Everyone has been focusing on the wave of corona virus cases. We have had a wave, but it is a fraction of what was predicted. There have been 775,846 cases in the U.S. That sounds like a lot until you realize that in the 2018-2019 flu season 42.5 million people got sick, 647,000 were hospitalized and 61,200 people died. By the way, that was lower than the CDC estimate of 48.8 million people getting sick, 959,000 hospitalizations and 79,400 deaths.

No one proposed shutting down the entire U.S. economy to stop the spread of the flu. This year the CDC was estimating that COVID 19 would cause 2.6 million deaths and our entire health care system would be overwhelmed. Things were so dire that emergency hospitals were built and hospital ships were dispatched to New York and Los Angeles. Some will argue that shutting down the economy really worked. Perhaps that is true, but at what cost? We are about to find out.

The wave of COVID 19 cases never developed, other than in New York. Even then, it really wasn’t a big wave. That wave may also be overstated. I checked on New York and guess what. Last year on week 14 New York got 4,522 new flu cases. This year, on week 14 New York got 193 new flu cases. The pattern is the same for 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19. The big change is that in 2020, flu apparently just went away on vacation. Or perhaps this explains why the sudden bump in COVID 19 cases.

In any event, the big wave that was going to overwhelm our hospitals never happened. But the economic wave from shutting down our economy is all too real and this is a whopper. It is estimated that 22 million people are suddenly out of work. Some small businesses, like restaurants have shut down completely. Other businesses are operating with minimal staff. People aren’t buying cars, they aren’t buying homes, and they aren’t spending money on entertainment. They are sitting home. This is bad enough for those sitting home, suffering from boredom. But it is catastrophic for small business owners. Some, perhaps many, of them will never recover. It is beyond catastrophic for hourly workers who have lost their job and may be unemployed for months.

The American Property & Casualty Insurance Association estimates that: “closure losses for just businesses with 100 or fewer employee is running $255 to $431 billion per month. Bet on the higher number being closer to reality. They estimate this is 43 to 72 times the monthly commercial property insurance. This means a lot of small businesses will not have insurance coverage for this, yet the cost is so high that everyone will pay higher insurance premiums in the future.

This wave, just off shore, has not hit yet but it is coming now and moving fast. We are just now at the point where people are without a paycheck, perhaps waiting for an unemployment check. That will help, but unemployment is not a substitute for a job and some people aren’t being paid at all. The stimulus checks being sent out to help haven’t arrived yet and when they do everyone knows there will be no more checks coming. When those checks arrive, a lot of smart people will put them in savings to prepare for the economic storm on the way.

The result will be immediate and devastating. Retail sales will plummet. People will stop paying rent. Landlords will be legally prohibited from evicting them. If you think we have a housing crisis now, wait a couple of months. People will stop paying mortgages. Those affected will delay payments for things like insurance, but at some point they will still have to pay. Odds are many of them won’t be able to pay in the future either.

If you think the COVID 19 virus changed things overnight, you will be stunned at how different things look next week at this time. We won’t even recognize our country by the end of the month.

During the great depression, American turned to a socialist President who sold people on the idea that only big government could fix things. This time, it will be increasingly obvious that it was government mismanagement that caused this. While everyone was terrified by the virus, they were oblivious to the real danger from a government ordered economic meltdown. The government doesn’t have nearly enough money to fix the problems it caused. Raising taxes is not an option. Talk about killing the Golden Goose.

The blame game is just around the corner and it will be beyond vicious. Right now, everyone is pointing fingers at Trump for moving too slow. That sounded great, until it becomes obvious that moving slow does a lot less damage than reckless abandonment of logic and common sense. It wasn’t Trump who ordered the shutdown of the country that was the governors. Those who consider themselves to be most wise will soon look like the biggest fools.

We are going to see a nationwide revolt, against irresponsible government. It is already starting and it is going to dominate everything. During times like this, it is impossible to predict results. In Germany, this kind of crisis created an environment where Adolph Hitler was able to take power. The only thing certain is change, significant dramatic change that will last for decades. My guess is that the guy to stands tall, every day, fighting against his opponents in the media will be the person people choose to lead our way out of this.

But, history teaches us another lesson. That those least worthy of power are most likely to seize it illegally. Democrats have already tried this by trying to include vote by mail in any stimulus package just in time for the 2020 election. All that is required for evil to win is for good people to do nothing. You’ve been warned.

