[PJMedia] Massive protests and proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border explains the recent surge in coronavirus cases far better than lifting lockdowns, Scott Atlas, M.D., a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, told Fox News this weekend. Bucking various health experts who have defended the George Floyd protests in the name of fighting the "virus" of racism, Atlas ventured to state the obvious: that people "protesting, sharing megaphones, screaming" is a "setup to spread cases."
Most of the new cases in the Southwest -- in California, Arizona, and Texas -- are sprouting up in counties closest to the U.S.-Mexico border.
"When you look in the southern counties of California, Arizona and the bordering counties of Texas -- with the Mexico border -- these are where most of these cases are really exploding," Atlas told Fox News. "And then you look at the Mexico map and in Mexico, that's where their cases are. Their cases are in the northern border zone states. And it turns out the timeline here correlates much more to the Mexico timeline of increasing cases than anything else."
The doctor insisted that the lifting of lockdowns -- the re-opening of various states -- likely did not lead to the surge in new cases.
"When you really look closely at these so-called re-opening policies, whether it's in Georgia or Florida or Texas, you know, we didn't really see a big correlation of cases and hospitalizations from that," Atlas said. "That's really not true. That's sort of some sloppy thinking, I think, again. We really ... have to look closely at why these things are happening."
He argued that "California didn't really reopen. Yet they have cases coming up."
Then Atlas touched on one of the main issues -- the massive protests in the wake of the horrific police killing of George Floyd.
"They correlate mainly to two things -- the big thousands and thousands of people with protesting, sharing megaphones, screaming. That's a setup to spread cases," the doctor said. "And also when you look at the analysis of the border counties, there's a tremendous amount of cases coming over the border and exchanging with families in the northern Mexico states."
The doctor warned that hospitals are getting crowded not just because of new cases but because hospitals are finally addressing "regular medical care" again. "We have locked that down before and that policy kills people. So we don't want to go back to that," he said. Indeed, the original lockdowns often put a halt to all "elective" surgeries, including heart surgeries and cancer treatments. Also keep in mind that we have changed how we count to include "probable cases" which means anyone with a sniffle or a cough is COVID-19 positive with or without a positive test, and the financial incentives under Medicare to report cases as COVID-19.
#1
IMO, you can argue that relaxing lookdowns in necessary. You can't argue that it doesn't contribute to rise in covid 19 cases - unless, of course, the voice of your "inner truth" outweighs all other considerations.
#2
Agreed, g(r)omgoru. But the purpose of lockdowns, as originally presented, was to flatten the curve so that hospitals were not overwhelmed, not to cut off the curve altogether. As long as we stay below that potential peak — a peak much higher than before, because of additional equipment and better treatments while we wait for cures and vaccines to be developed — should we not open up as much as is sustainable?
#3
Actually TW, (IMO) the thought at the basis of lockdowns was that come summer, the virus will go away. Nobody expected any different given our experience with coronaviruses. But, of course, the experience is with naturally evolved - not engineered - coronaviruses.
So right now, governments, have no solution but to walk lockdown relaxation back. And people riot "But you promised, Daddy!"
#4
Nope we're in week gawd knows what of a 3 week lockdown to "save the NHS". which unfortunately for British health did survive, and with the overflow nightingale hospitals being completely unused.
The curve's been so flat it can't even be noticed. COVID kills when the immune system over-reacts to it.
Ironic that the government is totally over-reacting to COVID.
#5
Bordertowns AZ: Sparsely populated Yuma and Santa Cruz counties are Arizona's COVID-19 hot spots. Yuma recently confirmed 63 new cases of COVID-19 and two new deaths, bringing the total case count to 3,467 and total deaths to 53. Gee, who can explain that?
#6
It was very clear during the daily briefings that they wanted to flatten the curve as to not overwhelm the hospitals. Now it has changed. This virus WILL run its course through the population, you cant stop it. We inoculate 45% of America for the annual Flu and we still lose 30 to 60 thousand. This will run its course, and anyone who believed the so called "Science" that it would go away in summer was a fool. We are not spoiled kids angry with daddy Grom, we watch the facts, the truth, and we know this is an over reaction.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/14/2020 11:16 Comments ||
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#7
We are not spoiled kids angry with daddy Grom, we watch the facts, the truth, and we know this is an over reaction.
