Further Discussion About Covid-19 and the Covid-19 Crisis 2020

Try telling us something we don't know. Americans have memories. The media thinks they do not. Ryan was an establishment Rino. He hated Trump as much as any of the corrupt assholes in our political system.

Don’t Believe What You Think

A new book by Edzard Ernst provides a concise course in critical thinking as well as a wealth of good science-based information to counter the widespread misinformation about SCAM.
Harriet Hall on May 19, 2020

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/dont-believe-what-you-think/

Edzard Ernst was once a practitioner of alternative medicine. As the world’s first professor of complementary medicine (at the University of Exeter, UK) he led a research team to scientifically investigate what worked and what didn’t and discovered that there was little or no evidence behind most of the claims of alternative medicine. Today he is arguably the world’s foremost expert on alternative medicine and has become its harshest and most prolific critic. I reviewed his autobiography A Scientist in Wonderland: A Memoir of Searching for Truth and Finding Trouble which tells the story of his transformation and the opposition he encountered.

His output of books on so-called complementary and alternative medicine (SCAM) is impressive. I have reviewed several of them:

Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine, which he co-authored with Simon Singh,
Alternative Medicine: A Critical Assessment of 150 Modalities
Homeopathy: The Undiluted Facts
SCAM: So-Called Alternative Medicine
More Harm Than Good: The Moral Maze of Alternative Medicine, which he co-authored with a medical ethicist.

His newest book is Don’t Believe What You Think: Arguments for and Against SCAM. It is, as he describes it, a crash course in critical thinking. And much more.

Why do people turn to alternative medicine?

Ernst explains,

Enthusiasts of SCAM tend to hope for fewer side effects, symptom relief, a cure for their condition, improvements in the quality of life, and protection from illness. Such high expectations are usually based on misinformation, often even on outright lies.

In this book, Ernst shows how consumers get manipulated into believing things that are evidently wrong. Those who advocate false beliefs, whether about climate change, evolution, or vaccines, rely on the same tactics:

They ignore the scientific consensus.
They cherry-pick their evidence.
They rely on poor quality studies, opinion, and anecdotes.
They invent conspiracy theories.
They defame their opponents.
They point out that science has been wrong before.
They say, “science doesn’t know everything.”

He concisely and eloquently covers the psychology behind bias:
Information overload: consumers are bombarded with untruths.

Motivated ignorance: people choose to avoid disconcerting information.
Motivated reasoning: finding reasons to defend a treasured belief regardless of evidence against it.

Confirmation bias. This includes phenomena like anchoring, the bandwagon effect, Dunning-Kruger, illusory correlation, subjective validation, post-purchase rationalization, and others.

Denialism: when confirmation bias degenerates into a complete denial of the truth.

After a general discussion of critical thinking, he gets into particulars. In each of 35 essays he addresses a commonly held belief or argument about SCAM and demolishes it with reasoning and scientific evidence. Here’s a sampling:

“I have done my research”

How often have we heard this? But research doesn’t mean what they seem to think it means. What they have done is more properly called “exploration.” Research should be systematic. This “research” was not systematic: they looked at randomly chosen websites, articles, videos, and/or books, and then uncritically accepted the views that appealed to them. After their exploration, some of them favor an “integrative” approach, thinking that will achieve the best of both worlds. Ernst provides the text of an announcement about Integrative Cancer Therapy (ICT) from a German academy claiming that ICT is holistic, addresses the patient’s personal needs, provides individualized treatments, and other claims. He numbers the claims 1 through 10, and comments on each of the claims by number, based on reliable research. His comments:

1 Actually, this describes conventional oncology!
2 Actually, this describes conventional oncology!
3 Actually, this describes conventional oncology!
4 Actually, this describes conventional oncology!
5 Actually, this describes conventional oncology!
6 Actually, this describes conventional oncology!
7 Actually, this describes conventional oncology!
8 Actually, this describes conventional oncology!
9 Actually, this describes conventional oncology!
10 Actually, this describes conventional oncology!

SCAM frequently tries to co-opt conventional treatments such as exercise and pretends they are discoveries of SCAM.

SCAM is natural

All SCAMS claim to be natural, but are they really? Thinking critically makes one question what is natural about ear candles, homeopathy’s Berlin Wall remedy, naturopathy’s neural therapy (injection of a local anesthetic), chiropractic’s moving joints outside their natural range of motion, etc.

SCAM can save us all a lot of money

The arguments supporting this claim are all fallacious. Most of the published studies (and there are a lot of these) show that SCAM use causes extra expense.

SCAM providers offer sound advice

There is plenty of evidence that much of their advice is not just poor, but also dangerous, and sometimes even life-threatening. Ernst encourages readers to search for their own examples, which are easy to find.
This study proves…

Sometimes a study finds bizarre results that can’t be attributed to any obvious flaws. It may have been replicated, but it may not have been an independent replication but have been done by the same original authors. There are four possibilities: fraud, coincidence, undetected bias, or the study is correct and the previous consensus was wrong. The last possibility is the least likely: one anomalous study can’t overturn decades of previous research.