TDM

In 1958 United Artists produced Run Silent, Run Deep. It was a movie starring Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster about submarine warfare in the Pacific. I watched it again, a few days ago, and it brought back a lot of memories. It also reminded me of something important. Sometimes the most deadly opponent is the one who runs quietly beneath the surface. For months we watched the Mueller Investigation and the Horowitz investigation. There were several leaks from “sources” some of which promised bombshell results. Ultimately, both Mueller and Horowitz wrote reports which do not appear to have accomplished much, if anything.

But there is another investigation ongoing by John Durham and there have been few if any leaks about that at all. There was, however, one significant exception. On December 9, 2019, Durham issued the following statement, following the Horowitz report:

“I have the utmost respect for the mission of the Office of Inspector General and the comprehensive work that went into the report prepared by Mr. Horowitz and his staff.  However, our investigation is not limited to developing information from within component parts of the Justice Department.  Our investigation has included developing information from other persons and entities, both in the U.S. and outside of the U.S.  Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.” 

That is a very significant statement. Durham took the time to say he did not agree with Horowitz with regard to the reason for the Russian investigation. This is very unlike Durham and he obviously considered it to be extremely important to go on the record. Now combine that with the incredible interview by Attorney General William Barr on the Laura Ingraham show. He said the Russia investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign was: “one of the greatest travesties in American History.”

https://www.foxnews.com/media/ag-william-barr-on-the-russia-investigation-theres-something-far-more-troubling-here

“My own view is that the evidence shows that we’re not dealing with just mistakes or sloppiness. There was something far more troubling here. We’re going to get to the bottom of it. And if people broke the law, and we can establish that with evidence, they will be prosecuted.”

Most of the media ignored this interview. That may be a major mistake. William Barr did not say he was going to issue a report. This is the way a prosecutor talks when he is preparing to indict people. He will let the indictment do the talking.

I don’t think it was a coincidence that Barr said this in a public interview.  He clearly believes we are very near the point where action will be taken. We are all far too used to people doing horrible things resulting in lengthy investigations followed by a report but no one is ever actually held accountable for anything.

Sometimes powerful forces do run silent and deep. But when we hear from them, the results are beyond explosive. William Barr looks and acts like a man on a mission. We will soon know.

TDM

On March 4, 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered the following speech at his election. The following line is worth remembering:

This great nation will endure, as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

This is important for two reasons. One is that it is true fear itself should be feared. Today we are a nation where major decisions are driven primarily by fear. In an attempt to avoid the COVID 19 epidemic, action was taken that destroyed our economy. Millions of people have lost jobs and our major cities look like ghost towns. We can no longer afford to make decisions based solely on fear.

But there is an even more important lesson to be learned from FDR’s famous speech. There was something to fear more than fear itself. It was people like FDR who thought the government was the solution to all problems. There had been depressions before, but they didn’t last very long and the economy always rebounded. 1929 wasn’t really that unique. What was unique was the massive growth of the government in a failed attempt to fix this. The New Deal did not result in economic recovery. The average unemployment rate from 1933 to 1941 was 18%. U.S. industrial production fell by nearly one-third. After 8 years, unemployment was still at around 14%. The best argument for the New Deal is that things could have been even worse. Few would argue that this was remotely successful. It is quite possible that doing nothing would have yielded better results.

My parents lived through the great depression and talked about it a lot. I vividly remember my dad saying that FDR did not end the depression, it was World War II. I later learned that he was probably right about that. The following article by Stephen Moore with Heritage.org should be mandatory reading today:

https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/commentary/the-enduring-myth-fdr-and-the-new-deal\

FDR raised the minimum wave. Sound familiar? He raised taxes on the rich. Sound familiar? He put the government in charge of creating jobs. Sound familiar? The budget skyrocketed. Sound familiar? Taxes reached an incredible 80% to soak the rich. Sound familiar?

All of this was tried. None of it worked. Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. No honest appraisal of the great depression reports anything but an increase in desperation and despair. No matter how well intended, there is little evidence the New Deal did much to truly help the poor and the unemployed.

You can see this from your window. Whether well intentioned or not, governors are resisting opening up the country. Many are promising a new normal. One where the government micromanages everything to “save us” from COVID 19. The Mayor of Los Angeles is talking seriously about banning meetings of more than 1,000 people until at least next spring. They are all dragging their feet. Trying to micromanage reopening the country. Governor Cuomo just extended the lock down until May 15^th. They clearly intend to micromanage reopening our economy. What we really need is to be saved from them.

