5
In Washington, Mr. Rooney was on loan to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to create a high-level private sector advisory body for the Summits of the Americas, working closely with the U.S. private sector and with companies and business associations from throughout the Americas to negotiate an agenda to promote economic integration in the region. Previously, he was Deputy Assistant Secretary responsible for relations with Canada and Mexico and for regional economic policy.
Get the picture?
#6
And that is just another example of these statists (Bush, Clinton, Obama) being two sides of the same coin. They can GTFOH and ram that UN tax up their respective culos.
#7
Globalism has pushed us towards cheaper, disposable, products. The Environmentalists should be pissed about it. But they were never serious anyway.environmentalism was always a scam to sugar-coat communism anyway.
#8
I've got nothing inherently against "globalism" from an economic standpoint. I'm all for the free flow of goods and services. But, we do not have a free market (remember NAFTA and its hundreds and hundreds of pages?), and that is one of the problems.
The US, IMO, has a screwed up tax code a constantly changing one, especially depending on who rules Capitol Hill. I should think it is tough for businesses to make long-range plans when they never know what the next Congress might pull.
#11
Globalism where all production concentrated in one, totalitarian, country?
And who's fault is that? And, if they can do it cheaper and better, then who cares? Some would argue that patents and copyrights are restraints to free trade. Without those, who knows how much cheaper products (to include pharmaceuticals) would be. It's no wonder Big Pharma fights like trapped rats over patent protection and hate generics (like HCQ).
And why does the US treat Cuba so differently if PRC is so totalitarian? (Well, Chinese can travel, there is that.)
#12
And, if they can do it cheaper and better, then who cares?
As long as everyone plays nice, it's all groovy! But as soon as someone decides to use their sole supplier status of $SOMETHING_IMPORTANT as leverage, then it sucks to be you.
#16
Enough of the Bushes and the Clintons. Two sides of the same bad penny.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/18/2020 13:37 Comments ||
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#17
Obviously, in the ongoing crisis, our top priority must be the health and safety of our families, our neighbors, and our national community.
Nice throat-clearing.
But when the crisis is over, and we have defeated the virus and people are back at work and we are all able to go out for dinner again, we must be ready to come together around a new strategy for globalization that secures its benefits and cures its ills.
Translation: "Once the emergency has passed, let's go back to doing what caused the problem in the first place.God forbid we'd learn any actual lessons from this."
Followed by more throat-clearing about "a new strategy for globalization that secures its benefits and cures its ills."
#20
Ucky blue collar people. They buy guns and go to church. Have kids. Has to be stopped...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/18/2020 18:16 Comments ||
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#21
Well, since Barbara died, I think Georgie, Laura, the kids, a few cousins and Max Boot and Evan McMuffin still love the Boosh fambly...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/18/2020 18:20 Comments ||
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#22
a new strategy for globalization that secures its benefits and cures its ills."
Tell us more about the "cures its ills" part, Uncle Matthew. Globalization is all about flow. But not just goods, capital and labor. You also get crime, drugs, jihadis and the odd pandemic. People get all giddy over the good stuff - Woo Woo! We're making money! - and pretend the negatives don't exist. So by all means, let's talk about curing those ills.
[American Thinker] On April 10, an underground documentary with no publicity landed on YouTube and amassed one million views in 24 hours. Despite YouTube’s efforts to hide it, Out of Shadows continues to attract more than a million viewers a day, lifting the mask “on how the mainstream media and Hollywood manipulate and control the masses by spreading propaganda throughout their content.”
“Why do you believe what you believe?” asks Mike Smith, a former star stuntman for Hollywood action films, who produced and self-funded the film. Mike tells the story of how he began delving into the messages of the high-budget films he worked on, after an injury sidelined him. To his shock, he discovered that “we have all been lied to and brainwashed by a hidden enemy with a sinister agenda.”
Mike’s investigation revealed a host of CIA programs he sees as designed to control the public’s beliefs and deflect attention from massive governmental crimes. With the help of Kevin Shipp, a CIA whistleblower, and fellow star stuntman Brad Martin, Mike leads viewers through a labyrinth of horrifying CIA programs that wage psyops (psychological operations) against the American people.
