April 5, 2020
Bet Your Life -- Vote for Democrats
Conrad Black writes at American Greatness:
The same press outlets have been engaged in a scandalous attempt to represent the Chinese response to the crisis as brilliant and to accept Beijing’s claim to have eliminated the virus within its own borders, in embarrassing contrast (they suppose) to Trumpian floundering about.
In reality, the Chinese were inexcusably dishonest in withholding the proportions of the coronavirus outbreak, have not uttered a truthful word about it up to and including this week -- as they claim to have had almost no further fatalities and none at all in the past few days; and were extremely negligent in not moving promptly to restrict outward travel and warn the world.
The same American press which has acclaimed the official Chinese performance with an adulatory hallelujah chorus have railed against President Trump for following the normal practice of identifying the coronavirus geographically. The subordination of the World Health Organization as a cheerleader for China’s odium and criminality will require that the entire leadership of the WHO to be sacked and replaced by people in whom it is possible to have some confidence.
By the time this horrible virus has ravaged the underdeveloped world -- which is completely unprepared to deal with it and where the danger of horrific human devastation is the fear that dare not speak its name -- the complacent support of the corrupt leadership of the United Nations and its agencies by African and Asian states may have abated.
Their actions should not be ignored. But the actions of some elected Democratic officials doubtless contributed greatly to the spread of the disease, and as we show, seem to have had a disproportionate effect on the poor -- especially African Americans in these states and cities, the very blocs of voters who voted them into office.
The people most at risk from the virus are the elderly and the immune-suppressed. Diabetics, pre-diabetics, those with high blood pressure, and the grossly overweight are immune-suppressed and seem hardest hit. At least in NY, these conditions are found disproportionately in the black community.
The contagion also seems concentrated in denser urban areas and among the poor, who must rely on public transportation, live in closer quarters, and whose lack of storage space mean they must risk shopping more often for food and essential supplies. This picture seems clear in NYC. In Southern California the picture may be more closely related to travel from China and crowded conditions in areas with lots of illegal immigrants -- post-virus analysis may clarify that.
New York City's and California’s loony politicos are hooked on identity politics and see racism everywhere, ignoring objective science. The consequences of ignoring reality: overwhelmed medical facilities, lack of proper medical equipment, and soaring death rates.
Daniel Greenfield, writing at Frontpage Magazine, dissects in depth the role of identity politics in New York City, a case history in the consequences of stupid politics and utter mismanagement.
In brief, Mayor de Blasio’s City Health Commissioner, Oxiris Barbot, is a radical who previously served as Health Commissioner of Baltimore where she “had given the city’s race rioters ‘space to destroy.’” Space which continues after her move to New York to result in a soaring murder rate.
She boasted of seeing health policy through a “racial equity lens,” a lens so fogged that she concentrated on discouraging those arriving from Wuhan from going into self-quarantine and encouraging New Yorkers to attend the Lunar New Year celebrations in the city.
"As we gear up to celebrate the #LunarNewYear in NYC, I want to assure New Yorkers that there is no reason for anyone to change their holiday plans, avoid the subway, or certain parts of the city because of #coronavirus," she insisted.
By then there had already been over 17,000 cases of the Wuhan Virus in China with nearly 3,000 new cases in one day. For the first time, someone outside Mainland China had died of the disease.
Manhattan’s Chinatown, where Barbot had appeared, is one of the densest parts of the city. The old core community where the Lunar New Year celebration is based is a maze of cramped tenements, narrow streets, tiny stores whose counters extend far into the street, and other unsafe conditions
Barbot went on urging people to participate in the parade while spreading misinformation about the risk. “You won’t get it merely from riding the subways -- you get it from secretions,” she even claimed.
To her, the enemy was racial prejudice, not a rapidly transmissible, often deadly virus with a spread we can only hope to reduce by practicing social distance and good hygiene.
New York’s health authorities ignored objective research and placed the city’s residents at great risk, and the outbreak exploded.
So blinded by identity politics was the mayor that he never even ordered protective equipment until mid-March.
A staggering 6,582 additional people tested positive for the deadly bug since Thursday evening, bringing the city’s total confirmed cases to 56,289. Another 305 New Yorkers died from the virus, pushing the death toll up to 1,867.
More than 1,100 more coronavirus patients were hospitalized in the past day. Since the outbreak 11,739 people have been hospitalized. The city’s ICU capacity is at 88 percent with just 370 beds left unfilled.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday, just before the new statistics were released, that the coming days will be even darker.
In fact, de Blasio’s rejection of science and utter mismanagement is matched only by his ignorance of the law. This week, the dictatorial nitwit decided we should draft doctors and nurses to help his people out of the mess for which he bears no small degree of responsibility. Tom Maguire reports: The greatest city in the world is teetering on the brink so its Mayor seizes the opportunity to remind us he is a useless buffoon:
OK, that won't be happening. As a minor point, there is no time for Congress to pass the relevant legislation. As a major point, this is still America, we abandoned the draft decades ago, and we don't force people to work at gunpoint.