A pastor who dared hold a church service during the crisis died of COVID 19. Don Lemon mocked him while arrogantly explaining that God can’t stop a virus. Well neither can terrible reporting, because Chris Cuomo, Brook Baldwin and George Stephanopolous have all tested positive and sadly Maria Mercader from CBS died from COVID 19. I doubt that any of them got it from going to church.

There is no option to live in a risk free world. We all face risk of disease. Last year 42.9 million people caught the flu and 61,200 died. The year before there were 79,400 deaths. The CDC reported 23,000 deaths from flu as of March 14. That begs the question. Why is the number of flu deaths so low? It seems possible, perhaps likely, that a lot of flu deaths are being reported as COVID 19 deaths.

Remember, when Trump declared a national emergency he was being told we could have 2.6 million deaths. That is absurd when one considers that there are reportedly less than 150,000 deaths worldwide because of COVID 19. We still have people holding power over us pretending they prevented millions of deaths.

We already live in a new and horrible world. One where the government has unprecedented control over your life. A situation few of you could have imagined as recently as February of this year. You are told where you can shop and what you can buy. You are told when and where you can travel. There are strict restrictions of where and when you can gather together. In some states, you are forbidden to travel to a home you own.

Millions of people are out of work because the government ordered them to shut down and go home. Now they are waiting for the government to give them permission to reopen. They will be told when to open, how many hours to operate, what they can sell and how many customers they can handle. In the meantime the economy is fueled solely by government checks, slow to arrive and unlikely to be adequate. We are once again engaged in a great civil war testing whether a return to a free society is even possible. The real enemy is not COVID 19. It is those who want to use this crisis to remake our society.

TDM

The coronavirus epidemic is coming to an end. The testing has reached record levels. Hospitals are not being overwhelmed. Some of the emergency field hospitals were dismantled without being used at all. Others are easily handling the case load with empty beds. New York, the epicenter has improved to the point where even Gov Cuomo says they have passed the peak. He shows how new hospitalizations are down, the number of people being transferred to icu is down, the number of people using ventilators is down and the death rate is down. He is talking about reopening the entire east coast.

Yet, we keep seeing the number of new cases spiral up and we see the number of deaths increase. That does not make sense, until one realizes that at least some of the deaths being reported aren’t new and they aren’t necessarily the result of COVID 19.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/06/are-covid-19-deaths-being-overreported/

Here is the actual guidance from the CDC:

“In cases where a definite diagnosis of COVID–19 cannot be made, but it is suspected or likely (e.g., the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty), it is acceptable to report COVID–19 on a death certificate as ‘probable’ or ‘presumed’,” the agency advises. “In these instances, certifiers should use their best clinical judgment in determining if a COVID–19 infection was likely.”

They then provide examples to “help: officials make these decisions:

“One scenario described an 86-year-old female nonambulatory stroke victim who developed a fever and cough days after being exposed to a sick family member later diagnosed with COVID-19. Even though the decedent wasn’t tested, the coroner nonetheless determined that the woman’s underlying cause of death was COVID–19, “given the patient’s symptoms and exposure to an infected individual.”

Sadly, there are people who WANT the COVID 19 crisis to continue. Some of them are the people who predicted such disastrous results and they want to be proven right. Others are politicians who now micromanage everything we do and say, and they like the power. Then there are those who will rejoice at anything that has the potential to make Trump look bad, without regard to the cost.

This is going to be a battle and if we are not careful the micromanagement of everything will become the new normal. Imagine a governor who thinks he or she can tell people when and how they can go to church. Unimaginable in February, reality in April. Imagine a governor who thinks he or she can ban people from going to concerts or any other large gatherings without specific permission. It does not take a genius to understand that the first thing banned will be a Trump rally. A Planned Parenthood demonstration, on the other hand, will be considered essential. We even have one governor who has banned people from buying flooring or vegetable seeds.

They may not like the disease itself, but they love the impact it has on their personal power. Just think about how much money congress has already voted to spend because of this disease. Does anyone really think that will all go toward helping those who were directly impacted by the government ordered shutdown of the economy? Some Democrats where openly talking about seizing the day to use this money to reshape society. This has been the ultimate crisis to exploit.

Now the COVID 19 crisis coming to and end and they are panicking. They see a world returned to normal and that terrifies them. If they can’t stop this, they can at least delay it. The facts are all pointing in the wrong direction, so they manipulate the only facts that will still generate enough panic, the number of new cases and the death rate. They are trying to compare the results in South Dakota to what happened in New York.

