Trump denies Covid-19 surge even as virus spreads among Pence's inner circle

[Cathoholic]

To the readers here.

Concerning the ELECTION (not concerning the sick people) . . .

Is it only me, or does anyone else think it is strange to watch many of the same people run around with their proverbial hair on fire over a virus that has resulted in zero overall life-years lost of Americans (?) . . .

. . . While just a year or so ago, some of these same people were trying to tell us planet earth was going to be gone in 8 more years (it was “ten years” when they started saying such ridiculous propositions, and it is down to “seven years” now I think.)

Naturally SOME of the global warming club started walking those comments back. Some have joined in walking them back (Sanders, AOC and others really meant “the world as we know it!” they are now attempting to say.

To quote an unmentionable source . . .

"Come on man!"

If the world was virtually gone,
WHY worry about President Trump being re-elected??

(If the planet is “gone” anyway,
what difference does one election make to the leftists?)

I will tell you WHY.

Because the global warming contingent knows deep down inside that it is not about global warming (they KNOW it’s globull warming), but about globalist socialism.

And that’s what they want. More Hovernment er I mean More Government, and MORE Big Business.

 

[Jeanne_S]

It is a travesty ,the number of businesses‘ that have had to close their doors because of the shutdowns.
The resultant hardships this has placed on these businesses’ and their employees was and is unnecessary. This in addition to all the other sectors of society affected by these knee jerk shutdowns.
Here in Denver the mayor is back to phase 3 safer at home.Cutting back the allowable numbers of indoor gatherings to 25% of capacity. The restaurants were barely making a go of it with twice that number allowed.This will be their death knell. Not to mention the hospitals are not even being over run with hospitalizations.Most of them aren’t even busy regardless.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

It is a travesty ,the number of businesses‘ that have had to close their doors because of the shutdowns.

Yes, it is a travesty, when we could have been back to business like New Zealand. They lifted all of social distancing restrictions on shops, restaurants, public transportation and public gatherings including religious services, funerals, weddings, and community sports events - in June. How were they able to do that? By have a national strategy of extensive testing, contact tracing, and isolation. They did not try to deny the seriousness of the virus. They took control early and followed the science. As a result, New Zealand had exactly 3 covid deaths in all of September. In the same time period the US has about 21,000 covid deaths, which is 7000 times as many. Of course the US has 65 times as many people overall, so we have to divide this figure by 65. That still puts the US death rate for the month of September at 107 times that of New Zealand. So don’t blame the Democrats for the businesses that had to close. Blame those who said the virus is going to magically disappear, is not so bad, is like the flu, is inevitable, is unaffected by masks, only affects the old and vulnerable, etc.

 

[Jeanne_S]

Funny,I didn’t mention the Dems once in my post…Freudian slip on your part?

 

[Ridgerunner]

That still leaves Norway, Greece, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Kuwait, Portugal, Switzerland, Canada, Costa Rica, South Africa, Israel, Romania, Bahamas, Ireland, South Korea, Japan, Uruguay, Kenya, Cyprus, Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, who are all showing substantially better deaths per 100,000 population

Many of those countries’ reports can be believed. Many cannot. Some have measures so stringent that even leftists here wouldn’t employ them, like publishing the names of people with positive tests and penalizing positive cases if they don’t self-quarantine. HIPAA won’t allow this country to publish names involuntarily.

New Zealand is a case all its own. It’s an island and basically shut down all entry into the country. They thought they had it beat, but then it came back unexpectedly, just as it is spiking unexpectedly again in Europe.

But do you really believe the reporting from, e.g., Romania, Uruguay or any number of other countries with questionable governments or medical facilities or both?

I don’t think we are going to know which countries “did better” than others for some time due to the facts that it comes and goes variably from country to country, and not all record and report the same way.

, it would disappear eventually

I will vote for Trump, but if he said it will disappear, I do not accept that assessment. I believe it is and will remain, endemic. If so, a lot more people are going to get it worldwide, and in waves we cannot predict with any degree of accuracy.

