The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Coronavirus: Why Italy?

  It was reported yesterday that Italy now has more coronavirus deaths than China, and that there were zero new cases in Wuhan. Everyone immediately became skeptical: Is Beijing lying again? But there’s another important question: Why has this pandemic hit Italy so hard? Saturday, I suggested the likely answer: Almost no one in the […]

Stop Pretending We Don’t Know Exactly How and Where This Pandemic Started

  Two words you should add to your vocabulary — zoonosis and zoonotic: A zoonosis (plural zoonoses, or zoonotic diseases) is an infectious disease caused by bacteria, viruses, or parasites that spread from non-human animals (usually vertebrates) to humans. Major modern diseases such as Ebola virus disease and salmonellosis are zoonoses. The Wuhan coronavirus is a […]

Fear Not: Why Older Americans Are Less Panicked About Wuhan Coronavirus

  Fear can be rational or irrational. If you live in West Baltimore, for example, being afraid of violent crime is entirely rational. Yet even if you live in a low-crime rural area, you may take precautions — a home alarm system, firearms ownership, etc. — without being accused of paranoia, because “better safe than […]

What Trump Did and Didn’t Do

  At a press conference Monday, President Trump issued “guidelines” to slow the spread of the coronavirus. What should be noted, however, is what Trump didn’t do — he did not announce a nationwide quarantine order. You see, the consensus opinion inside the CDC was that such a nationwide action was advisable, but as Trump […]

America Is Not Italy: Wuhan Coronavirus and the ‘Grisly Calculus’ of Pandemic Risk

Let’s start with the good news: My American Spectator colleague Jeffrey Lord just ended two weeks of self-quarantine, a precaution after being potentially exposed to Wuhan coronavirus at CPAC. My brother and I both attended CPAC, of course, and while we are not aware of any direct contact with the person from New Jersey who […]

Wuhan Coronavirus Panic Continues

  On Saturday night’s episode of The Other Podcast, Dianna Deeley was discussing the reaction to the Wuhan coronavirus in Georgia, where she lives, and I cited the number of actual cases in Georgia: 66 so far, with exactly one death, in a state with a population of about 10.5 million. Anyone may offer speculative […]

First Russia, Then Ukraine, Now a Virus — ‘The Walls Are Closing In’ on Trump!

  One symptom of mental illness is magical thinking, “the belief that one’s own thoughts, wishes, or desires can influence the external world. . . . People with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) engage in a type of magical thinking. . . . People diagnosed with schizophrenia and delusional disorders may also experience bouts of magical thinking.” […]

The Absurdity of the Wuhan Virus Panic

  Students at John Hopkins University have created a COVID-19 (Wuhan coronavirus) outbreak map, from which we may learn that, as of this morning, the disease has caused nearly 5,000 deaths worldwide, of which more than 4,000 were either in China or Italy. Likewise, of the 134,700 COVID-19 cases identified worldwide, four nations (China, Italy, […]

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