SCAM practitioners don’t diagnose disease

They may say they don’t diagnose, but in reality they use a variety of bogus diagnostic methods including dowsing, applied kinesiology, iridology, Kirlian photography, live blood analysis, pulse diagnosis, tongue diagnosis, and the Vega test and similar variants of electroacupuncture according to Voll (EAV). These have all been tested and have been thoroughly debunked.

Imaginary dialogs

SCAM proponents will find reasons to deny the evidence and will argue about everything in this book. Ernst has a wealth of experience countering their arguments and has unique insight into their thinking. He presents imaginary dialogs between a scientist and a proponent of SCAM that are very true to life and illuminate the conflict.
Conclusion: Don’t believe what you think

This is a very useful, insightful, well-written book that is packed with reliable, science-based information. If you have believed any of the misinformation about SCAM, this book might change your mind. If you are not a believer, it may give you good tools to help you explain to believers that what they think they know is based on misinformation. Whatever you think about SCAM, don’t believe what you think. Think again and start doubting your belief. As Feynman said, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”

We cannot stay inside until people stop dying. That is not, and never, going to happen.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/05/wuhan-virus-watch-cdc-says-coronavirus-infection-fatality-rate-could-be-as-low-as-0-26/

The Crisis at My Husband’s Nursing Home

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/opinion/nursing-home-coronavirus.html

The loss of 98 lives there is nothing short of a tragedy.

By Marcella Goheen

Ms. Goheen is a writer, solo theater artist and caregiver advocate.

May 25, 2020

The Isabella Geriatric Center in Washington Heights, Manhattan, NY.
The Isabella Geriatric Center in Washington Heights, Manhattan, NY.Credit...Gregg Vigliotti for The New York Times

For the last three and a half years, my husband has lived at the Isabella Geriatric Center, a two-tower high-rise nursing home in the heart of Washington Heights. In a period of six weeks, as many as 98 people living there died from Covid-19.

Though I fear for my husband, I haven’t been allowed to see him. When I drive to the home to drop off and pick up his laundry, I pass a refrigerator truck beneath my husband’s windows, covered in a white plastic tent. I know this truck holds the bodies of loved ones who have died. One day, within 20 minutes of idling outside the front door, I saw four ambulances come to pick up patients.

I have seen the faces of many residents over the past three and a half years, and I am afraid to imagine who we lost. It is unspeakable. I refuse to believe that my husband’s home could have been so unprepared for the coronavirus. Where was the leadership? The plan? The resources? The loss of 98 lives is nothing short of a tragedy.

I am reassured by the fact that my husband is isolated in his own room. The staff members on our floor are invested in my husband’s care — they have become our family. Some staff members call him Mr. Bob. His aides call him Papi Chulo. I call him my love.

One of our night aides has worked at Isabella for over 25 years. One night I asked him, “Do you love what you do?” and he responded, “This is what we are supposed to do on this earth: serve the sick.”

A rare neurodegenerative disorder has left my husband, at age 65, unable to walk, talk or take care of himself in any way. If cued by my voice or music, he can mouth the semblances of words. Otherwise, he cannot speak. But he understands.

For the first couple of years of his illness, I cared for him at home. In May 2016 I fell down stairs in our building and realized my husband could not help me. I surrendered to the most difficult decision: I had to place him in long-term care. His needs were beyond what I could care for on my own. It took another six months, including a three-month hospital stay at Massachusetts General Hospital for neurological evaluation, before my husband was placed in Isabella Geriatric Center.

My grief patterns swing. Some days I feel prepared. I visualize the steps I might take into a hospital wing dressed in protective gear to say goodbye. I practice the conversations I will have with the funeral home to make sure his body is picked up in time to not be directed to Hart Island. I vow quietly that I will fight for my husband’s dignity. On other days, this sequence of events is unimaginable.

What I really want is to walk into Isabella as I have hundreds of times in the last few years, see with my own eyes how my husband is doing and give him a hug. Instead, I call the nurses on his floor. They tell me his vitals are perfect: oxygen levels 100 percent, no fever, no coughing. His blood pressure is better than mine.

There is life in a nursing home. My husband worked in special education for over 20 years. He understands deeply the value of a life, no matter what form that life takes. He would fight for his fellow residents if he could.

I feel betrayed because, while leaders like Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio were speaking in their daily news conferences of the “vulnerable population” that needed the most help, not one federal, city or state agency prioritized preventing the loss of life in nursing homes.

Instead, officials fought over whose responsibility it was to serve the chronically ill, elderly and disabled people who live in New York State nursing homes. In a mid-April news conference, Governor Cuomo said that “it’s not our job” to provide personal protective equipment to nursing homes in New York City.

