No, I’m not talking about Melania; due to the ongoing Covid 19 crisis, FLOTUS Friday, like much of America, has been suspended until further notice and the country remains on lockdown.
For what it’s worth this is my take so far:
It would seem that the models used to forecast the run of the Wuhan virus run are faulty.
The forecast used to predict 2.2 million U.S. deaths and 510,00 deaths in Great Britain was produced by Imperial College in London. It is “the epidemiological modeling which has informed policymaking in the United Kingdom and other countries in recent weeks.”
OK, but is the information reliable? Epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta is doubtful.
“I am surprised that there has been such unqualified acceptance of the Imperial model,” he said in the Financial Times.
Gupta’s team of researchers at Oxford believe both the hospitalization and mortality rates are much lower than the worst estimates, and immunity is more widespread than previously thought.
“Some say” the models are not just wrong but wrong by an order of magnitude.
The Wall Street Journal has published an op-ed from professors of medicine at Stanford who said “projections of the death toll” reaching 2 million to 4 million “could plausibly be orders of magnitude too high.” They believe “epidemiological modelers haven’t adequately adapted their estimates to account for” a number of important factors.
Why ever does this not surprise us? Perhaps because we have already seen faulty models used to whip up panic and manipulate the world to bend to the “science” of fake modeling promoted by our betters. Where else have we heard that we must “bend the curve”?
If I’m feeling kind I might excuse our betters for inciting such panic. They fear that the highly contagious virus without a massive shutdown will result in so many critical cases at once that it would overwhelm our hospitals and medical personnel. That certainly is true in some countries. But in America we have ships standing at the ready to serve as floating hospitals, and auto manufacturers that know how to makeshift production facilities on a dime to produce more respirators. We’re kind of unique that way.
At this point history alone will prove which course is best – duck and cover or come out and fight.
Meanwhile we remain on lockdown here in Park City after our unelected health director issued a “stay at home” diktat. He deemed that “grocery stores, banks, hardware stores, post offices, essential transportation services, senior care facilities, farming operations and media outlets. Restaurants that have transitioned to providing curbside and delivery service in compliance with a previous order may also remain open.” Plus the state has directed that state owned liquor stores will remain open.
That is pretty much the way things have been here since March 15th so the big announcement is more hoopla than news. Essentially this means that aside from formalizing what’s already taken place the diktat forces the closure of one jewelry store on Main Street along with a couple of galleries trying to hang on by the skin of their teeth.
That will show them who’s in charge around here.
The jury is still out on the status of our local gun range,
As licensed concealed weapons carriers, we consider firearms training/practice to be essential, although we’re not sure our betters would agree.
We don’t want a bunch of untrained cowboys running around packin’ now do we? Just because somebody’s model was wrong.
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