They also manipulate the number of people recovered. If the number of deaths increases and the number of recovered patients lingers, the myth of impending disaster can be sustained.

But they are running out of time. Even these last-minute maneuvers can only delay the inevitable. One problem is that this is a world-wide pandemic and we have data from all over the world. Even in places like Spain and Italy, the number of deaths is declining and the number of recovered is increasing.  When you think about it the U.S. is reporting that 614,451 people have tested positive but only about 50,000 have recovered. That is, of course, nonsense. Most people predict that 98% or more of people infected with COVID 19 will recover. People are recovering, it is just not being reported.

Now is the time of the highest danger to those of us who love liberty. If we tolerate politicians trying to micromanage reopening our economy, to develop the “new normal” we may not recognize our country when they are done.

TDM

Donald Trump is embarrassing the Washington D.C. press corps. If you doubt that, check out the rant by Chris Cuomo during a radio interview this morning. He still hates Trump, but he hates the environment at CNN even more. He said he doesn’t “value indulging irrationality, hyper-partisanship” or spend his time “trafficking in things I think are ridiculous.” This does not mean Chris Cuomo is a secret Trump supporter. He clearly hates Trump. He just realizes that the way CNN reports on him only destroys their own credibility making Chris question whether “he can really change anything.”

It is about time some smart reporters figured this out. If they let Trump get under their skin they are the ones who lose. One of the most common quotes I use when teaching associates how to handle difficult people is the following:

“The size of the person is directly proportional to the size of the person or thing that makes them angry.”

If you allow someone you consider to be small to influence your behavior, they have won. You have only lowered yourself to their level. The only way to beat them is to never allow them to influence your behavior, either way. Do the right thing, without regard to what they say or do. Neither give them something they don’t deserve nor deny them something they do deserve because of their behavior. Let the facts and only the facts determine what you do. Any other response gives them unnecessary control over you.

I often say that this person or thing is too small to warrant getting me upset. For example, if someone cuts me off on the freeway, my usual response is to laugh and say: “they had a greater need.”

Trump dominates the media in every encounter. The angrier they become with him, the more he impacts them. If you look closely at these encounters, the reporter looks and acts furious. President Trump, on the other hand, is probably smiling. That does not stop him from challenging them and in a case like yesterday humiliating them. But if you look closely, he is not the one who is upset. If anything, he appears to enjoy this.

Some have wondered how Trump, or any other president, could possibly deal with the daily onslaught of negative press. The answer, quite simply, is he doesn’t sweat the small stuff. His enemies, on the other hand, bathe in sweat.

TDM

If you have ever been to Tombstone, Arizona you can find the grave of Lester Moore:

“HERE LIES, Lester Moore, FOUR SLUGS FROM A 44, NO LES, NO MORE”

A lot of people know about his grave marker, but few know anything else about Lester Moore. It is unlikely he was even killed in Tombstone. The story is that he worked in a Wells Fargo office in Naco, Arizona. Hank Dunston arrived one day to claim a package. He was angry because the package was damaged, so he shot Lester Moore four times. Les was hit four times in the chest, but he still managed to shoot and kill Hank Dunston. Les Moore’s body was moved to Tombstone for burial. No one seems to know where Hank Dunston ended up.

Actually there are no records verifying any of this. They are not even sure Lester Moore even existed. There is no record of a Wells Fargo employee named Lester Moore. There was a Lewis Moore who lived in Tombstone but no one seems to know what happened to him. No one even knows who wrote the epitaph on that famous tombstone in Tombstone or when it was written.

The following article explains all this.  I love the final sentence:

http://www.americancowboychronicles.com/2017/06/lester-moore-no-less-no-more.html

“I can’t help but wonder if it’s true, that there was no Moore?”

I now predict that people will remember more about the national shutdown of the economy because of the panic fueled by the fake news than they will the virus itself. That is because not that many people will die and contrary to the hysterical ranting on CNN and other channels, if it comes back it will not be a serious problem.

Granted, some people in CNN will try. They will warn that if we move too fast, this will come back even worse. But, that is absurd. If it does come back, we are far better prepared to deal with it. We now can test in a matter of minutes. Precautions will be taken to protect those most vulnerable. Treatments, including hydroxychloroquine will be readily available. Doctors already have learned how this virus works and how to fight back. It will be nothing like what we experienced over the past month or so.

We have an oversupply of ventilators, personal protective equipment and temporary hospitals. A significant portion of this will be shipped overseas with the rest put into emergency stockpiles.

