COVID-19: The Fight Against Fear

Posted on | April 8, 2020 | 2 Comments

Mike Rowe: “We’re told to fall in line, trust the experts, and wait patiently for the all clear. Okay, fine. But for how long? What are the criteria for turning the country back on?” Many conservatives have become gun-shy about the COVID-19 outbreak. They don’t want to seem dismissive of the threat, or to undermine the message about the importance of “social distancing,” and I get that, completely. We must consider the influence of our words, but at the same time, I am beginning to hear, in the “social distancing” amen chorus, a creepy tone that reminds me of the rah-rah cheerleading for the Iraq War. Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania:

A York County woman this week was the first person in Pennsylvania to be cited for violating Gov. Tom Wolf’s stay-at-home order, according to state police.
The 19-year-old woman was given a nontraffic citation for allegedly “going for a drive,” according to the citation obtained by Pennlive.
State police spokesman Ryan Tarkowski said Friday the woman initially was pulled over because of a vehicle code violation. Warnings have been issued by troopers in Troop A, which includes Westmoreland County, and Troop E in the Erie area, he said.
Troopers can use their discretion to decide if a citation is warranted, but they have been encouraged to use contacts with the public as a way to promote voluntary compliance, Tarkowski said.

She was alone in her car, but if this “going for a drive” business gets out of hand, people might start “going for a walk,” and next thing you know, they might peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances, or something. The state police can’t allow that.

Remember my Monday column at The American Spectator about how the IHME (“Murray model”) projections were absurdly wrong? That got a lot of attention, including a link from Real Clear Politics, a substantial quote-out by Instapundit, and tweets by Megyn Kelly and Rush Limbaugh’s legendary producer James Golden a/k/a “Bo Snerdley.”

Of course, I was not alone in noticing the failure of the IHME projections (see Derek Hunter’s Sunday column at Townhall, for example), and it would be wrong to think I had any exceptional influence, but watching Tucker Carlson’s opening monologue Tuesday . . .

Fox News host Tucker Carlson pointed out that, even with the coronavirus infection and death toll “receding,” it’s still “taboo” in many circles to discuss getting things back to normal in the United States.
Beginning a lengthy monologue on Tuesday night’s edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” the Fox News host discussed how once-dire COVID-19 projections “have been scaled back dramatically” in the wake of far lower numbers than any of the models anticipated, even taking social distancing measures into account.
“Whatever’s happening, this epidemic appears to be doing less damage than anticipated and it is receding more quickly.” . . .
“Now it’s time to look ahead,” Carlson said. “If the virus is doing less systemic damage to our system than expected, then presumably we can begin to consider how to improve the lives of the countless Americans who’ve been grievously hurt by this, by our response to this. How do we get 17 million of our most vulnerable citizens back to work? That’s the task.”

You should watch the whole thing, if you didn’t see it last night.

Perhaps some of you were worried by my lack of blogging Tuesday, and my apologies if anyone feared I’d been laid low by the ChiCom flu, but among other things, I was busy crunching through some interesting statistics about the coronavirus death rate in different countries:

Spain ………………………….. 311 per million
Italy …………………………… 283 per million
Belgium ……………………… 193 per million
France ……………………….. 158 per million
Netherlands ………………… 131 per million
United States ………………… 39 per million

The point should be obvious enough not to require comment. Anyone can look at those statistics and draw their own conclusions, but some in the media don’t want Americans to have an accurate perspective:

Two weeks ago, Dr. Deborah Birx warned against doomsday predictions that millions of Americans might die from coronavirus. At a White House press briefing on March 25, the coordinator of President Trump’s task force condemned media speculation based on claims that as much as half the country’s population might become infected with COVID-19. “I think the numbers that have been put out there are actually very frightening to people,” said Birx, adding that reported rates of infection in China, where the virus originated, were “nowhere close to the numbers that you see people putting out there. I think it has frightened the American people.”
Birx did not name MSNBC personality Chris Hayes, although he was one of the worst scaremongers in the media mob. On his March 23 program, Hayes warned that “millions of lives are on the line” if the economic lockdown response to the virus was not extended indefinitely: “There is no option to just let everyone go back out and go back to normal if a pandemic rages across the country and infects 50 percent of the population and kills a percentage point at the low end of those infected and also melts down all the hospitals.” . . .

