Magox

Didn’t say I agreed with it just that they seem to think they have some sort of leverage. I don’t think they do. It appears to be a Cut off the nose to spite the face sort of scenario. People will protest heavily and the situation will get dire.

More really good news. Typically Tuesdays are bad.

Looks like a power play to me. Basically give us the money or we won’t open up (because we know you want it open to increase your election odds) Clearly they believe they have political cover in which they do at the moment. We will see how that pans out for an additional 3 more months. That is a ridiculous standard that doesn’t take all other factors into consideration. To me this is well past the point of being absurd.

So what does Los Angeles do? They announce that they will be in lock down for another 3 months. It would funny if it weren't so sad. This is literally their position on this.

Kayleigh McEnany is good. Trump should just have her doing these press briefings. She comes prepared, clearly does her homework, seems to have answers for everything and has a soft way of communicating things in pointed terms.

This study was published in The Lancet. I think their outlook is sober yet realistic. I hate to say it, but the overall population of Sweden are able to have these sort of discussions whereas here in the U.S the media and in this example the left have devolved the entire discussion to: If we go back to work we will die until we have that vaccine or we have enough testing to test everyone in the country. Oh and the economy tanking is the administrations fault.

Great exchange with Tim Scott and Fauci. Fauci says that the nation should try to model themselves after South Carolina. Romney playing the useful idiot role.

Kaine so far is in the lead for the hack of the day.

Bravo for Senator Cassidy. Finally a senator that discussed cost benefit of the decisions impacting children. This needs to be discussed more throughout this hearing.

Looks like Rand Paul touched a nerve with Fauci.

I have been largely living by this creed over the past 15 years or so. "Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Don't count on them. Leave them alone."

Bernie is asking questions if Vaccine's should be free and he is asking guys that aren't in charge of that. That is a decision for CMS. Bernie is such a hack and he knows this.

So far - 2 Republicans have gone on to ask substantive questions. So far - 2 Democrats are looking to take potshots and make politicized statements.

It's obvious that Senator Murray has no interest in advancing the discussion but taking pot shots at the administration.

More data that just confirms what we already knew. Just to summarize, 91.5% of all the deaths are people over the age of 65. 83% of them are over the age of 75. That 61% of the deaths are over the age of 85. This doesn't even take into account that out of these deaths that 88% of them have 2 or more comorbidites. And look which states have done well and not so well in protecting seniors, relative to their peers.

Today's hearing is highly anticipated, especially by the media and Trump's detractors. In prepared remarks, apparently there is a snippet of a quote that is being taken out of context. They are harping on his quote "needless suffering and death", if states open up too quickly. Of course, what the media is focusing on is "needless suffering and death". We have said it here on this site quite a few times, he just seems to always provides these quotes that can easily be sensationalized by the media. There are ways to communicate the exact same message without providing fodder to the media to hyperventilate over. With that said, here are the questions that I would like to be asked today during the hearing: 1) By the time this all said and done, what do you believe that the actual mortality rate will be? Not the confirmed case but what you believe to be the actual mortality rate? 2) Yes or no, do we have enough testing in all or most states in your view to go through phase 1? 3) Do you believe after all is said and done, that for people under the age of 65, COVID is about as dangerous to those individuals as the common flu? 4) Do you believe that overall, COVID is as dangerous, more dangerous or less dangerous than the common flu for those under the age of 10? 5) There have been a few studies and strong anecdotal accounts that suggest that children below the age of 10 are much less likely to pass on the virus to adults, what are your thoughts on that? 6) There were some strong anecdotal accounts from a pork plant in Missouri and quite a few prisons with sample sizes in the thousands that indicated that the asymptomatic rate was around 97%. Do you believe there is a chance that the vast majority of people who have the virus are mildly effected if at all? 7) There have been studies that show that the primary driver to transmit the virus is in enclosed confined spaces where people don't typically just have casual contact but rather sustained period of contact before the virus is transmitted. Such as transportation, meat plants, prisons, nursery homes or simply people bringing the virus into homes. Do you agree with that? 8 ) There are studies that suggest that being outside in the sun, heat and humidity that suggest that the environment for the virus is more hostile for it to spread. What are your thoughts on that? 9) Do you believe that the vast majority of the population have the immune systems to effectively fight off the virus? 10) What metric and gauge are you looking at to determine if the rate of prevalency is going up or down? Do you value net totals of infections more so than rate of positive test results or vice versa? Or is there another metric that you view more carefully? The questions for Fauci shouldn't be so much about policy. They should be about science. I expect Democrats to try to ask questions that will lead to answers that don't fully provide a picture of the situation. And I don't expect Republicans to ask the substantive questions that I believe should be asked because frankly speaking, I don't think any of these politicians are versed well enough to ask the right questions. The questions should be related to science not policy. It's not up to Fauci to create policy, his role is to provide the facts and data and give guidance. It's up to policy makers to then use that scientific data to create policy. I don't expect a substantive Q & A. I will be watching Fauci closely today, my hopes are that he provides full context with his answers. My guess is that he'll somehow provide more snippets in today's hearing that will be used against the administration that are taken out of it's context.

I think expectations should be set realistically, but there won't be. When you have hundreds if not thousands of silent carriers coming in from Asia and Europe without being detected back in January, which is much more than the countries that have lower per capita rankings, it makes it all the more difficult. This isn't a blame game, this is reality. As I said earlier, by the time the first infected virus community spread individual was detected, it was too late to contain.

There are structural disadvantages that the US has over all the other countries that are ranked better on a per capita basis. Primarily one large factor, there are many multiples more of travel coming from infected areas being imported into the US than any other country. There are no exact stats on net COVID infected people, but I'd be willing to wager that the net total of COVID infected individuals is much higher than any other country. By the time the first community spread person was detected in the US, it was too late.

My money is on Rhodes and if they can establish that, they should bury that hack.

John Karl tries shaming John Roberts over a....... mask

Things could get interesting

Better than last weeks numbers. Hit lows that we hadn’t seen since end of March. Things definitely headed in the right direction.

If you don’t get it then you aren’t bright enough to explain it to.

Jonathan Karl has been asking some really stupid questions lately.