 

[Ridgerunner]

If, in January, we had shut down all access to this country and quarantined all cases, we could have had a rate like that of New Zealand. But that would have required, minimally, a big wall at our southern border and at least plenty of guards at the northern border. Since we’re not an island, it would have been much more difficult for us to totally isolate like NZ. But if we had been willing to shoot illegal entrants, perhaps a similar effect could have been achieved.

“Science” in preventing disease is easy when you isolate the population entirely. And it’s no better in NZ than it is in the US. “Scientists” said all of the things you said were wrong.

But Science has not prevented the worst recession in NZ since 1931, a recession likely to get worse as the once major tourism industry has ended and the government is planning to discontinue employment subsidies.

But Democrats want to blame Trump and put down the U.S. in the process even though they have no answers themselves other than to shut down the economy. So they no longer unfavorably compare the U.S. to France, which now has more cases per capita than the U.S. NZ is a unique case, but when it comes to Trump bashing, any incomparable comparison will do, even an island at the far corner of the earth with a 4 million population.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

If, in January, we had shut down all access to this country and quarantined all cases, we could have had a rate like that of New Zealand.

New Zealand did much more than restrict travel from the outside. They, like us, had already had some cases in the country, and continue to have some cases in the country. So closing the border is not enough. You have to deal with the infection internally. That is where we differed from New Zealand. To this day we don’t put any real emphasis on contact tracing. With contact tracing you can apply isolation or lockdowns where the infection exists. We have almost no knowledge of where the infection is until our ICU’s start to become overwhelmed. Even if there was a huge wall all around the US in March and no more people came into the country, we would still be right where we are today with respect to the virus because of internal spread alone. We could have been New Zealand, but we did not.

“Science” in preventing disease is easy when you isolate the population entirely.

Not if the disease is already spreading inside the population, which is has been for both New Zealand and the US.

But Science has not prevented the worst recession in NZ since 1931

Their economy GDP shrank 12.2% from April to June, and that decline was almost entirely due to the ban on foreign travelers, since New Zealand relies a lot on tourism. Internal business was not nearly so disrupted as it has been in the US.

But Democrats want to blame Trump and put down the U.S. in the process even though they have no answers themselves other than to shut down the economy.

Sure they do. Republicans just don’t like those answer.

 

[Ridgerunner]

To this day we don’t put any real emphasis on contact tracing.

Really? They do it here. Why not where you live?

With contact tracing you can apply isolation or lockdowns where the infection exists

You can ASK people to self-quarantine. You can’t legally FORCE it. NZ has different laws than we do. They don’t allow much of anybody into the country, and are quite discriminatory in doing that. They can force quarantines. They don’t have HIPAA, so they can let it be known who is positive, which facilitates tracing a lot. But most of all, they can keep people out of the country, and do. It’s an island and doesn’t have all the “civil rights of foreigners” rules we have. Our political leaders don’t take incoming issues seriously. Trump did ban travel from China, but got roundly condemned, including by Biden, for doing it. He later did a Europe ban. But the borders? Can’t guard those. That’s discriminatory, you know. Can’t ban much of anyone coming into this country. This country is not an island and cannot effectively isolate because of that and because we maintain that foreigners have a right to come here. People also have a right not to allow their health condition to be known.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Really? They do it here.

Not to the extent needed, apparently. There isn’t enough testing to make contact tracing effective.

You can ASK people to self-quarantine. You can’t legally FORCE it.

This virus is not surging because people who test positive are refusing to quarantine. You can’t use that scapegoat.

They don’t have HIPAA, so they can let it be known who is positive, which facilitates tracing a lot.

Wrong. The privacy assured by HIPAA is an asset to contact tracing, not a liability, because only when people are assured of their privacy will they cooperate. Find out more here.

It’s an island and doesn’t have all the “civil rights of foreigners” rules we have.

