Thorner/Ingold: Can media be trusted about coronavirus?

• The models are a total failure. There is no clear correlation between the mandated shutdown and measurable results. The data used to feed these models is deficient, and there are other parameters which have not been recognized
• The effect of COVID on the nation has been grossly exaggerated.
• The elected leaders have handed the reins of government and the economy over to technocrats, principally Dr. Fauci, which are blind to any issues other than a goal to eradicate this infection.
• Hospitalization and death due to the seasonal flu greatly exceed those due to COVID, yet nobody suggests shutting the country down in response.
• The negative effect on the economy out shadows any direct effect of the COVID epidemic.
• At the end of two weeks of shutdown, roughly 10% of businesses have failed. This number is likely to exceed 60% if the shutdown continues to the end of April. Dr. Fauci would have it go until November, maybe into next year.

The President likes to delegate authority. However this only works if his subordinates share the same goals. This trust has been misplaced in technocrats on the COVID task team. This does not mean they don’t mean well, just that they are wearing blinders.

His desire to delegate to state governors is also misplaced when so many hope to replace him in the next election. He will need to take strong action to restart the economy, since it means taking power from those state and local officials.

Seven Republican state holdouts

It is telling that seven Republican governors are holding out on statewide stay-at-home orders  collectively ignoring the stay-at-home pleas of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, who said in a CNN interview: "If you look at what's going on in this country, I just don't understand why we're not doing that.”

The Republican states ignoring Fauci’s order:  Alabama, North Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Utah, Arkansas, and South Carolina.

This question could be answered with another question. “Why have Democratic governors in blue states been so quick to respond?” Democrats are quick to accuse others of things they are doing.

All the states indicated, however, have made strong recommendations to practice social distancing and at least half have some degree of restrictive measures in place, often because mayors or county officials made local decisions. But these governors have stopped short of giving statewide orders that have been in place for week.

Environmentalists are seizing the moment to proclaim the benefits of the shutdown in reducing CO2 in the atmosphere. They will get even noisier if the controls are lifted.

There is a danger that our enemies, particularly China, will see our current status as one of weakness. We came close to mutiny by the commander of an aircraft carrier over COVID. 200 sailors out of a crew of thousands were infected, and the captain went public when he felt his concerns were being ignored.

Grim Presidential Task Force Briefing, Saturday, April 4, 2020

This briefing told of grim time ahead in the next few week and of all the death what would occur.  Such information did not convey an aura of confidence to the American people.

Consider this article by Matthew Vadum published at the American Thinker on April 3, 2020: New York City is lying about Chinese virus death rates: "The mass hysteria over COVID-19 in the U.S. is driven in large measure by misleading statistics and bad math about the disease’s body count. Now that New York has become the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States, we are now regularly inundated on cable TV news with the latest pandemic statistics from the city. The statistics grow gloomier by the hour.

"These figures have frightened people into submission as state and local governments across America enact repressive measures they say are necessary to contain the virus or slow its proliferation. The problem starts with the fact that the highly influential statistics from the Big Apple paint a false picture of what is actually happening.

"In New York City, the death of anyone who dies who tests positive for COVID-19 is counted as a coronavirus death. This is the case even if the coronavirus failed to play a significant role in the person’s passing or illness. This calculus violates established scientific standards."

What's going on in your city, town, neighborhood?

As posted at conservativetreehouse.com on April 4, 2020:

“There’s something really odd, a profound disconnect of sorts, between what the media is sharing and the reality of what the general public is reporting from their own experience.

"According to most national media hospitals are overwhelmed with coronavirus patients.   U.S. media claim doctors and nurses are collapsing under the stress and strain of conditions they describe as “war zones” in the battle against COVID-19.

"Media is now reporting about nurses and doctors committing suicide as they try to deal with severe PTSD, and psychological trauma, as a result of endless shifts in overcrowded hospitals filled with desperate and dying patients. Additionally, refrigerated trailers now fill with piles of dead bodies as the morgues are overwhelmed with deceased coronavirus patients.

"Influencers, perhaps people with an interest in pushing an agenda, are sharing videos of nurses and doctors pleading for help and crying under duress amid their struggle.  It all seems rather sad and unnerving.  Additionally, professional instability that severe seems a little disconcerting…. That said, that’s one summation of a recent 24-hour media cycle."

However, there is a disconnect.

"For every media claim of overwhelmed hospital war zones, there are a dozen reports from actual workers, nurses, doctors and medical personnel reporting exactly the opposite; and yes, a disparity in reporting even in the New York metropolitan area.

"Medical personnel in Wisconsin, Missouri, California, Florida, Colorado, Oregon, Georgia New Jersey, and every region in the USA are reporting there are few to no patients in their facility and the medical staff is being laid-off, or told to go home and/or stay home, because there is nothing to do."

Closer to home, as related by a doctor at Alexian Brothers in Elk Grove, the hospital is essentially empty.  It could take hundreds of corona patients, and probably many more.  They have less than 10 serous ones today, mostly old.  They are in bad shape and are being given anti-malaria and anti-bacteria drugs and are on ventilators.

The same holds true at Condell Hospital in Libertyville as to its number of coronavirus patients.

Before believing all the government is telling you about the coronavirus pandemic, it is important to verify before trusting the information being given to you.

Although not politically correct to state, the media's breathless reports are a last-ditch effort to gin-up national panic to at last "get" Trump after four years of despicably trying. They're terrified he'll be elected again!