My husband was thrown into a war on the vulnerable without a chance — he cannot care for himself or protect himself from a virus that doesn’t have a vaccine. The fact that he is still alive is a miracle. As of May 10, it was likely that over 5,000 residents in nursing homes statewide had perished. They matter.

To be given a chance to live is a human right, and the business of care that impedes this right in any way needs a major reckoning. Not testing health care workers and residents, not addressing staffing shortages, not updating families on loved ones’ conditions and not producing effective plans for managing infections within nursing homes is unacceptable.

Nursing homes are not places to die. They are places to give support to families that are overwhelmed and have surrendered to the need of extra hands for the safety and comfort of their loved ones.

When my husband started showing symptoms of his neurodegenerative condition, he worried that he would be a burden. I will never forget him looking at me at our kitchen table. We had been to three Ivy League medical institutions learning his genetic-driven illness was irreversible. Long-term care was inevitable.

“You can leave me if you want. I don’t want to be a burden,” he said.

I reframed his fear. “You will be my joy,” I said. I promised him that caring for him would always be a privilege. He and his neighbors deserve better.

Marcella Goheen is a writer, solo theater artist and caregiver advocate.

For the dingbats here: if its not covid19 explain 90 extra deaths in this one place???

Is "social distancing" something being enforced at all workplaces? Is this something even white-collar workers have to deal with?

Are there any businesses - offices and other facilities- that offer white-collar work that are still open to the public?

What has school been like for public school and college students since the Covid-19 crisis transpired this year? Is "social distancing" something being enforced in schools?

Are students still going to school, or are they being forced to either be home-schooled or take courses online?

From Republican George Conway:
FB post via The WatchFrog...

From Republican George Conway:

"For Trump supporters, let me make one thing VERY clear!

For the record NO ONE is blaming the President for the virus. Let me repeat. Coronavirus is not Trump’s fault.
Here’s a detailed list of what we are blaming him for:

* Trump declined to use the World Health Organization’s test like other nations. Back in January, over a month before the first Co-vid19 case, the Chinese posted a new mysterious virus and within a week, Berlin virologists had produced the first diagnostic test. By the end of February, the WHO had shipped out tests to 60 countries. Oh, but not our government. We declined the test even as a temporary bridge until the CDC could create its own test. The question is why? We don’t know but what to look for is which pharmaceutical company eventually manufactures the test and who owns the stock. Keep tuned.

* In 2018 Trump fired Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossart, whose job was to coordinate a response to global pandemics. He was not replaced.

* In 2018 Dr. Luciana Borio, the NSC director for medical and bio-defense preparedness left the job. Trump did not replace Dr. Borio.

* In 2019 the NSC’s Senior Director for Global Health Security and bio-defense, Tim Ziemer, left the position and Trump did not replace the Rear Admiral.

* Trump shut down the entire Global Health Security and Bio-defense agency. Yes, he did.

* Amid the explosive worldwide outbreak of the virus Trump proposed a 19% cut to the budget of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention plus a 10% cut to Public Health Services and a 7% cut to Global Health Services. Those happen to be the organizations that responds to public health threats.

* In 2018, at Trump’s direction, the CDC stopped funding epidemic prevention activities in 39 out of 49 countries including China.

* Trump didn’t appoint a doctor to oversee the US response to the pandemic. He appointed Mike Pence.

* Trump has on multiple occasions sowed doubt about the severity of the virus even using the word hoax at events and rallies. He even did it at an event where the virus was being spread. Trump has put out zero useful information concerning the health risks of the virus.

* Trump pretended the virus had been contained.

* Trump left a cruise ship at sea for days, denying them proper hospital care, rather than increase his numbers in America.

Repeat. We do not blame Trump for the virus. We blame him for gutting the nation’s preparations to deal with it. We blame him for bungling testing and allowing it to spread uninhibited. We blame him for wasting taxpayer money on applause lines at his rallies (like The Wall). We blame him for putting his own political life over American human life. I hope this clears things up."


https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10221834490794242&set=a.1220173147257&type=3&theater

Talk about morbidly obese. He has as much credibility as you, and you have none. Which I have proven over and over.

Body shaming the best you can do????

It works for Pelosi, your double standard is showing or is it just your regular dishonesty?

So you think fat boy looks better than pelosi? I knew you were dumb as z rock but I am beginning to think your blind as a bat.

I never said that, Joe.

The admitting of your own lack of ethical standards is all I needed.

"They did it first!" What are you, four?

Four is a number. It might also be your IQ.

No, he's stretching her concern of Trumps body type as contraindicated in the use of Hydroxychloroquine as some sort of slam.

So he made a real slam on George. He's a childish rationalizer of common and low intelligence.

It might be mine, but its too high to be yours.

Why do I constantly outsmart you then? You have let me prove how dishonest you are a couple of times. Do I have to do it again?