Read the rest of my latest column at The American Spectator.

Category: Health Care, Media Bias

In The Mailbox: 04.07.20

Posted on | April 7, 2020 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 04.07.20

– compiled by Wombat-socho

The late Jerry Pournelle’s Chaos Manor website is still open, and they have a lot of good news. Unfortunately, there’s some bad news as well, and if you can help out, it would be a Good Thing.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Major Kim Campbell & A Shot-To-Hell A-10 Thunderbolt
EBL: White House Coronavirus Press Briefing 4/6
Twitchy: “Journalist” Who Called The Cops On Target Manager Over Toothbrush Now Concerned About Grocery Workers
Louder With Crowder: Mike Rowe Flattens Media Matters’ Attack Over Coronavirus
Shoe0nHead: Believe All Women…But Not THAT Woman!

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Kissinger Still Pushing The Myth Of A Happy New World Order
American Greatness: Are COVID-19 Deaths Being Overreported?
American Thinker: Democrat Trump Derangement Syndrome Escalates Coronavirus Spread
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Ounce Of Prevention News
Babalu Blog: Cuba – Deprivation With A Face Mask
BattleSwarm: All Red China’s Lies
Cafe Hayek: Oily Protectionism
CDR Salamander: Africa & COVID-19
Da Tech Guy: Report From Louisiana – The Exponential Numbers, also, Quarantine Board Game Suggestions (Besides Dynasty Baseball)
Don Surber: Anti-Trump Reporters Trap Themselves On COVID-19
First Street Journal: The Sheeple Love Reichsstatthalter Andy Beshear!
The Geller Report: CDC Director Says Coronavirus Death Toll Will Be “Much, Much, Much Lower” Than Projected, also, Watch Media Go Berserk Over Hydroxychloroquine Taking Canter Stage. Many Clips!
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, also, M80
Hollywood In Toto: Louis C.K.’s Sincerely – You Can’t Cancel Him Again, also, We Summon The Darkness Trashes Christians, Tests Our Patience
JustOneMinute: That Was A Good Day
Legal Insurrection: #MeToo? Not When The Accused Is Joe Biden, According To Alyssa Milano, also, NYT Deceptively Reports That Trump Has “Financial Interest” In Hydroxychloroquine
Power Line: Sweden’s Coronavirus Numbers Vs. America’s, also, Coronavirus In One State
Shark Tank: Florida Democrats Critical Of DeSantis Extend Him “Help” During Pandemic
Shot In The Dark: Blue Fragility
STUMP: Know Your Models – COVID-19
The Political Hat: American Innovation In The Age Of Quarantine
This Ain’t Hell: Legislation Blocked To Deny Trump “Win”, also, Acting SecNav Apologizes
Victory Girls: State Department Refuses To Help Hillary Avoid Deposition
Volokh Conspiracy: FCC Rejects Petition To Censor Broadcasts Of Trump’s Coronavirus Press Conferences
Weasel Zippers: NYC Official Blames Trump For His Mother’s COVID-19 Death, also, Biden Now Tied Among Dem Voters With Person Who Isn’t Even Running
Mark Steyn: The Boarded River, also, Downing Street Down

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 04.06.20

Posted on | April 6, 2020 | 2 Comments

– compiled by Wombat-socho

Honor Blackman at the beach, because there’s no such thing as too much Honor Blackman.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Red Pilled Jew: Ignoring Hashem’s Wisdom (Part II of III)
Bacon Time: Things You Should Do After Buying Your First Gun
357 Magnum: It Was All A Big Mistake
EBL: Does Red China Have A Leadership Problem?
Twitchy: CBS News Offers Pathetic “Clarification” After Getting Busted For Bogus COVID19 Nurse Narrative
Louder With Crowder: Joe Rogan Chooses Trump Over Biden