The coronavirus is so over. All of the trends, both in New York and the rest of the country are rapidly trending down. New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Delaware all said they are working together to reopen the region’s economies and other elements. Once that happens the rate of reopening will go faster than the speed at which things shut down. Trump is right about that. There is a pent up demand in this country to get back to normal and only a fool would get in the way of that.

Democrats have made a monumental error. Not all of them, but the CNN wing of the party still dreams that this will be Trump’s Katrina. The problem is that the U.S. handled this better than anywhere else and that is increasingly obvious. Now Trump is going to be leading the way on getting things reopened.

What is CNN going to do? Tell everyone to wait for Fauci? Few will put up with that. None of the worst case scenarios came close to being true. Was this because of the shutdown? We will never know for sure. What we do know is that this was a case study in what our future will look like if Democrats take control. It allowed all of us to realize how vulnerable we are to an out of control government that wants to micro-manage every detail of our lives. They came, we saw and none of us will be as willing to play the game next time. While CNN is slamming Trump for not doing more, a lot of people are going to be far more focused on whether or not this was all necessary.

Another huge problem for Democrats is they can’t blame Trump, for over-reacting, when they have been criticizing him for not doing more. Even the hard core liberal left will have trouble buying that.

There has been one other significant change. People finally came to grips with how much of our economy was outsourced to China. We now know the cost of being dependent on people who are not dependable. The cheap goods were great, but cheap came at a very high cost. A lot of people are going to take an ABC approach, anywhere but China. That is going to hurt a lot of people, including some that will surprise you. Big business, like the NBA, Google, Apple and others went all in on China. A lot of people went all in on China. The day of reckoning is at hand.

This is a period of time we will all remember. We will remember having all sporting events cancelled. We will recall social distancing and the run on toilet paper. But we won’t remember much about COVID 19, because when you think about it, it just didn’t impact that many people. Granted, 22,000 deaths is a lot, but it is less than what happens during a normal flu season. Perhaps people will just say thank God we dodged a bullet. At least some people will do that. Few will want to even consider the alternative, that none of this was really necessary. Ultimately, I don’t think anyone will end up with a lot of blame. But no one wants to go through this again.

Like the tombstone, one has to wonder whether, once again, less might be more. One thing is certain, few of us have any interest in repeating the bizarre world we live in today where cities are deserted and the primary social activity is going to Walmart on a toilet paper hunt.

TDM

Venezuela was a very different place in 1998. The company was very prosperous. Then, Hugo Chavez was elected. It sounded great. He established Bolivarian missions designed to provide public services to improve economic, cultural and social conditions. It seemed to work, for a while. Poverty was cut by about 20% between 1998 and 2008. But Chavez was also taking total control of everything. He was spending money he did not have and artificially suppressing inflation with price controls.

When  oil prices dropped in 2010, Chavez, who had caused many of the problem with his mismanagement declared economic war. That took an economic crisis and made it worse. The economic war started by Chavez has been continued by Nicolas Madura to this day. The result is that in less than 20 years Venezuela went from a highly prosperous country to a complete disaster. Today, in Venezuela, toilet paper is valued more than gold.

We can be sure that many people living in Venezuela in 1998 never dreamed that things could deteriorate so quickly. For the first 10 years, it didn’t seem that bad. Now, everyone knows it is bad, but changing things now will come only at a great cost. Once socialists gain power, they take steps to keep power at all costs. It is a reminder that the government who can give you everything, can take everything away.  The people in Venezuela understand that very well.

Think back to early March. While there were rumors of this coronavirus no one gave it much thought. Even those who predicted widespread contagion did not predict the shutdown of the U.S. Economy. Today, roughly one month later, the government has totally taken over. In Kentucky if you dare to attend church, your license number will be recorded by the State Police and you will be required to quarantine for 14 days. Ninety percent of the country has been shut down. Many of you are forbidden, by law, from going to work. You are absolutely forbidden from operating certain businesses, like a restaurant. The impact on this country is stunning, particularly when this happened so rapidly.

The liberal left and the MSM is demanding that every decision, every where is based solely on fighting COVID 19. They have seized the day. You have more government control of everything today than you imagined possible earlier this year. Every news broadcast is dominated by COVID 19. We are subjected to a daily drumbeat of terrifying reports designed to scare us into submission.

We do not know if the risk was real, but the actions taken as a result of panic are beyond obvious. We live in a different country today and if something does not change soon, the change will become permanent. Quite simply if we do not reverse course, sooner rather than later, we have a genuine risk of looking a lot like Venezuela.