These programs date back to World War II, when the CIA’s precursor injected fake stories into a compliant press. Operation Mockingbird continues today, according to Shipp. Its task of controlling what the public thinks is now easier, thanks to the media’s consolidation into six mega-corporations. After the war, the CIA’s Operation Paperclip brought top Nazi scientists to the United States. The story of Nazi missile scientists working for NASA is well-known. However, the public is unaware of the Nazi doctors who were paid by the CIA to conduct medical experiments on humans in the United States. These experiments led to Project MK-Ultra, a systematic method of torturing people (especially children) with the stated goal of “controlling an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will – and even against such fundamental laws of nature as self-preservation.”
On November 8, 2017, Air Force One touched down in Beijing, marking the start of a state visit hosted by China’s president and Communist Party chairman, Xi Jinping. From my first day on the job as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, China had been a top priority. The country figured prominently in what President Barack Obama had identified for his successor as the biggest immediate problem the new administration would face—what to do about North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. But many other questions about the nature and future of the relationship between China and the United States had also emerged, reflecting China’s fundamentally different perception of the world.
Since the heady days of Deng Xiaoping, in the late 1970s, the assumptions that had governed the American approach to our relationship with China were these: After being welcomed into the international political and economic order, China would play by the rules, open its markets, and privatize its economy. As the country became more prosperous, the Chinese government would respect the rights of its people and liberalize politically. But those assumptions were proving to be wrong.
China has become a threat because its leaders are promoting a closed, authoritarian model as an alternative to democratic governance and free-market economics. The Chinese Communist Party is not only strengthening an internal system that stifles human freedom and extends its authoritarian control; it is also exporting that model and leading the development of new rules and a new international order that would make the world less free and less safe. China’s effort to extend its influence is obvious in the militarization of man-made islands in the South China Sea and the deployment of military capabilities near Taiwan and in the East China Sea. But the integrated nature of the Chinese Communist Party’s military and economic strategies is what makes it particularly dangerous to the United States and other free and open societies.
#1
indicating that the U.S. role in the future global economy would merely be to provide China with raw materials, agricultural products, and energy to fuel its production of the world’s cutting-edge industrial and consumer products
China's problem: too many Confucian Legalists, too few Taoist monks.
[Townhall] We may not have a vaccine yet, but a new drug combating the symptoms of the Wuhan coronavirus disease has yielded excellent results. The company Gilead Sciences has developed a new anti-viral for severe COVID-19 patients that was tested on 125 people selected by The University of Chicago Medicine. Most of the patients were discharged, while two sadly passed away. We need all the good news we can get as the nation has undergone a lockdown to curb the spread. Some 29 states are either going to enter the initial phases of re-opening some aspects of their respective economies or are on the cusp of doing so. That’s good. Pharmaceutical companies are moving as quickly as possible to develop better testing and treatments for COVDI-19. This drug could be added into the arsenal as an effective stopgap until we have a proper vaccine (via Stat News):
Remdesivir was one of the first medicines identified as having the potential to impact SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19, in lab tests. The entire world has been waiting for results from Gilead’s clinical trials, and positive results would likely lead to fast approvals by the Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory agencies. If safe and effective, it could become the first approved treatment against the disease.
The University of Chicago Medicine recruited 125 people with Covid-19 into Gilead’s two Phase 3 clinical trials. Of those people, 113 had severe disease. All the patients have been treated with daily infusions of remdesivir.
"The best news is that most of our patients have already been discharged, which is great. We’ve only had two patients perish," said Kathleen Mullane, the University of Chicago infectious disease specialist overseeing the remdesivir studies for the hospital.
Her comments were made this week during a video discussion about the trial results with other University of Chicago faculty members. The discussion was recorded and STAT obtained a copy of the video.
The outcomes offer only a snapshot of remdesivir’s effectiveness. The same trials are being run concurrently at other institutions, and it’s impossible to determine the full study results with any certainty. Still, no other clinical data from the Gilead studies have been released to date, and excitement is high. Last month, President Trump touted the potential for remdesivir...
Another treatment being used in some places is the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine, which 6,000 doctors from over 30 countries ranked as the most effective against the virus. Sixty-five percent of US doctors said they would prescribe it to their family members if anyone contracted the Wuhan virus, with 67 percent saying they would take it themselves if infected. The preliminary Gilead data caused the Dow Jones to surge by almost 1,000 points today as well (via CNBC):
[UNZ] The Russia-Saudi oil-price war is a fabrication concocted by the media. There’s not a word of truth to any of it. Yes, there was a dust up at an OPEC meeting in early March that led to production increases and plunging prices. That part is true. But Saudi Arabia’s oil-dumping strategy wasn’t aimed at Russia, it was aimed at US shale oil producers.