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Friday Hawt Chicks & Links – The Working From Home Sucks Edition
American Conservative: The Coronavirus Monsters On Main Street
American Greatness: Corona Meltdowns, also, Whose Side Is Nancy Pelosi Really On?
American Thinker: Did Anyone Think This Through? also, COVID-19 Solution In Sight?
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday
Babalu Blog: The WHO Director Has No Idea What Deadly Chinese Virus You’re Referring To
BattleSwarm: Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update, also, Chicoms Demand Apology From Aussie Journalist Tim Blair, Who Sticks A Fork In Their Eye
Cafe Hayek: Trump – Too Easy An Excuse & Target, also, How Dependent Are Americans On Drugs Made In Red China?
Camp Of The Saints: #WUHAN – No Chief Executive Is A Dictator
CDR Salamander: Jones Act – National Security Asset Or Liability?
Da Tech Guy: Two Navies, Two Stories, One Choice, also, Quarantined Thoughts Under The Fedora
Don Surber: Making Red China Pay, also, Ignoring Experts, Trump Saves Lives
First Street Journal: Crime Rises In Philadelphia
Fred On Everything: Johns Hopkins, Dr. Stanley, Dr. Daoud, Surgical Disaster, & Me
The Geller Report: Muslim Clergy Agrees Jews Created Coronavirus, also, Hamas Boss Threatens Israel Over Ventilators
Hogewash: What To Learn To Code, also, Team Kimberlin Post of The Day
Hollywood In Toto: Milano’s BIden Defense Is More Pathetic Than You Can Imagine, also, Why Nick Searcy’s Hollywood Project Battles A Rigged System
JustOneMinute: Drafting Doctors
Legal Insurrection: Study Finds CNN Barely Paid Attention To Wuhan Coronavirus During Trump Impeachment Trial, also, NY Gov Andrew Cuomo Orders National Guard To Seize Ventilators From Upstate Hospitals
The PanAm Post: Pedro Sanchez, The Spanish Dictator
Power Line: No One Here Gets Out Alive, also, Ventilators Are No Panacea
Shark Tank: Wasserman-Schultz Wants DeSantis To Call Special Coronavirus Session
Shot In The Dark: Sort Of A Good News/Bad News Situation
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday – Is There A Case For Private Property?
This Ain’t Hell: Schiff Whines That Trump Is “Retaliating” Against Enemies, also, Lies, Damned Lies, And What?
Victory Girls: Andrew Cuomo Licks Beijing’s Hand, also, Dem Rep Praises Red China, Blames Trump For Coronavirus Deaths
Volokh Conspiracy: Liberty Of Movement & Assembly
Weasel Zippers: Biden Completely Incoherent As He Explains His Coronavirus Response Plan, also, Video Montage – Democrats Say Coronavirus An Opportunity To Create Socialist Utopia
Mark Steyn: The Kids Are Alright, also, Yes! We Have No Bananas

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Category: Linkagery

Rule Five Monday: Honor Blackman, RIP

Posted on | April 6, 2020 | 2 Comments

– compiled by Wombat-socho

Today we bid farewell to one of the best Bond Girls, Honor Blackman, who was also no slouch as Patrick MacNee’s sidekick on The Avengers, where she preceded Diana Rigg. Here she is in a shot from Goldfinger.

Ninety Miles From Tyranny: Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #944, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns.

Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Signs Of Life Friday, also, the Saturday Gingermageddon.

EBL: Mira Sorvino, Oklahoma!, Tiger King, Eva Maria Westbroek & Michelle DeYoung, Dialogues Des Carmelites, Joyce DiDonato, Ariana Savalas, Nixon In China, Chanel Rion, Anna Netrebko, and Tess Mohr.

A View From The Beach: A Canukistan Cutie – Rachel McAdams, WuFlu Kills Pennsylvania Trout Opener, Fish Pic Friday – The Clown Knifefish, Tattoo Thursday, Pretty Package, Damaged Goods, WuFlu Sickens Plastic Bag Bans, Virtue Signalers Hurt Worst, Gritty Monday and Palm Sunday.

