monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

I see you didn't read the article.

Among some of [[osteopath]] Erickson’s remarks: “This is immunology — microbiology 101. This is the basis of what we’ve known for years: When you take human beings and you say, ‘Go into your house, clean all your counters, Lysol them down’ … what does it do to our immune system? … Sheltering in place decreases your immune system.”

And this: “Any time you have something new in the [medical] community, it sparks fear — and I would have done what Dr. Fauci did … initially. … But you know, looking at theories and models — which is what these folks use — is very different than the way the actual virus presents itself throughout communities.”

And this: “Do you think you’re protected from COVID when you wear gloves that transfer disease everywhere? … We wear masks in an acute setting to protect us. [But] we’re not wearing masks. Why is that? Because we understand microbiology. We understand immunology. And we want strong immune systems. I don’t want to hide in my home, develop a weak immune system and then come out and get disease.”

And this: “When I’m writing up my death report I’m being pressured to add COVID. Why is that? Why are we being pressured to add COVID? To maybe increase the numbers, and make it look a little bit worse than it is. We’re being pressured in-house to add COVID to the diagnostic list when we think it has nothing to do with the actual cause of death. The actual cause of death was not COVID, but it’s being reported as one of the diseases processes. … COVID didn’t kill them, 25 years of tobacco use killed.”

You're always good for a giggle, with the hawking choroquinine

I hope it helps.

How Trump and His Team Covered Up the Coronavirus in Five Days

The president and senior officials manipulated Americans and played down the severity of the pandemic.

...But the White House did not want the American public to know.

The president’s stated concerns were specific. He didn’t want to upset the markets or China during trade talks, and it appears he may have also simply been in denial, counting on his personal hunches and luck.

So the president’s top advisers took to the airwaves with a united purpose: to deny the truth.

...In effect, for five days, the president along with some of his closest senior officials disseminated an egregiously false message to Americans. The messaging would continue well beyond those days until the stark images of refrigerated morgue trucks and spiked lines on colored graphs showed the escalating numbers of cases and dead.

Understanding this playbook is not only important in its own terms. It goes to the heart of whether Americans can trust this administration in the months ahead when they must make life-or-death decisions about how to protect their health and when to reboot the economy.

New York's Olivia Nuzzi asked the final question at yesterday's White House press briefing, and it was a doozy: "If an American president loses more Americans over the course of six weeks than died in the entirety of the Vietnam War, does he deserve to be reelected?"

The reaction to the question from assorted far-right websites was unkind, but Donald Trump didn't seem to take issue with the premise. He replied:

Quote:

"So, yeah, we've lost a lot of people. But if you look at what original projections were -- 2.2 million -- we're probably heading to 60,000, 70,000. It's far too many. One person is too many for this. And I think we've made a lot of really good decisions."

The president went on to try to defend the White House's record, concluding, "I think we've done a great job."

By any fair measure, looking for evidence of Team Trump doing "a great job" addressing the crisis is a difficult exercise, but let's not brush past too quickly the new numbers the president presented to the press and the public.

Exactly one week earlier, Trump held a briefing and shared his expectations for the pandemic's U.S. death toll: "[W]e're going toward 50, I'm hearing, or 60,000 people. One is too many. I always say it: One is too many. But we're going toward 50- or 60,000 people.... We could end up at 50 to 60. Okay?"

That was last Monday. This Monday, the goalposts shifted: 50,000 to 60,000 has become 60,000 to 70,000.

The obvious problem with last week's projection is that it was obviously far too optimistic. Within four days of Trump saying the U.S. death toll could end up as low as 50,000, the number of fatalities cleared that threshold and kept going.

Which apparently meant it was time for a new bar.

The lesson the president should've learned last week is that sharing overly rosy projections with the public is unwise. But Trump appears to have missed that lesson entirely, concluding that the smarter tack is to quietly move the goalposts and hope no one notices.

Except, this strategy isn't likely to go well, either. The U.S. death toll will clear 56,000 today, and barring a miracle, projections show the number will climb above 60,000 next week, if not sooner.

Will Trump appear before the cameras next week and declare. "We're probably heading to 70,000, 80,000"?

CBS News
@CBSNews
Trump: "There has been so much unnecessary death in this country. It could have been stopped and it could have been stopped short, but somebody a long time ago, it seems, decided not to do it that way. And the whole world is suffering because of it."

...In effect, for five days, the president along with some of his closest senior officials disseminated an egregiously false message to Americans. The messaging would continue well beyond those days until the stark images of refrigerated morgue trucks and spiked lines on colored graphs showed the escalating numbers of cases and dead.

had been denying the danger of this disease from the get-go.