Another Facebook Response

I have been debating with a Facebook friend (My Facebook Friend/MFF) over the past couple of days. As you might guess, it is about how our President is handling the Wuhan Virus outbreak in our great country.

This was the original post, along with the graphic.

(MFF) Still a lot of talk from the usual suspects about the pandemic being a hoax. Conspiracy theories are all fun and games until they kill people we love. Who knows where the grand total will end up unless we all start working together.

(Me) The picture you posted makes it seem, to the low info individual, that the only cause of death in the USA is war and covid-19.

You forgot to include the following:

-Memphis Yellow fever (1851), 20,000 known

-Spanish Flu (1918), 675,000

-Drug Overdoses (Annual Average), 67,000 (CDC)

-Suicides (Annual Average) 48,000 (NBCNews)

Automotive deaths (2019) 39,000 (AAA)

-Swine Flu (2009) estimates range 12,000-18,000 (various)

Pneumonia (2017), 49,000 (CDC)

-Cardiovascular disease (2016), 840,768 (American Heart Asso.)

-Stroke (2018) 147,538 (CDC)

An interesting bit is that the morbidity rates of the previous three have seemed to has plummeted in recent weeks.

-And just to be controversial, abortion (2019) 600,000+ (planned Parenthood)

This was his latest comment and it inspired me to post my response on my blog.

(MFF) In the five days since this was posted the CV19 death toll in the US is now 15,000 higher at 39,158 so any comparison seems woefully premature at the moment. We've not seen anything like it since the Spanish flu of 1918. The comparison to war was something that the Burger King brought about by labelling himself a 'wartime president'. Just one of the many deranged and fantastical statements to come out of his mouth sphincter in the past couple of weeks. If he wants to be seen as a wartime president then that is how he will be judged by some. And if we are going to throw in abortions, may we also keep a tally of the old people the death cult is now openly suggesting sacrifice themselves for the greater good of the country? Let's compare all of these numbers in a couple of years. By then we will also know what effect his golfing and constant lying has had on the death toll as well.

(Me) I didn't post this to Facebook.

I didn't even bother to respond to the whole hoax issue. I fairly certain he is smart enough to know that President Trump didn't call the Wuhan Virus a hoax, but rather the way the democrats would use it as a political tool to bring him down.

I will take exception to the graphic detailing US deaths in the various wars. Doing a little digging around, it appears he used Wikipedia as his source. Further digging shows the numbers used in the graphic are woefully inaccurate. Most academic sources use the following numbers;

WW2: 400,000+

Civil War: 650,000-850,000

WW1: 116,516

Vietnam: 58,209

Korea: 54,246

Your point regarding wait and see has some validity. There are some encouraging signs that we may be nearing the peak, and many places are on the downhill side. There have been some studies done that sunlight does have a significant impact on the half life of this virus. When the virus first reached the USA lab studies showed the half life of the Covid-19 virus exceeded 3 hours, and needed 15 hours to be rendered impotent. But a few new studies show that sunlight (UV) rays reduce the half life to minutes. More testing has to be done as well as peer reviews, but there is some light at the end of the tunnel.

Many have raged on about Trump golfing during this crisis. But let's remember 24 Oct 2009. On that day, President Obama declared a national emergency in response to the swine flu. After that declaration, he played 18 holes. According to the NY Times: "It was no coincidence, his aides said, that he played golf the day his administration declared a national emergency." I'm paraphrasing now, but his golfing was a calculated move, designed to show the American people get keep moving on with their lives. Was Obama trying to show a positive attitude to the American people?. Funny thing, as an individual who couldn't stand Obama's policies and barely tolerated him as a person, I remember very clearly at not being upset over his round of golf. In fact, a very liberal coworker came up to me the next day and asked me (more like she was baiting me) how I felt about Obama golfing. My response kind of caught her off guard. While overall I felt he spent too much time recreating and not enough time leading, in a time of crisis a president taking some time to decompress is actually a good thing. Its not as if he wasn't aware of what was going on and wouldn't have received updates should it become necessary.