But not for the reasons you’ve read about in the media.
The Saudis aren’t trying to destroy the US shale oil business. That’s another fiction. They just want US producers to play by the rules and pitch in when prices need support. That might seem like a stretch, but it’s true.
You see, US oil producers are not what-you'd-call "team players". They don't cooperate with foreign producers, they're not willing to share the costs of flagging demand, and they never lift a finger to support prices. US oil producers are the next-door-neighbor that parks his beat-up Plymouth on the front lawn and then surrounds it with rusty appliances. They don't care about anyone but themselves.
What Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman want is for US producers to share the pain of oil production cuts in order to stabilize prices. It's an entirely reasonable request....
#1
Yes, we're so awwwful that we won't play ball with all the state oil companies that have been trying to destroy us for the last fifty years.
The assholes who want absolute socialism use the fact that they haven't personally gotten absolute power yet as the excuse for waging a non-stop century-long war against the working class.
And they don't care that they've spent the last three and a half years issuing fevered rants and raves against the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and Putin, they're going to talk about how bad we are for not cooperating with them enough.
#2
Yes, we're so awwwful that we won't play ball with all the state oil companies that have been trying to destroy us for the last fifty years.
The assholes who want absolute socialism use the fact that they haven't personally gotten absolute power yet as the excuse for waging a non-stop century-long war against the working class.
And they don't care that they've spent the last three and a half years issuing fevered rants and raves against the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and Putin, they're going to talk about how bad we are for not cooperating with them enough.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/18/2020 10:55 Comments ||
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#4
Dunno what came over me. I wrote something a lot stronger, erased it, wrote the milquetoast thing without any reference to Cultural Revolution Cannibalism or Dignity Canals, and then it posted the milquetoast thing twice.
#5
No sympathy for any oil/energy company, US or otherwise. If they make poor investments or bank on oil being $xx per bbl, then tough titties, let them fail.
#6
Momma said, son, don't ever let me catch you trading in commodities. And especially don't EVER let me catch you trading oil futures...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/18/2020 14:48 Comments ||
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#7
The whole idea that everyone you don't like should have to go head-to-head against a foreign country's state-owned competitor, while you get to pretend you're a pure capitalist, is kinda-sorta how China was able to pull off this biological agent attack.
[Project Syndicate] - Does Sweden’s decision to spurn a national lockdown offer a distinct way to fight COVID-19 while maintaining an open society? The country’s unorthodox response to the coronavirus is popular at home and has won praise in some quarters abroad. But it also has contributed to one of the world’s highest COVID-19 death rates, exceeding that of the United States. Exceeding that of East Europe or Turkey
...let’s not turn causality on its head. The government did not consciously design a Swedish model for confronting the pandemic based on trust in the population’s ingrained sense of civic responsibility. Rather, actions were shaped by bureaucrats and then defended after the fact as a testament to Swedish virtue.
In practice, the core task of managing the outbreak fell to a single man: state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell at the National Institute of Public Health. Tegnell approached the crisis with his own set of strong convictions about the virus, believing that it would not spread from China, and later, that it would be enough to trace individual cases coming from abroad. Hence, the thousands of Swedish families returning from late-February skiing in the Italian Alps were strongly advised to return to work and school if not visibly sick, even if family members were infected. Tegnell argued that there were no signs of community transmission in Sweden, and therefore no need for more general mitigation measures. Despite Italy’s experience, Swedish ski resorts remained open for vacationing and partying Stockholmers. Lets hear some more complaints about Antony Fauci
...It should be noted, though, that the state epidemiologist’s policy choice has been strongly criticized by independent experts in Sweden. Some 22 of the country’s most prominent professors in infectious diseases and epidemiology published a commentary in Dagens Nyheter calling on Tegnell to resign and appealing to the government to take a different course of action.
By mid-March, and with wide community spread, Löfven was forced to take a more active role. Since then, the government has been playing catch-up. From March 29, it prohibited public gatherings of more than 50 people, down from 500, and added sanctions for noncompliance. Then, from April 1, it barred visits to nursing homes, after it had become clear that the virus had hit around half of Stockholm’s facilities for the elderly. Locking the barn after the horse is stolen.
