Doctors, nurses and front line workers at the hospitals have revolted at the unsupported lies of Trump that they get more money, ($2,000 he said pulling the figure out of thin air) if they declare a person died of Covid-19 rather than some other cause. As the nation like the rest of the world sees an ever increasing number of deaths from the virus with the United States now having over 230,000 deaths from the virus Trump is now telling folk not to worry “You catch it and then you get better. And then you are immune.”
Trump[‘s idiotic statement leaves most people scratching their heads wondering about the sanity of the person who is supposed to be in charge making such a statement. Because I have some Trump clones who comment here they would explain Trump’s thinking: “there aren’t 230,000 deaths from Covid. The doctors are making up that number. Maybe there’s only a few thousand or less. The the figures are fake and the doctors and nurses are faking them because they make more money .”
It follows then that the 1,200,000 deaths world wide must also be a fake figure. Those folk caught the virus and did not get better. Is this then an international conspiracy by doctors and nurses to charge more for Covid deaths even in those nations with socialized medicine? You see how absurd it is that the Trump folk argue there are a miniscule number of deaths from Covid when the rest of the world shows otherwise. Trump’s failure to deal straight with the virus cost him hundreds of thousands of votes.
It isn’t just his attitude toward the virus that caused his defeat it was his lies that backfired on him. He spent much time telling how mail-in ballots were unsafe. Along with Bill Barr his AG they talked about millions of fake ballots coming in from foreign countries. The American folk figured that Trump had a plan to interfere with mail-in ballots, They were right as is shown by the Post Office slow down. That made them decide to vote early.
Over 100 million votes were cast by election day by voters who did not want Trump depriving them of their votes. This caused great consternation in the Russian camp because its propaganda machine working on behalf of Trump did not plan on such an event. Trump’s lies brought out the vote.
The icing on the cake to Trump’s defeat was the Republican Party’s open and obvious intent aided and abetted by the U.S. Supreme Court to deprive American voters of their votes. The Court first in 2013 in the Shelby case took the teeth our of the Voting Rights Act. Those state that were barred from depriving citizens of their votes were again free to do so. These Republican states set out with a vengeance to establish barriers and hurdles to prevent people who would lean toward Democrats from voting.
This year more and more cases get streamlined to the Supreme Court allowing the Court to back up Republican decisions which interfere with the voting rights of citizens. It has become obvious to all that the Republicans do not want all American citizens to have a vote and that the Supreme Court has become a branch of the most radical Republican Party ever to have existed.
The Quiet Americans sat back, watched, and became revolted by the Trump lies and Republican attempts to deprive all American citizens of their voting rights. This is not the America they want to live in. Their respect for the Supreme Court is at its nadir; the Republican Party is on life support. That is the major reason that Trump lost – he was seen to represent an America which most people do not want to exist.
News and nouns at Midnight
https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-election-tampering-in-plain-sight-20201102-z4xzggi5efeofdvnm4rxgj6oja-story.html
Election tampering in plain sight: What two federal judges just did in Minnesota
By AKHIL REED AMAR
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |
NOV 02, 2020 AT 5:00 AM
MERYL NASS MD
Monday, November 2, 2020
T-cell study adds to information on duration of COVID-19 immunity
Now Reuters discusses a study by the UK medical authorities showing T cell immunity exists in those who had asymptomatic or minor cases of Covid for at least 6 months, and echoes the fact that reinfection is very rare:
LONDON (Reuters) – A small but key UK study has found that “cellular immunity” to the pandemic SARS-CoV-2 virus is present after six months in people who had mild or asymptomatic COVID-19 – suggesting they might have some level of protection for at least that time.
FILE PHOTO: A 3D-printed coronavirus model is seen in front of a world map and the words “CoronaVirus Disease (Covid-19)” on display in this illustration taken March 25, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
Scientists presenting the findings, from 100 non-hospitalised COVID-19 patients in Britain, said they were “reassuring” but did not mean people cannot in rare cases be infected twice with the disease.
“While our findings cause us to be cautiously optimistic about the strength and length of immunity generated after SARS-CoV-2 infection, this is just one piece of the puzzle,” said Paul Moss, a professor of haematology at Britain’s Birmingham University who co-led the study.
“There is still a lot for us learn before we have a full understanding of how immunity to COVID-19 works.”
Experts not directly involved with the study said its findings were important and would add to a growing body of knowledge about potential protective immunity to COVID-19.
The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed by other experts but was published online on bioRvix, analysed the blood of 100 patients six months after they had had either mild or asymptomatic COVID-19. It found that while some of the patients’ antibody levels had dropped, their T-cell response – another key part of the immune system – remained robust.