Red Pilled Jew: Fiery Ebony

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious linkagery!

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Category: Rule 5

Commies, Democrats and the Media

Posted on | April 6, 2020 | Comments Off on Commies, Democrats and the Media

But I repeat myself:

An Illinois Democrat who accused President Donald Trump of killing Americans by lying to the public about the coronavirus also spread pro-China misinformation about the deadly disease during a townhall with constituents.
As COVID-19 spreads across the nation, Rep. Sean Casten (D., Ill.) has repeatedly attempted to blame Trump and Republicans for the death toll, accusing them of spreading fatal misinformation about the pandemic. Casten himself, however, has misinformed the public about China’s role in the pandemic. When one of his constituents asked about the early Chinese response to the outbreak at a March 21 electronic town hall, the congressman refused to talk about the regime’s coverup of the virus. Instead, he incorrectly said that China had successfully isolated the outbreak in Wuhan.
“China, to their credit, once they realize they had a problem, shut down the entire province that this was in and they seem to have largely isolated the cases in China,” Casten said. “We have missed that window in the United States.” . . .
Casten also asserted the United States shut down its pandemic response team in the National Security Council, a false claim repeated by many Democrats and mainstream media outlets. Trump merely consolidated several redundant teams, including those tasked with the pandemic response, into one office while retaining much of their original staff, according to Tim Morrison, who previously led the consolidated office.

Via Instapundit, who asks: “Why are Democratic members of Congress covering up for the Chinese government’s misbehavior?”

Answer: Because Democrats hate America, that’s why.

And the same goes double for our journalistic elite. They have an arrogant sense of their own superiority to the rest of us, particularly the “deplorables” out in flyover country who vote for Trump. Therefore, the media establishment makes a calculation: Anything that we redneck hillbillies like (e.g., the internal combustion engine) is bad and must be destroyed, whereas anything we don’t like (e.g., communism) is good and must be encouraged. This is why, for example, the liberal media are so enthusiastic about transgenderism. They figure, “Yeah, the Trump voters are gonna hate having their daughters share a bathroom with some deranged pervert, so we must support policies that mandate this.”

Because of their reflexive partisan bias, our media are now actually cheering for the Chinese virus to kill the maximum number of Americans, because the more people die, the more they can blame Trump. This is why the media hate chloroquinine, and want this potentially life-saving treatment to fail, because a drug that saves Americans lives might be good for Trump, and anything that is good for Trump is wrong.

CNN has become the Chicom News Network, and our media overlords are very angry that President Trump called out a reporter for a Beijing-controlled propaganda operation during his White House briefing.

Category: China, Media Bias

COVID-19: Metrics in a Time of Plague

Posted on | April 6, 2020 | 1 Comment

Perhaps you didn’t notice, but since Sunday, Fox News has dropped their habit of framing the screen with graphics showing the worldwide and nationwide totals of coronavirus cases and deaths. Perhaps some executive at the network came to the same realization I’d had for several days, namely that this Death Watch theme was . . . not helpful.

In mid-March, when Americans were first coming to grips with this pandemic — schools were closing, daily briefings, etc. — network executives got the idea that we needed these numbers constantly on our screens, to scare people and make them take “social distancing” seriously. Having accomplished that mission, however, they must have decided that their Death Watch motif was driving home-bound audiences crazy. We’re all trying our best to maintain a sense of optimism, and having these numbers omnipresent on TV news was not conducive to that effort. And, I argue, these weren’t even the most important numbers:

Turn on your TV, and cable news will show you a chyron with the cumulative total of known COVID-19 cases in the United States. That number increases daily, by a simple process of addition, but that’s not the number which matters most in terms of coping with the pandemic. What matters, from the perspective of avoiding a crisis that overwhelms our health-care system, is not how many people are infected with the coronavirus, but rather the number of patients hospitalized. As tests for the Chinese virus have become more widely available, a majority of people who test positive — more than 80 percent in some states — are never hospitalized. Earlier projections of a system-crashing crisis have so far been proven false, but the media refuse to acknowledge the failure of the doomsday prophets and their computer-generated pandemic models.
It feels unfair to point this out, at a time when health-care workers in the hardest-hit areas of the country like New York, Detroit, and New Orleans are struggling to keep up with a surging number of COVID-19 cases, and the daily death toll continues increasing. More than 1,300 Americans died from the virus Saturday, concluding a week in which U.S. deaths totaled 6,232. . . .