...It is too soon for a full reckoning of the effects of the "Swedish model." The COVID-19 death rate is nine times higher than in Finland, nearly five times higher than in Norway, and more than twice as high as in Denmark. To some degree, the numbers might reflect Sweden’s much larger immigrant population, but the stark disparities with its Nordic neighbors are nonetheless striking. Denmark, Norway, and Finland all imposed rigid lockdown policies early on, with strong, active political leadership.
...Now that COVID-19 is running rampant through nursing homes and other communities, the Swedish government has had to backpedal. Others who may be tempted by the "Swedish model" should understand that a defining feature of it is a higher death toll. Lets do some arithmetic: Sweden has 10.3 million population and 13,216 infected. 1400 deaths and 550 recoveries. To get herd immunity one needs 60% immune (I'm being generous ), that is 6 million Swedes need to recover from Xi's Gift. Using the ratio of 1400/550 = 2.55, to get 6 million recovered, 6*2.55 = 15.3 million Swedes will have to die. Well, it is in a good cause.
#1
Funny how "we need to be more like Sweden" ain't makin' it these days.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/18/2020 4:03 Comments ||
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#2
Well there are Swedes (of many generations) and 'Swedes' not yet of one generation. So do we know exactly where the effect is in the 'general' population or like some stats, its significantly isolated in one group?
#4
Buried the lede: To some degree, the numbers might reflect Sweden’s much larger immigrant population, but the stark disparities with its Nordic neighbors are nonetheless striking.
"To some degree," "might" - giggle.
This is an economists' blog. So this economist can't be arsed to quantify that "degree" to which Sweden's extraordinarily large, in relative terms, Somali and other African and Near Eastern Muslim immigrant population accounts for the high death rate?
Of course he senses that this is the main reason for the disparity, but his PC blinders prevent him from investigating further.
Again: Sweden's COVID fatalities are overwhelmingly concentrated in certain districts of Stockholm, and generally, in the over-80 population.
The likely explanation is that Somalis and other non-natives or immigrants resident in Stockholm are unwisely, casually exposing the elders in their communities to the virus in ways -- "to a [large] degree," to coin a phrase -- that the majority Swedish population does not.
#5
But the IHME model, updated April 17, estimates 5,890 deaths in Sweden. Sweden has only 79 ICU beds, per the IHME data, leaving them short 1,104 beds. That suggests a lot of people are going to die because there won't be an intensive care unit for them. I trust their model includes the effects of the shortfall in ICU beds.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/18/2020 8:45 Comments ||
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#6
Actually, BigFoot, he says they're 25% of the population - the stats on casualties are NOT available. But it doesn't really matters. What does is
(a) Sweden has the worse medical outcomes in the world (keeping in mind, we don't have reliable data for China and Iran).
(b) If you look at data's (in worldometers) geographical breakdown, the virus left Stockholm and went into countryside.
p.s. Is there a detailed data for Minnesota - to control (as far as possible) for genetic factors?
#7
There is detailed data by Swedish region - though not unfortunately by sub-region or neighborhood/district. But the regional data give strong clues as to what's going on:
The Stockholm region has a fatality rate per infection that's more than twice the rate of the rest of Sweden: about 14% vs about 6%.
The Stockholm region has a fatality per population rate that is about 6x the rate for the rest of Sweden: about 1 in 2,000 vs vs about 1 in 12,000. Stockholm region has CA 20% of Sweden's population but accounts for ca. 60% of COVID fatalities.
Here's what's missing from the data but almost certainly true: apply the same ratios within the sub-components of the Stockholm region, and you will likely see the same pattern. It's more than highly probable that Stockholm's deaths are highly concentrated in a few districts which comprise outlier populations whose behaviors do not comport with Swedish norms.
This whole episode is, in the apt phrase of Stanford epidemiologist Dr. John Ioannidis, a "data fiasco." In the Swedish case, the fiasco is not on the part of the Swedish authorities but on the part of Sweden's critics, who show themselves incapable of spotting the elephant in the room.
#8
The way I understand it...