- COVID-19: De Blasio urges US enlistment program for doctors and nurses
- Mayor calls for medics to be moved to places in greatest need
- New York City prepares for surge in coronavirus cases
- "Enlistment program"?!? WHAT did he say?
- New York City’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, has called for a national enlistment program for doctors and nurses, to handle an expected surge in coronavirus cases in New York and across the US.
- “If we’re fighting a war, let’s act like we’re fighting a war,” he told reporters on Friday.
- "...unless the military is fully mobilized and we create something we’ve never had before, which is some kind of national enlistment of medical personnel moved to the most urgent needs in the country constantly … if we don’t have that we’re going to see hospitals simply unable to handle so many people who could be saved.”
And how would it work? NY hospitals are short of Protective Personal Equipment. So the Feds are going to threaten to arrest some doctor in Vermont unless he gets down to NY and imperils himself by treating coronavirus patients? And if the good people of the great state of Vermont need health care down the road, NY promises to send their doctor back, unless he's sick or dead or super busy saving New Yorkers in which case, well, that's a problem for another day? [snip]
As a further illustration that desperate times require desperate short-sightedness, this order by Gov. Cuomo is outrageous:
Cuomo said he would sign an executive order that allows the national guard to take ventilators and personal protective equipment from institutions that don’t need them right now and redistribute them to those that do. He said those institutions would either have their ventilators returned to them or get reimbursements. Cuomo said there may be several hundred ventilators available because of the order.
Right now, the state is fielding a daily need for about 300 additional ventilators, he said. Those ventilators, officials have repeatedly explained, make the difference between life and death.
“Am I willing to deploy the national guard and inconvenience people for several hundred lives? You’re damn right I am,” Cuomo said…
I guess Gov. Cuomo's message is "tough luck".
Nancy Pelosi
The first reference I can find of a mysterious virus in Wuhan was one in Mandarin dated December 31, 2019, three weeks before the Pelosi-promoted California congressman Adam Schiff’s impeachment trial, which began on January 21. One day after the ill-fated impeachment trial began, the CDC reported the first domestic virus case and the New York Times reported that the Chinese government was quarantining Wuhan. Eight days after the first case was reported in the U.S., the president formed the coronavirus task force. That same day WHO declared the virus a Global Health emergency. The next day (January 31), the President declared a public health emergency, quarantined U.S. citizens returning from China’s Hubei Province and restricted entry into the U.S. from China. (The Democrats charged him with racism for doing so though this step has proven critical to slowing the spread of the virus here.)
Two days later, on February 2, he suspended entry of others who posed a risk of transmitting the virus (and thereafter, added to suspension of entry people from other countries where the virus was appearing). On February 4 in his State of the Union address, he warned of the virus. Nancy Pelosi in a public temper tantrum and show of contempt ripped up her copy of the State of the Union address.
On February 24, twenty days after the President issued his warning about the virus and almost one month after he restricted entry from China, Nancy Pelosi publicly stated that people should pay no attention to the coronavirus fears and joined crowds in San Francisco’s Chinese lunar new years' celebrations, “We think it’s very safe,” she said.
On March 11, The President suspended travel from Europe, and the WHO officially declared the virus a pandemic. The following day, NYC declared a state of emergency and issued a statewide ban on all large gatherings.
I can only imagine what the death toll will be in California. San Francisco has immune-suppressed HIV-AIDs affected citizens (about 12,985 people living with HIV in San Francisco) and thousands of homeless people living on the streets. So far, the homeless do not seem particularly affected, but if (or once) it makes an appearance there, I suspect it will take a substantial toll. I suppose many of these people are already quite unhealthy, live cheek by jowl outdoors on feces-heaped streets, and lack access to means to practice proper hygiene. California also has a large number of immigrants -- in recent years, largely from Asia:
The majority of recent arrivals are from Asia.The vast majority of California’s immigrants were born in Latin America (50%) or Asia (40%). California has sizable populations of immigrants from dozens of countries; the leading countries of origin are Mexico (4.1 million), China (969,000), the Philippines (857,000), Vietnam (524,000), and India (507,000). However, most (56%) of those arriving between 2010 and 2017 came from Asia; only 29% came from Latin America.
At the moment the virus is racing faster through Southern California than Northern California, with Los Angeles County hardest hit. Santa Clara Countywith a high percentage of Asian population (37%) was hard hit as well though at the moment Los Angeles is hardest of the California counties hit.
I have for reasons for space and time limited the discussion largely to di Blasio and Pelosi, but they are certainly not the only Democratic politicians whose foolishness proves they are never to be trusted at the times we need sound political leadership most.
If you vote for people like these, you bet your life (and mine).
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