The good news is that there are signs that public opinion is changing. While the MSM still talks about the rising death toll, in hushed tones, the reality is that as of today there have only been 20,061 deaths. Before we had COVID 19, there was an average of 7,452 deaths each day, from a lot of our causes. It is far from certain that all the COVID 19 deaths were caused by COVID 19. There are at least some cases of people already in hospice care who are being included in the COVID 19 statistics. But, by every estimate, the rate of new deaths appears to have peaked and it will start trending down. The number of new hospitalizations is already trending down. The number of people transferred to intensive care is down. The number of people being put on ventilators is down. In the meantime, if you have any other illness, you have been moved to the back of the line. All that matters is COVID 19, because only COVID 19 lets the government take total control of your life. Incredibly some are demanding that Trump expand orders to order the entire country to shut down. That is the problem with this environment. Things that would be considered totally unacceptable a month ago are increasingly part of the new normal.

The good news is that in addition to COVID 19 peaking, the tolerance of the American people is also peaking. Even better news is that our president is Donald Trump, who is focused on opening the country back up and reducing the impact of state and federal government on your lives. Things will change more in the next 30 days than they did in the last 30 days. By the first of June, the country will be largely back on track. Regardless of what the liberal left wants or needs, the COVID 19 crisis is going to end, no matter what anyone does. The ability to scare people into submission will leave as fast as the virus itself.

The question is whether enough people learn from this. We have had an important lesson here. We are more vulnerable than we thought. If we put the wrong people in charge, the next crisis will result in permanent change, the wrong kind of change. We already have people screaming that the funding to deal with this crisis must be re-directed toward illegal aliens. We have demands for widespread, unregulated vote by mail that will guarantee results very similar to Venezuela.

This crisis has given us all a vision of Venezuela. If we do not learn from this, that vision will morph from a nightmare into reality.

TDM

Many of you have wondered the same thing. Was all this necessary? Was this disease so deadly that we needed to destroy our economy? Did we really need to let the government take control of everything? Sadly, the answer is no. This is all the result of bad math. Or perhaps I should say legitimate math lacking any element of common sense.

The first assumption that was wrong was that 4% of people who get COVID 19 will die. The actual number is closer to 1.8% and in the end by some estimate it may be as low as .066%. Even at 4% about 65 million people would have to be infected to make that happen. The following simple chart shows how this works:

% OF INFECTED PEOPLE WHO DIE      4%           1.8%       .066%

NUMBER OF DEATHS                       2,600,000    2,600,000    2,600,000

# OF PEOPLE INFECTED                 65,000,000 144,444,444  EVERYONE

% OF POPULATION INFECTED             18.57%       41.27%     EVERYONE

Let’s assume that every infected person can infect another five people. The following chart shows that it would only take about 13 days before almost everyone is infected.

That obviously did not happen. But what if one person only infected one other person. This would grow more slowly, but after 29 days if the pattern continued without interruption virtually everyone would be infected.

That also did not happen. Now we aren’t testing everyone, but as of today 459,121 people have tested positive 16,676 died. That means 3.6% of people who tested positive died, which is already less than 4%. There are 1,605,548 people who tested positively world-wide with 95,808 deaths. That would be a death rate of 5.6%.

Let’s assume that only 15% of the people infected are getting tested. That means there are about 3 million people infected in the entire country. The death toll from that, at 4% would be about 122,000 people. Even the CDC now admits that is too high and they are down to about 60,000. Nothing, and I do mean nothing, adds up.

It is far from certain that we will even get to 60,000 deaths. In any event, there was never any chance we would get to the 2.6 million deaths that inspired such drastic action.

It gets worse. This is easy to understand, if you add just a little common sense. We don’t live in a world where everyone connects with everyone else. Instead we live in circles and most of the people we contact are within that circle. Every scientist knows this, which is why we have quarantines. If you isolate all the infected people, the disease doesn’t spread. In addition, in those circles where people have been isolated, not everyone gets infected. For example, on a cruise ship where virtually everyone was tested, about 15% appear to have been infected.