As long as you don't overwhelm your hospitals the number of dead should be the same no matter what you do
Many nations took worst case estimates and flattened the curve and extended the problem for months and are now finding out that we only risked overwhelming things in a few places at substantial cost to our economy. We could have transferred sick to other cities to avoid the stresses on NY and other areas but we didn't.
The Swedish strategy is to get it over with fast. They are cutting close to overwhelming the health care system. This means death numbers look bad now, but over time they should be roughly the same as other nations as long as they don't overwhelm the system.
My point. It's far to early to judge the Sweden plan. December might be a good time. I'm glad someone is trying something different for future comparison.
#10
effects of the shortfall in ICU beds.
If we accept what Cuomo said the other day (I know I know) - that 80% of those who go on ventilators never get off of them, and we assume ICU beds approximately equals ventilators, then I wonder how much real difference the potential shortfall in ICU beds makes.
#13
There are two neighborhoods in Sweden that are known to be heavily Moslem--Rinkeby in Stockholm and Rosengard in Malmo. I can't find any data for Rosengard, but you can find stats for Rinkeby broken out in this link ( have to scroll way down and then flip to page 2 of the table--sorry!) It's about 4x the national average for Sweden.
#17
#13 Thanks, Tom. Very helpful. From the article:
While Sweden has one of Europe's highest rates of single-person households, in the Somali community "multiple generations can live in the same apartment and that can be a factor. At the same time we know that public health is generally worse in vulnerable areas," she noted.
More:
Hamid Zafar, an Afghan-born former school principal in Gothenburg, agreed, writing in an op-ed in newspaper Goteborgs-Posten that lack of information was not the main problem. Rather, Zafar argued it was authorities' lack of insight into cultural differences.
He noted for instance that the recommendation to refrain from visiting elderly relatives would be inconceivable among certain immigrant communities.
[Also,] immigrant communities sometimes have their own social networks, power hierarchies and authority figures.
He also noted that Swedish authorities ... failed to mention the risks of cramped housing or living with elderly relatives.
#18
Sweden was brought up around the campfire the other night, which was replied, "Which Sweden?"
This prompted a conversation about Kansas confirms. Obviously the urban and college locations had reports, but why do Dodge City, Garden City, and Liberal have cases when the entire I-70 corridor is report-free.
The short answer is they were receptors of Obama's Immigrant Locating Program and are de facto Sanctuary Cities.
Traffic in those cowtowns is down (price) and regional, while I-70 is up and interstate. I'm sure truck stops both routes are locked down like Moon Base Alpha. I-70 has its share of white trash so we figured it isn't necessarily poverty, but lifestyle, if the premise holds true.
It also would show that the safety precautions do have an effect.
*That was the discussion. On review, I-70 traffic is likely overall down on account of skiing being cancelled and it is not tourist season. Still it is a major trucking route to and through the Rocky Mountain front range, and into Utah where it connect to routes into California ports, all the way across to Maryland, access to Chicago/Great Lakes to Houston.
#19
The pattern is becoming clearer: where there are multiple individuals sharing living quarters with vulnerable elderly people, the risk of infection and death is orders of magnitude greater. Where those groups also have poor health AND engage in unsanitary practices, the infection rate goes higher still.
This would largely explain the anomalies observed in among other places Lombardy, New York City, and Stockholm-Rinkevy.
#20
#19 How many Muslims Germany has? What about Israel?
Give it up. Your Libertarian dream is actually bureaucratic ineptitude/stupidity.
In practice, the core task of managing the outbreak fell to a single man: state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell at the National Institute of Public Health. Tegnell approached the crisis with his own set of strong convictions about the virus, believing that it would not spread from China, and later, that it would be enough to trace individual cases coming from abroad.
#21
Competing theory would be drug use, as there is a direct line from Mexico to Dodge City and then branches out, and it is just taking time to reach the I-70 corridor. Isn't quite meshing as similar size hubs are not having the cases that those three, at least not at the moment.
Meth heads, those are the ones I worry about. Early users just come across as jittery. The one I came across the other day had all the enthusiasm and clout of an uneducated boy who just chased two addddddderalll with a pot of coffee. Of course he is coughing all over the place because smoking a battery during allergy season with do that to a young man's lungs. I wanted to put on my space suit and fog the smmmbtch.
If we start seeing 30s people going down from this, this is my first suspicion.
#25
#23 Perhaps I should expand.