" But the purpose of lockdowns, as originally presented, was to flatten the curve so that hospitals were not overwhelmed, not to cut off the curve altogether."
To cut off the curve would have been smarter idea in the first place. New Zealand decided to do so from the beginning and was successful.
Germany almost succeeded in doing that, too, but relaxed the rules a bit too early. Still, with 6000 active cases currently, we're in pretty good shape right now. Most new infections can be traced back and be put under control.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
07/14/2020 16:10 Comments ||
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#9
Letting the virus "run its course" seems to me a very reckless action, given the possibility that immunity may be short lived and future health damages may be enormous.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
07/14/2020 16:12 Comments ||
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#10
Yes, we know Americans are stupid already, you don't have to say it again.
[ToloNews] Data from the countries’ security agencies seen by TOLOnews indicates that Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... attacks have not decreased following the peace deal signed with the US; instead, the figures show an increase in violence by the group.
The data shows the Taliban conducted 5,943 attacks from January 21 to June 17, while Afghan forces--supported by foreign troops--conducted 1,569 operations against the group.
The data, tracked in solar months, shows the Taliban carried out 915 attacks from Jan. 21 to Feb. 19, one month ahead of the peace deal and the reduction in violence week. Afghan forces had 613 operations during this period, according to the data.
But their attacks increased to 1,378 in the following one month — Feb. 19 to March 20--according to the security figures, while Afghan forces had 209 operations during this month, less than what they conducted the previous month.
The data shows that Taliban attacks lessened after March 20, but they were still higher than what was recorded a month ahead of the peace deal. The group conducted 1,250 attacks from March 20 to April 20; 1,271 attacks from April 20 to May 20 and 1,155 attacks from May 20 to June 17.
Afghan forces operations however slightly increased compared to what was recorded between Feb. 19 to March 20. They conducted 261 operations from March 20 to April 20, 293 operations from April 20 to May 20 and 220 operations from May 20 to June 17.
The highest number of Taliban attacks in a week during this period was 511 attacks in the last week of Hoot (March 11 to March 18) while the highest number of the Afghan forces operations in a week during this period was 185 attacks in the third week of Dalwa month of the last solar year (Feb. 4 to Feb. 10), the data shows.
Following the peace deal, in Hamal month of the current solar year (March 20 to April 20), the Taliban conducted 97 attacks in a day, which was the most violent mostly peaceful day in five months.
The Taliban has not commented on the figures provided by security agencies. But a list released by the Taliban on April 19 provided figures of US forces attacks after the peace deal. The Taliban list showed that 33 air raids and dronezaps were conducted in 19 provinces against the group from March 9 to April 10.
In response to the Taliban data, the top US general in Afghanistan, Gen Scott Miller, in a statement said, "all sides, but especially the Taliban, must reduce violence to allow the political process to take hold."
[Al Ahram] The son of Mali's embattled President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, a target of popular anger in the fragile West African state, resigned as chair of the parliament's defence committee on Monday.
Karim Keita left the role as the government faces a growing protest movement, sparked by the outcome of parliamentary elections in March and April, but whose underlying causes include discontent over its handling of Mali's jihadist insurgency.
Economic woes and perceived government corruption have also fuelled public anger.
A protest in the capital Bamako on Friday turned violent mostly peaceful after protesters blocked bridges and attacked the parliament building.
Clashes persisted over the weekend and through Monday, with the protesters calling on President Boubacar to resign.
Eleven people have died and 124 have been injured since the unrest began, according to staff at a major hospital.
Karim Keita has been another target of protesters' anger over suspicions he leads a playboy lifestyle.
Recently leaked videos -- which AFP could not independently verify -- appear to show him enjoying himself at a party aboard a luxury yacht, for example, causing a scandal in the impoverished country of some 19 million people.
