90 Miles From Tyranny

Thursday, June 18, 2020

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Erosion of trust: 10 things public health establishment got wrong about coronavirus

From the start, the public health establishment has projected an air of certitude in its advice and policy prescriptions on COVID-19 belied by a record of error on many of the central questions.

Time and again throughout the coronavirus pandemic you've heard it. As public health authorities and state and local elected officials blanketed the nation with restrictions on public mobility and assembly, work and worship, they waved aside doubts and objections with the assurance that they were simply following the “data and the science”; this as if data are always complete, reliable, transparent and unambiguous, and scientific opinion is always monolithic, settled, and immune to challenge.

In reality, “the data and the science” pertaining to the new coronavirus have been partial, often ambiguous, sometimes arbitrary and misleading, even fraudulent — and continually shifting. Mistakes, of course, were inevitable when trying to understand and contain an unfamiliar, complex and highly contagious new virus. But when recurring expert error is coupled with an expectation that the public should mutely maintain an unquestioning faith in the claims of “the data and the science” — as has often been the case during the pandemic — the result may be a severe erosion in the credibility of public health authorities. Here are 10 things the public health establishment got wrong:

1. Threat level: On Jan. 21, the day the first COVID-19 case in the U.S. was confirmed, National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci appeared on conservative Newsmax TV and said: “Obviously, you need to take it seriously and do the kind of things the CDC and the Department of Homeland Security is doing. But this is not a major threat to the people of the United States, and this is not something that the citizens of the United States right now should be worried about.”

By April 1, CDC Director Robert Redfield would be saying, “This is the greatest public health crisis that has hit this nation in more than 100 years.”

2. Masks: “Seriously people — STOP BUYING MASKS!” So tweeted Surgeon General Jerome Adams on Feb. 29. “They are NOT effective in preventing [the] general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can't get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!” The CDC initially said, “If you are sick, you should wear a facemask when you are around other people (e.g., sharing a room or vehicle) and before you enter a healthcare provider's office." But "if you are NOT sick," it added, "you do not need to wear a facemask unless you are caring for someone who is sick (and they are not able to wear a facemask).” That link now leads to the declaration with a subheading in large letters: “Cover your mouth and nose with a cloth face cover when around others.”

3. Asymptomatic transmission: Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, said at a June 8 news briefing, “From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual,” adding, “It’s very rare.” She explained the importance of this for policy purposes. “What we really want to be focused on is following the symptomatic cases,” Van Kerkhove said. “If we actually followed all of the symptomatic cases, isolated those cases, followed the contacts and quarantined those contacts, we would drastically reduce” the outbreak.

After a backlash that “sent shock waves throughout the world”, according to a CNBC report and sparked a “furious scientific debate,” according to The Washington Post, Kerhove executed a 180 within a day. “We don’t actually have that answer yet,” she said. “I wasn’t stating a policy of WHO or anything like that.”

4. Mortality rate:

Anti-Kim Leaflets Land Near North Korea’s Border With China And Little Rocket Man Is Having A Cow...

South Korean activists, most of whom are North Korean escapees, prepare to release balloons carrying leaflets and a banner condemning North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a rally in Paju, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2016.

When South Korean balloon-lifted leaflets criticizing Kim Jong Un recently landed next to a high school close to North Korea’s border with China, security agents mustered teachers, students and soldiers to bury the fliers -- then made them all pledge to keep the incident as a state secret, according to sources in the region.

Launching anti-Kim leaflets into the North by helium balloon across the Demilitarized Zone from South Korea has been a tactic of Pyongyang opponents and human rights groups in the South for decades, but North Korea recently decided to make the fliers a main point of contention in inter-Korean relations.

On Tuesday North Korea destroyed a landmark liaison office with South Korea in a “terrific explosion” -- days after the country said it was cutting all communications with Seoul over the anti-Pyongyang leaflets.

Many experts believe that the leaflet drops are merely an excuse that North Korea is using to ratchet up pressure on Seoul and Washington in a renewed drive to gain concessions in stalled denuclearization negotiations. Pyongyang seeks relief from sanctions aimed at depriving it of resources and cash for illicit weapons programs.

The balloon landing last month near a high school in the border province of Ryanggang, however, showed that authorities in North Korea still take the spread of the leaflets as a...

Victim brutally assaulted outside a convenience store in Texas.

A man viciously beaten by a gang of young black men in Spring, Texas claimed one of them shouted “black lives matter” after kicking him in the face.

Video of the incident shows the victim leaving a gas station convenience store carrying two bags.

The 24-year-old man claims the gang of six black men confronted him inside the store after he told them, “There’s a line for a reason” when they tried to cut in.

The gang then waited for the man to leave the store before brutally assaulting him with numerous punches and kicks to the head.

RAW VIDEO: Man brutally attacked outside gas station in Spring, Texas; victim says after the group tried to cut him in line, he was jumped as he left the store.

"They came up to me and kicked me in the face and said, 'Black lives matter, *******!" pic.twitter.com/bTNU9UJ5Bq
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) June 17, 2020

The footage shows another black man wearing a white t-shirt then walk up to the victim and boot him in the face.

“I don’t know what else I could do,” he told KTRK-TV. “The fifth one at the end came out of the store after purchasing goods, and came up to me and kicked me in the face and said, Black Lives Matter.”

However, the victim’s girlfriend tried to downplay any racial motivation behind the attack.

“I really hope they’re caught before someone else gets hurt,” she said. “I hope that the people take this and don’t say, ‘It’s white against black.’ I don’t want this to be the statement. I want it to be, here’s a man who was checking out and stood up for himself and he was targeted for that.'”

The Harris County Sheriff’s Office is still looking for...