To me anybody who prefers theories to facts is scum. Not just economists: since Economy is about as much science as Astrology - only less good at prediction (John Kenneth Galbraith) I'm willing to be quite forbearing with them and conserve the bulk of my ire for my colleagues.
Anybody who prefers facts over theories is good - even if economist (or even physicist).
Capisce?
#26
Moy droog, I confess I can't keep up the pace with you ... you're wearing me out. Maybe you're right. I can't do much more or conclude much beyond the above -- no one can, really -- with the very limited, inconsistent, likely improperly-coded and -collected data sets that are available to us.
#28
Facts are fungible too. And subject to selective analysis. But it's a "fact," it sanctifies everything it touches...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/18/2020 16:10 Comments ||
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#29
**To be fair, the observations discussed are based on anecdotal evidence based upon observations and theories. An after-hours brain storm concerning disease vector, economic considerations, and social interactions.
See, there was an unexpected balloon in confirmed cases in the Dodge City area, with Garden City and Liberal as box/whiskers outliers with the surrounding counties.
The majority of Kansas cases are in Wyondotte County, Kansas City area, shithole - the affluent Johnson County home to many groundskeepers - and Sedgwick County an official Sanctuary City Wichita.
What a disease is leads to why a disease spreads which leads to how we cope with it.
I live and grew up in a handshake culture, sealing the deal...regionally we like our spicy food which leads to the inevitable nose wipe. Very different than a culture which finds handshaking repulsive. Put up a stop sign and see how many drive through it out of habit, culture if you will. Observant peoples adjust quickly, laissez-faire roll through longer.
To end a ramble for now, rather than a rant, we must know the why it spreads before how we deal with it.
#30
So is the omission of data, such as income level and neighborhood concentrations.
I was very careful to stay at lifestyle, as religion does contribute to behavior, behavior is not solely dependent upon religion.
I've always found the transition from Macro to Micro more difficult than Micro to Macro. For instance, "How do you feel?" "Well I have shortness of breath and feel hot." Compared to, "I crushed my wrist." "How far up is the pain?"
#31
The dirtiest rube in the country smells better than the average city dweller. Check it out...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/18/2020 16:57 Comments ||
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#32
G(r)om - I would suggest you'll attract more conversation with more honey, less vinegar. We had a commenter, Mike Sylwester, who was frequently correct, but turned other commenters off with the aspersions (something I'm guilty of at times, as well, acknowledged)
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/18/2020 17:19 Comments ||
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#35
Look the guy's a prig and proud of it. Trying to help him along is a fools errand. Let him club us with his "facts" and magic numbers and move on. The effort will toughen you up.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/18/2020 18:55 Comments ||
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#36
I may range, but only at Rantburg do I find strong, passionate minds I only dare to approach around the campfire.
To burn economy for time, I still think, was the right call.
Sweden as a control group, makes sense but only if we are able to scrutinize the individual stats; the Sim City way if you will.
That thrashing we hear are businesses which have been underwater long enough to think they are drowning.
Never mind all the other ingredients to this stew which contribute to the steam to blow the lid off.
The anti-authoritarians: NWA to Moonshiners
The chauffer clans
The devoutly religious
Seasonal migrants from all income levels
Then all the people who do follow the rules, and see others get away with flaunting the rules
For Sweden, the die is cast. Kansas, I hate to agree but maybe two weeks more is acceptable as we have always been a bit of a time capsule.
This is why, in our system, the specialists, including military specialists, advise their elected masters, leaving the final balancing of various needs to the generalists.
[Mises] As the COVID-19 shutdown across the US continues, one cannot but help see the importance of specialization and the division of labor time and time again, as many Americans deal with true shortages of goods for the first time in their lives. Specialization has allowed us to enjoy a much more prosperous life than we would were we all to do everything ourselves. However, as with everything in this imperfect world, specialization comes with certain tradeoffs that are important to understand. As the unemployment numbers continue to rise by millions more every week, as meager savings are eliminated, and as our highly organized society slides into chaos it is important to understand the way in which an unbalanced intellectual specialization has contributed to bringing about the current crisis.