Nope. You can’t use that scapegoat either. We can certainly ban travel to the US, as Trump demonstrated, and he was right to do so. The virus may have come here initially from international travel, but it has been a very long time since that was the major source of infection. The main problem has been internal. It is so bad that places that are doing better are having to ban travel from the US. No, the real cause of the problem is people not taking the virus seriously, and the main reason for that is the confusion and uncertainly sown by Trump in his wildly fluctuating statements questioning science and scientists and masks and the seriousness of the virus itself. Therefore you have very poor public compliance with simple rules.

 

[MikeInVA]

“Science” in preventing disease is easy when you isolate the population entirely.

A few years go I read a book about smallpox. They didn’t eradicate it by isolating the healthy, but rather isolating the infected. You can protect a small group all you want, but so long as the disease is in the wild you work will never be done.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Not to the extent needed, apparently. There isn’t enough testing to make contact tracing effective.

Again, I don’t know where you live or why they don’t test there. But where I live, there is plenty of testing and they’ll contact trace to the extent the law allows it. It is, if course, limited by HIPAA.

This virus is not surging because people who test positive are refusing to quarantine.

You’re probably right. There is an upsurge in Europe regardless of quarantine. Even NZ that won’t let people into the country other than from a few of their own islands, has had a return of the disease after they thought they had it eliminated from the island. It’s not going to go away no matter what we do.

The privacy assured by HIPAA is an asset to contact tracing,

I’m not impressed by your lawyer ad selling HIPAA advice. What I do know is that one of the most flagrant cases around here was a man who went to a number of public events while infectious. They could publish in the news the places where he admitted going, but they couldn’t name him so people could know whether they had come into contact with a carrier. Nor could they name any members of his family, nearly all of whom had it. And so, since it later turned out he exposed considerably more people than he admitted, he was the initial vector that affected hundreds of people. He had been in one of the “hot zones” back east.

We can certainly ban travel to the US, as Trump demonstrated, and he was right to do so.

Such nonsense. You Democrats fight intercepting illegals as if your lives depended on it, and then claim they can’t come here.

The virus may have come here initially from international travel,

“May have”??? No. the first U.S. cases all had contact with infected people from China. That’s been known from the beginning.

the main reason for that is the confusion and uncertainly sown by Trump in his wildly fluctuating statements questioning science and scientists and masks and the seriousness of the virus itself. Therefore you have very poor public compliance with simple rules.

And the people are rioting in Europe against lockdowns and defying them, and you want to blame Trump for “poor public compliance” in the U.S. despite the fact that nobody is rioting about it here. Partisan Trump hate eventually takes itself to ridiculous lengths. It’s too bad. Lots of people lose their livelihoods because of Democrat propaganda. But as Hillary Clinton famously said, the Dems have some nice welfare for people who lose good jobs or businesses.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don’t think isolation of whole populations would have ever worked and won’t work now. The weak political exhortations to wear masks and distance socially are wearing off, as people increasingly realize those measure don’t demonstrably prevent the disease (though sometimes they might in some circumstances). It is also becoming more evident that the disease is not going to “disappear” (and yes, if Trump said it will, I disagree with him on that) There is no compelling evidence that vaccines will do much more than give temporary resistance, and good reason to believe they will not. Unfortunately, we’re going to have this disease around for long time, perhaps forever unless it mutates favorably.

In the meantime, there are people needing to work, there are mouths to feed, there are homes to heat. We can’t just go into hiding in our basements. Biden can, of course, but most of us haven’t been getting paychecks from China and Russia like him. and have to work.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

This virus is not surging because people who test positive are refusing to quarantine.

You’re probably right. There is an upsurge in Europe regardless of quarantine.

That’s not what I meant. I meant that when people are told to quarantine, they generally do. I meant that the virus is surging because of transmission from people who do not yet know they are infected because of inadequate testing and contact tracing and because of a general disregard for wearing masks and avoiding large social gatherings without masks.

I’m not impressed by your lawyer ad selling HIPAA advice.

Of course not, because it undercuts your scapegoat.

What I do know is that one of the most flagrant cases around here was a man who went to a number of public events while infectious. They could publish in the news the places where he admitted going, but they couldn’t name him so people could know whether they had come into contact with a carrier.