“(Our) early results show that T-cell responses may outlast the initial antibody response,” said Shame Ladhani, a consultant epidemiologist at Public Health England who co-led the work.
The study also found the size of T-cell response differed, and was considerably higher in people who had had symptomatic COVID-19 than those who had no symptoms when infected.
The researchers said this could be interpreted in two ways: It is possible that higher cellular immunity might give better protection against re-infection in people who had symptoms, or equally, that asymptomatic patients are better able to fight off the virus without the need to generate a large immune response.
“These results provide reassurance that, although the titre of antibody to SARS-CoV-2 can fall below detectable levels within a few months of infection, a degree of immunity to the virus may be maintained,” said Charles Bangham, chair of immunology at Imperial College London.
“This … bodes well for the long term, in terms of both vaccine development and the possibility of long-term protection against re-infection,” said Eleanor Riley, an immunology and infectious disease professor at Edinburgh University. She stressed, however, that “we don’t yet know whether the people in this study are protected from re-infection.”
While more than 46 million people worldwide have been infected with COVID-19, confirmed cases of re-infection are so far very rare.
Posted by Meryl Nass, M.D. at 5:44 PM 0 comments
Shredding journalistic credibility
If a patient living with multiple maladies, maladies that he/she has lived with for years, develops covid and dies, didn’t covid kill him/her?
News and nouns at noon
https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/76/seth-on-suicide
Seth On Suicide
BY ELIZABETH ROSE CAMPBELL • MARCH 1982
In the last issue of THE SUN, I began a series on Seth, the “energy personality essence” who has written six books through Jane Roberts while she is in a trance or dissociated state. Seth is no romantic “spirit guide” intent on comforting widows that a deceased spouse lives on, and Jane Roberts is no publicity-hungry medium claiming contact with “higher forces” who offer predictions for the next presidential race.
In 1963, writer Jane Roberts had an out-of-body experience one evening after she sat down to write poetry. When she “woke up,” she discovered she had written a manuscript. Neither Jane nor her artist husband Robert Butts had ever expressed any interest in psychic phenomena or altered states; they regarded themselves as serious artists, unconventional only in their somewhat reclusive lifestyle and unmaterialistic values. Neither had ever used any mind-altering drugs, unless cigarettes and beer count. Jane’s out-of-body experience and the resulting manuscript (complete with title: “The Physical Universe as Idea Construction”) was inexplicable, unasked for, a little frightening, and therefore all the more intriguing. As conservative as they were at that time, they could not ignore Jane’s experience. With some embarrassment, they purchased a Ouija Board. After the first sessions, the pointer spelled out messages from someone who called himself Seth. Soon after that, Jane began to hear the words in her mind before Seth spelled them out, and followed her impulse to speak them aloud. Since that time, Seth has dictated six books in a rather long-winded and dedicated delivery (19 years, fours hours weekly) with one purpose: to remind us of the abilities of consciousness.
https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/79/the-white-horse-seth-on-animals
The White Horse: Seth On Animals
BY ELIZABETH ROSE CAMPBELL • JUNE 1982
In Issue #75 of THE SUN, I began a series on Seth, a non-physical personality who has written six books through Jane Roberts of Elmira, New York while she is in a self-induced trance state.
Some of the earliest SUNs included Seth-inspired articles, and its publishing history as “A Magazine of Ideas” often pivoted around Seth’s premise: “Any perception is action; it changes that upon which it acts, and in so doing is itself changed.”
When pain motivates change, growth is more likely to be perceived as a relief, even a reward for having suffered, rather than as a conscious choice which is always available. In the Seth framework, there is no reason to suffer, to wait passively for change. Change is awakened by enthusiasm for one’s greatest imaginable good. There is no evil but a wide margin for error — “All seeming opposites are other faces of the one supreme drive toward creativity.” Over-identification with limiting beliefs is stripped naked by Seth; the stripping away is not a killing but a feast.
At worst, the Seth books are impressive collector items for advocates of change who only pay lip service to the ideas in them. At best, the Seth books can profoundly affect a reader ready for them, whether they seem to be science fiction, fine art, or a travel guide to the deep self.
By selecting specific topics and paraphrasing Seth extensively, I hoped to avoid distorting the brilliant thread of clarity that unifies every topic Seth touches upon. But due to the innumerable times when I have used Seth as a springboard to an enlarged personal understanding, I tell my own story too.
— Elizabeth Rose Campbell
God Bless the World on the Eve of the US Election
In the Face of Chaos – Ram Dass Full Lecture 1994
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxtddpoPMKo
n the Face of Chaos – Ram Dass Full Lecture 1994
Very well written. The Supreme has become an extension of the Republican party. Never in my life did we have a justice who acted like a true frat boy.