In his 1930 book The Revolt of the Masses, Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset addresses what he considers to be a strange byproduct of the prevalence of specialization in everything, specifically the intellectual sphere. "Previously," he writes, "men could be divided simply into the learned and the ignorant, those more or less the one, and those more or less the other." Now, however, a new kind of person has emerged, "an extraordinarily strange kind of man," who cannot be called "learned for he is formally ignorant of all that does not enter into his specialty," yet at the same time cannot be considered "ignorant because he is ’a scientist’ who ’knows’ very well his own tiny portion of the universe." Thus, Ortega y Gasset says that the only fitting name for such a person is a "learned ignoramus."
There can be no doubt that numerous learned ignoramuses can be found in all parts of society, but most importantly they are very clearly involved in the response to the COVID-19 virus, as sweeping calls for months of lockdown make clear.
Continued on Page 49
#6
My nation of fans has demanded that I respond to an unnamed individual’s request for a prediction. So, at alarmingly great personal sacrifice, I hereby present my prediction, submitted for your approval – with no apologies to Rod Serling – in the form of a screenplay snippet.
(A traffic island in a sun baked southwestern US metropolis. A raggedy mendicant taps on car windows while the drivers wait for the traffic light to change.)
Mendicant – “Where do you think you are going? To work? Don’t you know there’s a virus? Where is your mask? You should go home now…”
(Drivers ignore this, it’s been going on since 2020, it’s now 2025.)
(In an ongoing initiation for new officers, Cpl. Maria Murcek approaches the “at risk citizen” and makes contact.)
Cpl. Murcek – “Um, you know, it’s almost lunch time. Do you want to come over to the Resource Center for a nice baloney sandwich and some milk? Sit in the air conditioning? It’s 104 F here right now and it’s only going to get hotter…”
Mendicant – “What’s wrong with you? Where’s your mask? Don’t you know about the virus? Why aren’t you at home? You are committing a crime against humanity. St. Fauci will get you for this!”
Cpl. Murcek – “I’m a bad person. I don’t have a picture of St. Fauci in my apartment. But I’m worried about you. Let’s go have some nice lunch in the AC at the Resource Center.”
Mendicant – “Only I can save the world! Me and St. Fauci. Why are you trying to stop me?”
Cpl. Murcek – “Look it’s hot out here. Do you want a baloney sandwich and milk or the Taser? Your choice, not mine.”
Mendicant – “The math! Don’t you understand the math? The magic numbers are the only thing. Nothing else matters…”
Cpl. Murcek – “We are running out of time. If numbers matter, you need to consider this number. In 30 seconds I’m going to Taser you if you don’t come with me off this traffic island. My supervisor says I don’t have all day for this. It’s a test for me. I’m not going to fail. So let’s work together here…”
Mendicant – “Where’s your mask? Why aren’t you at home? You are committing a crime against humanity…”
(Cpl. Murcek rolls her eyes and unholsters her Taser)
Cpl. Murcek – “Last chance. Baloney sammich and milk or the Taser?”
Mendicant – “Scarf woman will get you for this…”
(Cpl. Murcek triggers her Taser, thumbs the wheel up to Maximum.)
(Mendicant flops on the ground and foams at the mouth, passing drivers give thumbs up)
(Cpl. Murcek internal monologue: “Ok, this sucks, but I’m the rookie, this is what rookies get. This time next year I’ll be explaining how this works. Hopefully this old fuck will be institutionalized by then…”
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/18/2020 8:24 Comments ||
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#7
Used this line yesterday, our academics in the age of specialization learn more and more about less and less till they know everything about nothing.
The stove pipe factory has been the bane of existence for anyone charged with seeing the systemic picture for a long time.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Townhall] We may not have a vaccine yet, but a new drug combating the symptoms of the Wuhan coronavirus disease has yielded excellent results. The company Gilead Sciences has developed a new anti-viral for severe COVID-19 patients that was tested on 125 people selected by The University of Chicago Medicine. Most of the patients were discharged, while two sadly passed away. We need all the good news we can get as the nation has undergone a lockdown to curb the spread. Some 29 states are either going to enter the initial phases of re-opening some aspects of their respective economies or are on the cusp of doing so. That’s good. Pharmaceutical companies are moving as quickly as possible to develop better testing and treatments for COVDI-19. This drug could be added into the arsenal as an effective stopgap until we have a proper vaccine (via Stat News):
[UNZ] The Russia-Saudi oil-price war is a fabrication concocted by the media. There’s not a word of truth to any of it. Yes, there was a dust up at an OPEC meeting in early March that led to production increases and plunging prices. That part is true. 