I will make one unfavorable comparison. When President Trump declared a national emergency on 13 Mar 2020, 1,600 people had been infected with Wuhan Virus, while 41 had died (35 in the state of Washington). But it took nearly 100,000 cases and 1,000 deaths for Obama to declare a national emergency for swine flu. Here is a scary number. After Trump declared a national emergency, deaths from Covid-19 increased by 95000% (As of 18 Apr 2020). A staggering number, for sure. But lets imagine for a moment that we start out with 1,000 deaths and then increase that by 95000%. We're now looking at 950,000 deaths. Now that number is truly staggering. Aren't you glad Trump is your President? He acted quickly and decisively.

Here are some other numbers to look at. No one is disputing the Wuhan Virus has hit the USA hard, but compared other world powers, we have done considerably better than most. Six countries are reporting over 100,000 cases, each. Of those countries only Germany (55) has a lower deaths per 1M population than the USA (122). Spain (437), Italy (391), France (302), the UK (237) are exponentially higher than the USA. And for those who believe the numbers coming from the Russian and Chinese GOVERNMENTS, I have some ocean front in Arizona you might be interested in.

And if we are going with the wait and see the total morbidity over time, please take into account people are still dying of swine flu every year, something we supposedly have a handle on.

Like your side of the argument, we have our extremists. The call for sacrificing the old and infirm is not a mainstream position on our side. Its not even a point worthy of debate. But I'll do it anyways. In Italy and Spain the official position during this crisis was people over a certain age were not to receive any life saving treatment. These are liberal/progressive governments. I would argue that the main reason we were willing to put up with these draconian and unconstitutional stay at home orders and see our robust economy absolutely shattered was because we on the right have a great deal of reverence for our elderly. But just as some on your side think it's OK for after birth abortions, there are a few nuts on our side too. As for keeping tally, that number is openly available, since the CDC is categorizing death by age groups, as well as MANY other demographic parameters.

And let's put some perspective on this.

The mortality rate on the overall population:

Spanish Flu; .7%

Memphis Yellow Fever; .4%

Wuhan Virus; .01%

Swine flu; >.01%

And look at the fatality rate for those who caught the following diseases:

MERS; 35%

SARS; 14%

Wuhan Virus; >3%*

Swine Flu <2%

*There is a lot of educated speculation (including the CDC) that Covid-19 is significantly underreported due to lack of testing. Swine flu was fairly simple to test since it was a strain that had been known for several years prior to 2009. Since the Wuhan Flu was a completely new strain, the world, not just the USA, has been scrambling to catch up.

There are also discussions in some quarters the actual number of Wuhan Virus deaths might be inflated. Some strong circumstantial evidence is out there if you bother to look. Is it strong enough to change the tide? Not yet, but the current is growing stronger. There are several reports, both here and abroad, that many deaths are being attributed to Covid-19 are not Wuhan Virus related. In other words, the victim may of had the virus, but that isn't what killed them. Many localities are not even testing the dead for the virus, yet they are counting the deaths as Covid-19 caused. A CDC memo from 24 Mar 2020 states, "Covid-19 should be reported on the death certificates for all decedents where the disease caused or is assumed to have caused or contributed to death". Just last week the mayor of NYC ordered an additional 3,700 deaths added to Covid total even though none had been tested for the virus. A German microbiologist has written "The mistake is being made worldwide to report virus-related deaths as soon as it is established that the virus was present at the time of death - regardless of other factors, this violates a basic principle of infectiology: only when it is certain that an agent has played a significant role in the disease or death may a diagnosis be made." Could this guidance be a factor in why fatality rates are so low in Germany compared to other hard hit countries?

One final point I'd like to make. Would you agree that decisions are only as good as the information you receive? Good decisions can be rendered unusable and bad decisions made worse when the data provided is garbage. Of all the Wuhan virus articles I've read about "Orange Man bad", not a single one puts the onus on the Chinese GOVERNMENT for not being truthful from the beginning. The Chinese GOVERNMENT lied from the word go. Do you think it possible if they had told the WHO and the world the true nature of this horrible disease, that the governments of the US, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and others might have been able to get a better handle on matters? And keep in mind, the fatality rates (fatality/population) in those above mentioned countries far exceed the US.

While I freely admit that I might be wearing rose colored glasses when it comes to this president that has some bearing on how I view his actions, your nearly blind hatred for the president clouds your vision as well. Is there a possibility he could have reacted better? Maybe. The numbers and the facts seem to support his actions have saved many lives. But I will completely disagree that he has managed the crisis as incompetently as most on the left feel. There is a big difference on how we digest the information provided and reach conclusions.