Read the rest of my column at The American Spectator.

Category: American Spectator

Coronavirus ‘Myths’ and Real Numbers

Posted on | April 4, 2020 | 1 Comment

The stated purpose of stay-at-home orders and “social distancing” guidelines was to “flatten the curve” of the coronavirus pandemic, to prevent a sudden surge of hospital cases that would exceed the available resources. Slowing the spread of the disease, however, does not mean that widespread infection can be permanently avoided, nor does it mean that anyone is “safe” from COVID-19. For example, the state of Minnesota has reported only 789 coronavirus cases in a population of 5.6 million, which is 14 cases per 100,000 residents. Compare that to New York’s 530 cases per 100,000 residents, and you see that Minnesota is relatively “safe.” But over the next few weeks, even with policies to “flatten the curve,” the number of Minnesota cases will increase, so it would be wrong to think that you, as an individual, are “safe” from coronavirus, merely because you live in a region with a relatively low infection rate. This is relevant to discussions of how and when America will be able to go “back to normal.” (Our family is currently “attending” church via videoconferencing software.)

There has been a lot of noise in the media about Republican governors in some states being reluctant to impose statewide stay-at-home orders, and people in rural America failing to follow “social distancing” guidelines. Supposedly, this is a result of their believing “myths” that they are somehow safe from coronavirus, but because I’m not a mindreader, I can’t presume to know what people believe. Certainly there have been outbreaks in rural communities, as in the case of Dougherty County, Georgia, were two large funerals Feb. 29 and March 7 acted as “super-spreading” events, infecting dozens of people, 90% of whom were black.

African-Americans are being disproportionately affected by the pandemic elsewhere. In Michigan, for example, black people “account for 35% of confirmed cases in the state and 40% of deaths from COVID-19,” although black people are only 12% of the state’s population. The disease is also disproportionately concentrated in Detroit (Wayne County) and suburban Macomb County and Oakland County, which combined have 80% of all known coronavirus cases in Michigan. The statewide infection rate in Michigan is 128 cases per 100,000 residents, but the rate is higher in the Detroit metron area, and much lower elsewhere in the state.

It must be understood that risk is a matter of statistical probability. Your infection risk is lower in rural Minnesota than it is in Detroit or in New York City, but being “low risk” is not the same thing as being “safe.” In a pandemic, nobody is at zero risk. But even the most drastic governmental restrictions will not lower the risk to zero. Italy has been under a nationwide lockdown order since March 11. Friday, they reported 4,585 new COVID-19 cases — and that’s good news, because the daily number of new cases has declined 30% since March 21, when Italy reported 6,557 new cases. So, after three weeks of lockdown, Italy has already “flattened the curve” (i.e., the number of new cases has already peaked), but they’re still reporting thousands of new cases daily and people continue to die. That’s simply the reality, and nothing we can do in the United States will prevent our outbreak from following the same trajectory. Once we have passed the crisis point — once the outbreaks in New York, in Detroit and other “danger zones” have passed their peak, straining available medical resources — it’s not as if we will then return to a condition of “safety.”

The pandemic will run its course, and a certain number of people will die, because the death toll for May is pretty much already baked into the pie, so to speak. Once you have imposed the most drastic lockdown measures, there is really nothing more you can do, in terms of “flattening the curve,” but at some point the pandemic will peak — reaching the “apex,” as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says repeatedly in his daily briefings — and then you should be prepared to begin a return to normal. Italy has already passed its “apex,” but their hospital system is still overwhelmed and they are still recording more than 700 COVID-19 deaths daily.