On Monday, Keita said in a statement that he would resign as parliamentary defence committee chair because he no longer wants to figure in arguments raised by political opponents.
He will continue to work as an MP, however.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/14/2020 00:00 ||
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And so they should, as the third Rome looking at the fate of the second one.
[Al Ahram] Russia voiced regret Monday over The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire... 's decision to convert the iconic Hagia Sophia in Istanbul back into a mosque.
Turkey's move last week followed a court ruling that revoked the landmark's museum status, and has triggered a global outcry.The Russian Orthodox Church had already expressed dismay at the decision.
In a comment on the foreign ministry's website, spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow "noted with regret" Ankara's decision regarding the UNESCO World Heritage site.
Initially a Byzantine cathedral, it had already been used as a mosque before becoming a museum, which conferred a religious detachment that has now been severed.
On Friday, Russian Orthodox front man Vladimir Legoida said "the concern of millions of Christians were not heard" by Ottoman Turkish authorities.
Zakharova's comment came after deputy foreign minister Sergei Vershinin told news hounds that Moscow viewed the move as "an internal Ottoman Turkish affair in which neither us nor others should interfere."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/14/2020 00:00 ||
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#1
The Ottoman Sultan should note this as his head might one day leave the confines of his body because Mother Russia is upset.
[Rudaw] Baghdad asked Germany to remove Iraq from a list of countries noted at high-risk for money laundering and terrorist financing, during a phone call between the foreign ministers of the two countries on Sunday.
Fuad Hussein, Iraqi foreign minister spoke with his German counterpart, Heiko Maas, on the phone Sunday, and discussed bilateral relations between the two countries, including the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... ’s continued inclusion of Iraq on a list of states prone to suspicious financial movement.
"Minister Fuad Hussein...called for Mr. Heiko Maas to intensify his efforts to remove Iraq from the list of high-risk countries in money laundering and terrorist financing," a statement by the Iraqi foreign ministry published on Sunday reads.
The European Union adopted a list of countries with weak anti-money laundering and forces of Evil financing regimes in February 2019, which included Iraq alongside 22 other countries around the world.
The aim of the list is to protect the European Union’s financial systems by "better preventing money laundering and forces of Evil financial risks," the statement by the European Union commission reads alongside the list.
Iraq has been fighting various terrorist groups over the years, most notably the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) group, which seized vast swathes of Syria and northern Iraq in the summer of 2014, including djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... and other large Sunni-majority cities.
Baghdad called on the international community to form a coalition to help fight ISIS in Iraq. At the height of its power between 2014 and 2016, ISIS controlled an area roughly the size of Great Britannia, spread across both Iraq and Syria.
Germany has been a core member of the US-led coalition and the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... training mission in Iraq since Baghdad invited its forces to assist in the fight against ISIS in 2015.
Although the government announced the territorial defeat of ISIS in Iraq in December 2017, remnants of the group have returned to their earlier insurgency tactics, ambushing security forces, kidnapping and executing suspected informants, and extorting money from vulnerable rural populations.
The German government announced in September 2019 that it would extend its mission with the Coalition until October 2020, but reduce its total number of troops across the Middle East from 800 to 700.
Germany has supported Iraq and the Kurdistan Region through non-military means as well. Germany officially handed over the Peshmerga Hospital in Erbil to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in April. The facility strives to treat members of the Kurdistan Region’s security forces maimed in the ISIS war.
In 2018, Germany invested 90 million euros in water sanitation, sewage, and construction to stabilize Iraq following the defeat of ISIS.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/14/2020 02:29 ||
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[Jpost] The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force—a highly specialized unconventional warfare unit in the IRGC- have been active in Germany over the years. The US government has designated the IRGC and the Quds Force foreign terrorist organizations.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel ...chancellor of Germany and the impetus behind Germany's remarkably ill-starred immigration program. Merkel used to be referred to by Germans as Mom. Now they make faces at her for inundating the country with Moslem colonists... ’s administration refused to sanction the IRGC or the Qud Force for terror operations on German soil.
The Jerusalem sent email press queries on Monday to Josef Schuster, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, and his spokeswomen Jutta Wagemann.