Matt — If there is one expression that surely does not apply to you, it is “Quiet American”. And that goes for Msfree as well.
COVID CASES SURVIVING: When Covid first hit the U.S. about 98% survived. Today, it is closer to 99% Covid cases survive. According to worldometers, yesterday (11/1) showed 71,321 new U.S. cases and 399 new deaths. This showed a death rate of less than one percent dying and 99.5% surviving. It is appropriate to say we’ve turned a corner.
I’ve previously reported daily Covid death rates of over 1,700 in April and May, to closer to 500 from August through October. The last week (October 25 – November 1) has shown two days with slightly over 1,000 deaths, two days with slightly under 1,000 deaths, and three days with 529, 442, and 399 deaths. This is about 777 deaths per day, an over 50% drop in daily deaths. Again, it seems we’ve turned a corner.
COUNTING COVID DEATHS: There is no doubt Covid is highly infectious and highly lethal. But rational persons can criticize the counting of Covid deaths.
There is inherently false reasoning in the CDC. CDC is correct to list a positive Covid test as a “case.” But then the falsehood is the failure to distinguish deaths “with” Covid and deaths “from” Covid. Surely, any rational person understands that someone who died from an automobile accident, a gun shooting, a stabbing, a drug overdose, a poisoning, a suicide, various cancer cases, who died “with Covid” should not be listed as “from Covid.”
TERMINAL PATIENTS: It gets more complicated in considering a terminal patient who died “with” Covid. Why does someone’s death is recorded as “with covid” as the patient’s death is terminal, inevitable, and soon, and likely Covid had nothing to do with the death.
CAUSATION: Statistical analysis becomes more complex when we look at this DATA: The CDC (March 2020) says “Cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure. This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1,300 deaths every day. On average, smokers die 10 years earlier than nonsmokers. CDC also reports over 34 million adults smoke ciggies. So, about 5%who smoke die of it. I’ve seen data that 98% of cigarette smokers do not die from smoking.
1. INCREASED ANNUAL DEATH RATES: Factor in, too, the increase annual death rates in the U.S. over the last ten years. This is from the CDC: “The total number of deaths in the United States increased from 2.4 million in 2009 to 2.8 million in 2018. An increase in deaths can indicate an aging population and/or an underlying public health issue. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the three leading causes of death in 2018 were heart disease, cancer, and accidents, such as motor vehicle accidents and accidental poisonings (drug overdose).”
The U.S. annual death rate steadily rose from 2009 of 8.1 deaths per thousand to 8.8 deaths per thousand in 2019. (Examples: In 2019, there were 8.78 deaths/1000, in 2018 8.68; in 2017, 8.58; in 2,016, 8.47; and in 2009, 2010, 2011 were 8.1 deaths/1,000 rate.) Let’s wait for January to give the exact final death rate for 2020. We cannot attribute a total rise in annual death rates to Covid. The death rate has been increasing since 2009.
2. COMMON SENSE: Think of this: Joe has a heart attack and is rushed to hospital, then dies from the heart attack. He tests negative for Covid. Next week, Joe’s cousin John is rushed to the hospital then dies from his heart attack. He tests positive for Covid. Covid may have nothing to do with his death. The same is true of many Terminal Patients who die.
3. SHELBY SUPREME COURT CASE: Matt, as always, simply sides with the liberal justices, who disagreed with five justices in majority. From the Federalist, “The Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder ( a technical case, 2012) rightly struck down the much-expanded use of preclearance procedures. . . Essentially the majority held the expanded preclearance proceedings as inappropriate overkill in the absence of any evidence of current racial bias in the administration of the voting laws—a no-brainer in light of the high rates of black participation throughout the South.” Some argue Shelby was modified by the more recent Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama case (2013). It’s highly technical, not clear cut.
4. Remember that Matt in 2016, actually on voting day, prematurely heralded and applauded the victory of Hillary Clinton.
Hospitals get an extra $3,000 dollars for every “case” treated who was tested Covid positive and $13,000 for every Covid positive patients on ventilators. The money is needed because it is more costly to treat Covid patients. It is reasonable.
Do physicians consciously consider financials in listing a patient as a Covid patient? No! Physicians (pathologists who perform autopsies) simply list patients as died “with” coronavirus. Epidemiologists will splice out those who merely died “with Coronavirus” and those who died “from coronavirus”, that is those whose deaths are substantially caused from Covid, recognizing Covid may be one of multiple causes of death in persons with pre-existing co-morbidities, and recognizing Covid may not be a cause of death in some who’ve simply tested positive.