There is no need to publicize the places he went. Using that information is the job of contact tracers, not the general public.

Nor could they name any members of his family, nearly all of whom had it.

Again, there never was a need to publicize that information, because only the contact tracers needed to know that.

And the people are rioting in Europe against lockdowns and defying them, and you want to blame Trump for “poor public compliance” in the U.S. despite the fact that nobody is rioting about it here.

There is no need to riot here. People just do what they want and are not prevented from doing so.

Lots of people lose their livelihoods because of Democrat propaganda.

Lots of people lose their lives because of Trump’s propaganda.\

as people increasingly realize those measure don’t demonstrably prevent the disease

another Trump-camp bit of misinformation.

There is no compelling evidence that vaccines will do much more than give temporary resistance

There is no evidence that it won’t be very effective.

 

[MikeInVA]

There is no evidence that it won’t be very effective.

But I think that’s the opinion of Dr. Fauci?

 

[Ridgerunner]

people who do not yet know they are infected because of inadequate testing and contact tracing

This suggests you favor universal testing.

There is no need to publicize the places he went. Using that information is the job of contact tracers, not the general public.

And if the infected person doesn’t disclose everything, then not everbody with whom he had contact knows of the potential for infection; nor do future contacts he might have. HIPAA protects the Covid carrier from disclosure and no question about that. And why don’t they test people where you live and do contact tracing such as can be done with HIPAA? They sure do around here.

Lots of people lose their lives because of Trump’s propaganda.\

You know nothing of the sort. This really is low end.

There is no evidence that it won’t be very effective.

Fauci doubts it, why don’t you accept the “science”?

 

[Jeanne_S]

Well after the election,I expect it will be handled differently,if Godcforbid JB is the new POTUS

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

There is no evidence that it won’t be very effective.

But I think that’s the opinion of Dr. Fauci?

I have heard that conservative media is spreading that lie.

LeafByNiggle:

people who do not yet know they are infected because of inadequate testing and contact tracing

This suggests you favor universal testing.

Anything to divert attention to a different subject, eh?

And if the infected person doesn’t disclose everything, then not everbody with whom he had contact knows of the potential for infection

On the other hand, if there were no privacy protections, many people would just not cooperate with contact tracers. Overall, we get more information by protecting people’s privacy.

HIPAA protects the Covid carrier from disclosure and no question about that.

HIPAA protects the Covid carrier from unnecessary and counter-productive disclosure.

And why don’t they test people where you live and do contact tracing…

They do the best they can with the resources they have to work with.

LeafByNiggle:

Lots of people lose their lives because of Trump’s propaganda.\

You know nothing of the sort. This really is low end.

Just like you do not know that:

Ridgerunner:

Lots of people lose their livelihoods because of Democrat propaganda.

If you are allowed to make outrageous unsupported claims, so can I.

LeafByNiggle:

There is no evidence that it won’t be very effective.

Fauci doubts it, why don’t you accept the “science”?

See above about conservative media lies.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Anything to divert attention to a different subject, eh?

No. I really wanted to know. If you believe more testing can prevent new Covid cases, how is that to work as a practical matter?

Overall, we get more information by protecting people’s privacy.

Pretty counterintuitive. I think I would want to see some evidence of this assertion. All experience I have had shows the exact opposite.

 

[Ridgerunner]

If you are allowed to make outrageous unsupported claims, so can I.

I have heard that conservative media is spreading that lie.

See above about conservative media lies.

I think you and I are finished for now.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

No. I really wanted to know. If you believe more testing can prevent new Covid cases, how is that to work as a practical matter?

I’m not sure what “practical” problems you are expecting. If people are cooperative, there really isn’t a problem.

LeafByNiggle:

Overall, we get more information by protecting people’s privacy.

Pretty counterintuitive. I think I would want to see some evidence of this assertion. All experience I have had shows the exact opposite.

What experience do you have in contact tracing in the absence of privacy protection? But it is really quite intuitive. If I have good reason to think that if I test positive the whole world will know, I would be very reluctant to get tested. Why is that so hard to understand?