Think of it this way. Imagine yourself at a party with 100 people. They play a game. Everyone is given 1 dollar. One person is selected to be the spy. The spy is authorized to take one dollar from five people. Each of the five people he selects are then authorized to get one dollar from five more people. In theory, if you just rely on math, in about five minutes, everyone’s dollar would be gone. That is because (1 x 5) x 5 is 5, (5 x 5) =25, and (5 x 25) is over 125 or more people then are at the party. In real life it is easy for the first spy to get 5 dollars. It is much harder for the next 5 people selected to be spies to get their 5 dollars because they are competing with other spies and some people no longer have their dollar. It is impossible for the 5 people each of these spies selects to get 5 dollars.  This explains why multi-level marketing strategies and Ponzi schemes are doomed to failure.

The same principle applies to the spread of disease. You can’t infect someone who is already infected. When you add in the fact that people who get it once become immune, there is a hard ceiling to the number of people who can get infected, no matter what you do. The only exception is when you do something stupid like let people travel from circle to circle setting off another cycle of infections. That is why the Trump travel ban was the most important decision made by anyone.

Like I said, bad math. There was never any risk of 2.6 million deaths, yet a lot of people were expecting exactly that. The Governor of the Nation State of California really believed that 50% of the people living in California would get infected. Of course, many of these geniuses believe in global warming predictions based on the same type of modeling accompanied by circular reasoning.

The question is how long we are going to put up with people who make stupid decisions based on bad math that are doing more harm than if they had done nothing at all. The travel bans were necessary. Beefing up the hospitals and ventilators to treat the sick was very necessary, shutting down the entire economy not so much.

TDM

A lot of people want to delay getting the country back open. That is increasingly clear.  The question is why? Some of them may legitimately fear that returning to work too soon will risk this happening again. Others may feel they gain from the status quo. Regardless of the reason, we are being exposed to extremely misleading data.

Perhaps the most misleading statistic is the most important statistic, the number of COVID 19 deaths. A death can be reported as the result of COVID 19 even if the person was never tested. This has been documented from numerous sources.

The result is that we are inundated with two daily counts, the number of confirmed cases and the number of deaths. Both may be highly inflated. Testing results have accelerated rapidly and there is no longer a backlog. In addition, the number of people being tested has skyrocketed. Obviously, the more tests you do, the more positive results.

We have already described how the number of deaths is being exaggerated. But there are statistics that you no longer see and those may really matter. One is the number of new hospital admissions. Another is the number of new patients transferred to ICU and the number of people put on ventilators. The CDC stopped reporting those numbers. Where they are reported, as in New York, they are dropping rapidly.

In addition, a lot of people currently on ventilators are being withdrawn. Some of them will die. That also increases the death count, but it does not necessarily mean more people are becoming seriously ill.

That begs the question why? Who benefits from this delay and who is harmed?

First the long list of people who benefit from delay of game.

Congress, particularly Democratic members of congress, benefit. They view this pandemic as the opportunity of a lifetime to spend money on pet projects they could never get approved in normal times. Some of them openly admit this.

Big business benefits, because they are hoping for new stimulus programs aimed at helping them more than people laid off from work.

The MSM benefits because this news story is driving up ratings.

Opponents of Donald Trump benefit because it increases the potential for this to have a negative impact on him.

Manufacturers making a fortune making masks and ventilators benefit. That will all stop immediately once the country re-opens.

The experts on TV, the leaders in the CDC etc. all benefit because today they are powerful and influential people who are constantly in demand. That will all end along with the pandemic.

Joe Biden probably gains the most, because when you are way behind, ending the game is the worst-case scenario. Just ask Bernie Sanders about that.

Now the list of people who are harmed.

All those people who lost their jobs.

All those small business owners who were put out of business.

The American taxpayer who, at some point and in some way is going to have to pay for all this.

The good news is that the while the delay of game tactics are still working as of now, the end is near. Ultimately one can only delay the obvious for a limited period. With each passing day, it is becoming more obvious that further delay has already reached the point where the risk far exceeds any potential reward.

Easter Sunday will be a big day. It may be the biggest day for COVID 19 deaths, or it may be the day when people start celebrating the resurrection of the U.S. economy. Either way remember that tomorrow, Good Friday, is the darkest day on the Christian calendar. It marks the day Christ was crucified. But less than three days later, with the resurrection, everything changed. We just may see something very similar this weekend. We will certainly see something similar sooner than you can even imagine.

He is Risen! Any Christian knows that the pain of Good Friday only lasted for a short while, but the joy of the resurrection lasts forever.

Happy Easter

TDM

Democrats and the MSM chorus constantly hammers Republicans and particularly Trump and Pence for failing to believe in science. This is similar to the way many agnostics assume anyone with faith is naïve and relies on fairy tales rather than science. The reality is exactly the opposite. It is atheists and agnostics who believe things that are mathematically impossible.