In 2017, a Berlin court sentenced 31-year-old Pak citizen Mustufa Haidar Syed-Naqfi
...yesterday we wondered who the man was, beyond the facts of his name and arrest in that dreadfully useless Jerusalem Post report. Today we are vouchsafed some information...
to four years and three months in prison for working for Iran’s intelligence service to spy "against Germany and another NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... member."
Chancellor Merkel, however, did not expel any Iranian diplomats or sanction Iranian officials for Syed-Naqfi 's terror plot on German soil.
According to German prosecutors, Haidar Syed-Naqfi was assigned to identify Israeli and Jewish institutions and Israel advocates in Germany, La Belle France and other unnamed Western European countries for possible attacks. He monitored a German-Jewish newspaper’s headquarters in Berlin and Reinhold Robbe, the former head of the German-Israel Friendship Society.
Haidar Syed-Naqfi spied on French-Israeli business Prof. David Rouach, who teaches at the elite Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Gay Paree and served as head of the French-Israeli Chamber of Commerce, and, according to German authorities, his actions were "a clear indication of an liquidation attempt."
The Quds Force paid Haidar Syed-Naqfi at least €2,052 from July 2015 through July 2016.
So little, and they still did not get their money’s worth.
A joint Iran-Hezbollah terrorist operation murdered five Israelis in Burgas, Bulgaria in 2012.
[Jpost] It is unprecedented for a Saudi researcher to choose to publish his article in an Israeli academic journal, in order to bring the two nations closer.
A professor from King Saud University in Riyadh published an article in Hebrew in an Israeli academic journal, which is unprecedented, according to Tel Aviv University.
Prof. Mohammed Ibrahim Alghbban, Head of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization and Hebrew Studies at King Saud University wrote the article in Kesher, the journal of the Shalom Rosenfeld Institute for Research of Jewish Media and Communication at Tel Aviv University.
Prof. Raanan Rein, head of Shalom Rosenfeld Institute, said it is unprecedented for a Saudi researcher to choose to publish his article in an Israeli academic journal, in order to bring the two nations closer.
"I hope that this academic cooperation is another step towards economic and political cooperation," Rein stated.
Kesher’s editor Prof. Gideon Kouts has met Alghbban at academic Hebrew Studies conferences and on a visit to Riyadh in 2015. The Hebrew Studies program Alghbban heads is taught only to male students, and its curriculum includes works by Yosef Haim Brenner, Shmuel Yosef Agnon and Etgar Keret.
Alghbban’s paper comes amid increasing calls in Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... and other Gulf States for greater cooperation with Jews and Israel to achieve peace. Israel and Gulf States have grown closer in recent years, despite not having diplomatic relations, as they face a common enemy: Iran. But the increased ties have led to partnerships in other fields, such as companies in Israeli and the United Arab Emirates working together on treating coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... The article is titled "Contribution to Prophet Muhammad’s Image Improvement in the Eyes of the Israeli Public: Muhammad’s Alliances and Mail Exchanges with Jews from the Arabian Peninsula," in which Alghbban argues that the prophet had good relations with Jews and his festivities with them were political, not religious.
The Saudi professor said he wrote the article to improve Muhammad’s image among Israelis, which he said is currently based on "erroneous assumptions about the origins of Islam proposed by Oriental Studies researchers, " which "led to a distorted understanding of manuscripts, wrong methodology and negative influences on Hebrew-speaking Middle Eastern Studies researchers."
As such, he translated letters written by Muhammad into Hebrew in his article.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/14/2020 02:29 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... -based terror group dismisses report by Paleostinian media outlet close to its rival Mohammad Dahlan as ’rumors and lies’
The Hamas, one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede, interior ministry on Sunday denied a report
Continued on Page 49
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.
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
[Al Ahram] The son of Mali's embattled President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, a target of popular anger in the fragile West African state, resigned as chair of the parliament's defence committee on Monday.
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
...chancellor of Germany and the impetus behind Germany's remarkably ill-starred immigration program. Merkel used to be referred to by Germans as 
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