Media keep reporting the cumulative number of coronavirus cases, and the cumulative total of deaths, but these numbers are not the most relevant statistics in terms of the “apex” crisis that Cuomo and others are so concerned about. What matters most are (a) the trend in the number of new cases reported daily, and (b) the number of patients requiring hospitalization. As I’ve mentioned before, 87% of known coronavirus patients in Florida have never been hospitalized, and less than 2% of patients have died. This is important, in terms of dealing with the crisis from a public-health perspective. If someone gets the virus, experiences only mild symptoms and recovers without ever being treated in a hospital, that person is counted statistically as a coronavirus case, but has not placed any extra burden on the hospital system.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb produced this chart of Florida’s COVID-19 outbreak:

(Click image to view full-size.) What you see is a rather astonishing increase in the number of known cases of coronavirus — more than quadrupling in a single week — but a much lower “curve” in the number of hospitalizations and deaths from the pandemic. Why is this? It’s because Florida has been testing thousands of people daily. Just in the past three days, April 1-3, Florida has tested 34,724 people for COVID-19. More testing means more cases are being identified, but the number of hospitalizations is rising much more slowly. As of Friday, Florida had 1,386 patients hospitalized with coronavirus, which is only 12.5% of the total number of known cases in the state; the total number of COVID-19 deaths in Florida was 191 as of Friday, which is 1.7% of the total cases.

So far, at least, the coronavirus pandemic has not impacted Florida at anything like the impact in New York or Michigan, and 58% of Florida’s cases are in three counties (Dade, Broward and Palm Beach, with 28.5% of the state’s population) on the southeastern coast. The pandemic has had much less impact in places like Polk County (Lakeland), where there are only 138 cases in a population of 668,671, and Volusia County (Daytona), where there are only 129 cases in a population of 527,634. Given this differential in the risk level, why should folks in Lakeland and Daytona be under the same lockdown regime as people in “danger zones” like Miami and West Palm Beach? Look at Friday’s numbers:

Italy total cases 115,242
Deaths 14,681 (12.8%)

U.S. total cases 266,279
Deaths 6,803 (2.6%)

Washington state total cases 6,597
Deaths 272 (4.1%)

Michigan total cases 10,791
Deaths 417 (3.9%)

Louisiana total cases 10,297
Deaths 370 (3.6%)

New York total cases 102,863
Deaths 2,935 -(2.9%)

Florida total cases 9,585
Deaths 163 (1.7%)

Texas total cases 5,255
Deaths 86 (1.6%)

There is an enormous variation in the death rates, with Italy’s rate being about five times higher than the U.S. rate, and the death rate in Washington State, Michigan and Louisiana being more than twice the rate in Florida and Texas. Will these rates change? Maybe, but the fact is that the same virus is having different impacts in different areas, and the “experts” on TV are doing a bad job of explaining this differential, insofar as they are not completely ignoring it. While I don’t claim to be an “expert,” my hunch is that it probably has something to do with viral load at first exposure to the virus. If you attend a two-hour event with dozens of other people, some of whom are infected — or if you’re on a two-hour commercial airline flight, or riding New York City’s subways on a daily basis — then your initial exposure is likely to be a high viral load. On the other hand, a brief encounter with an infected convenience-store clerk will expose you to a lower viral load, and if you do become infected, your case will probably be milder. That’s not an “expert” opinion, just a common-sense interpretation of what some experts are saying, and one which would seem to fit the available data.

Population density matters in terms of spreading any contagious disease, and the use of public transportation also matters. Every day, millions travel by subway in New York City, which has the greatest population density anywhere in America. Furthermore, New York is a major center of international travel, and we know for a fact that this disease entered our country from overseas. More than 700,000 Chinese-Americans live in the New York metropolitan area, and how many of them traveled to China in January? By February, of course, the disease had begun spreading in Europe, so how many people in New York traveled to Northern Italy — the epicenter of the European COVID-19 outbreak — in February? This is not demonizing Chinese or Italian people, it’s about understanding risk factors that would explain why the per-capita coronavirus rate in New York is so much higher than everywhere else.