The scientific experts the MSM demanded make every important decision got almost everything wrong. Here are the real facts and they are devastating for those who think they follow the science while believing in things that are absurd. Following are just some of the major things reported by the MSM that are being proven wrong.

Ventilators are essential.

There are many reports, from various sources, that ventilators may do more harm than good. Doctors routinely put people with COVID 19 on ventilators assuming this would help with breathing. But these patients were not actually gasping for air or showing other signs of lung impairment. Doctors have learned that non-invasive breathing aids may work better and reduce the risk of death or permanent cognitive and respiratory damage.

These reports have been coming in from all over the world. They are just now being recognized here in the U.S. The following report from Yahoo News is an example, but there are many other similar reports out there:

https://sports.yahoo.com/doctors-think-ventilators-more-harm-162500782.html

“Dr. Scott Weingart, a critical care physician in New York, said he thinks patients do “much, much worse” on ventilators than non-invasive devices. “I would do everything in my power to avoid intubating patients,

Hydroxychloroquine is worthless and extremely high risk.

Many doctors say it is unproven whether or not it cures Covid 19. That may be the wrong question. A better question is whether it helps people recover from COVID 19 and whether the risk is greater than the reward. This drug has been used since the 1950s. I was given this drug while I was in Vietnam. There are side effects, as with any drug, but they are well known because of clinical trials taking place over many years. Trump is exactly right when he says we know the downsides and we can live with them and it just might work. There are reports from all over the world that it does work. It doesn’t cure COVID 19, but it helps stop the damage to the body and speeds the recovery. There are more and more reports from the U.S. that it works. A black female Democratic politician from Michigan says she was seriously ill until she learned about hydroxychloroquine from, gasp, Donald Trump. She had to beg her doctor to use it, because the Governor of Michigan tried to ban it. She finally got the drug, almost immediately started to feel better and has now recovered.

The only way to stop this disease is to allow government to micromanage our economy.

The government has been very successful at destroying our economy. Now they are trying to make up for it by spending money they don’t have. Democrats are trying desperately to turn this into a redistribution of wealth, failing to understand that the people they forced to stay home are the ones who should be the first and possibly only ones in line for relief.

It is far from certain that this worked. It is clear that the disease spread very rapidly, in predictable areas like New York. The shelter in place guidelines may have been very important in places like New York. It is less certain that shutting down 90% of the economy was necessary or effective. If you listen only to the doctors, none of us would ever do anything. That would reduce the risk of some disease but increase the risk of dying from boredom.

Trump failed to realize the danger and warn everyone.

This is frankly absurd. In a blatant attempt to blame everything on Trump the MSM has only exposed its own ignorance. Nothing would have been gained if Trump had told people we were about to be invaded by a virus that could kill millions of people. In addition we now know that this prediction was way off.  If he had said this was coming, we can’t stop it and millions will die the only thing that would have done is caused panic. Trump did exactly what he should have done. He did not over-react with his public statements and privately behind the scenes he got the entire federal government in action.

Trump cut funding for the CDC n and disbanded critical agencies.

He did do some restructuring, but the same people were still in charge with the same responsibilities and authorities. If anything his mistake was not replacing Obama and Bush holdovers. It is clear that the CDC was totally incapable of handling the testing. They told Trump they would handle the testing and they weren’t actually capable of doing that at all. Trump actually showed great leadership by letting the governors handle their own states and putting the federal government in a position to facilitate without trying to micromanage. That is why so much was done in such a short period of time.

Trump ignored warnings from doctors and scientists.

The famous memo was from Peter Navarro the top White House trade adviser. He is not a doctor. People like Dr. Fauci were not predicting this. In addition, what Navarro wanted was a travel ban on travel from China and Trump did exactly that.

We are very close to the point where everyone will realize the truth. If Trump had taken advice from people like the idiots on CNN or even the CDC, things would be even worse. It is increasingly obvious that the number of deaths will be far less than these people predicted, as recently as one week ago. If Trump lets them make decisions now the country will be lucky to reopen for Christmas. We should all rely on science, but we should also recognize the difference between scientific facts and scientific models. For example, every global warming model has been proven to be wildly inaccurate. If the forecasts by brilliant scientists like Al Gore were accurate the people in New York would be pleading for canoes to paddle to the hospital ship. There also would be a worldwide shortage of boats and sunscreen because of all the people bathing in those warm arctic waters.

TDM