Americans are being bombarded by misleading media messages about this outbreak, messages that fail to explain (if they even acknowledge) the variations of risk between different areas. We are told it is irresponsible to view this pandemic in anything other than worst-case scenario perspective, and that we are beholden to “myths” if we suggest that people in Florida, Texas and other (relatively) low-risk areas should not be subjected to strict lockdown orders. We are told that low-risk areas of the country are simply at an earlier point in the pandemic “curve” and that, unless drastic stay-at-home measures are implemented nationwide, these areas would be just weeks away from reaching a coronavirus infection rate comparable to the current rate in New York City.

The “experts” on TV don’t actually know what will happen in the future anymore than any other intelligent person with access to the same data can know what trend the pandemic will take in the future.

We know that the cumulative total of known cases will continue rising everywhere, simply because each new case adds to the total, and no cases are ever subtracted from that total. What actually matters, however, is whether the number of active cases requiring hospitalization exceeds available capacity at any given time. If more than 85% of cases never require hospitalization, then we can disregard those cases, in terms of a crisis caused by a shortage of hospital beds, ventilators, medical personnel, etc. We are not guilty of propagating “myths” about this disease by insisting that the media (and public officials) pay attention to the numbers that provide real metrics of the problem.

Category: Health Care

Fish Stories

Posted on | April 3, 2020 | Comments Off on Fish Stories

— by Wombat-socho

“Mermaid’s Dinner” by Sue Halstenberg

For some reason we don’t have a Food category among our tags, which is odd because I distinctly recall doing at least one post on burgers in my decade of blogging here at The Other McCain. In any case, this being Lent, it’s time to provide a brief review of the various fishburgers that the fast food chains of America roll out this time of year, the better to serve us Catholics who are supposed to be abstaining from meat on Fridays.

McDonald’s
Let us begin with the basic fishburger, the Filet-O-Fish served at the Golden Arches. This is truly your generic fishburger, made from Dagon knows what kind of fish & fish byproducts, topped with a slice of American Style Pasteurized Processed Cheese-like Substance, and smothered with entirely too much tartar sauce. There is also a Double Filet-O-Fish for those unsatisfied with the basic version. Cheap, filling, and that’s about all you can say for it. 70/100

Jack In The Box
Another generic fishburger. Outpoints McD’s because of larger fries and soda.
72/100

Checker’s/Rally’s
Rated slightly higher than McD’s because of the peppery fries, otherwise pretty much the same thing.
73/100.

Arby’s
Actually resembles a fish filet; it actually looks like you’re getting half an Alaskan pollock in your sammich. Yuge – hangs over the side of the bun. Beats the generic fishburger because it has no cheese or other adulteration and actually has a fishlike taste. Bonus points for curly fries.
85/100

Wendy’s
Allegedly made from hand-cut cod, looks and taste a cut above Arby’s because of better breading (panko) and because cod is better than pollack, which is Eskimo for “generic whitefish”. Unfortunately, the superior taste is ruined by pickles.
87/100

Burger King
I was surprised that BK’s Big Fish surpassed Wendy’s; while it’s made of panko-breaded pollack, which you would think would place it halfway between Wendy’s & Arby’s, in fact it is the superior sandwich because it’s served on a toasted bun, without pickles. Cheese is optional.
90/100

Culver’s
Unfortunately, we don’t have a Culver’s in Las Vegas; one has to drive up to St. George to enjoy their walleye sandwich, which is outstanding. Would be perfect if only Culver’s served Coke product.
99/100

Honorable mention: Del Taco
Del Taco doesn’t serve fishburgers, but they do offer fish tacos and shrimp tacos, both of which are yummy.

Dishonorable mention: Chick-Fil-A
For some reason, the home of God’s Only Begotten Chicken Sammich does not serve fish of any kind in Las Vegas. Truly regrettable.

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