China has a debt problem:
China’s consumer loans are shrinking at an unprecedented pace after a decade of breakneck expansion, a blow to the government’s strategy of relying on spending as a growth engine amid the worst public health crisis
in a generation.The net balance of consumer loans – made up of short-term and credit card loans from banks and online lenders – plunged by a quarter in the first two months of this year to 7.4 trillion yuan (US$1 trillion), according to data published by the People’s Bank of China. Some microlenders are staring at 20 cents on a dollar in bad loans.
China is fundamentally weak because China’s government does not have the consent of the governed – it is really as simple as that. Governments like that of China can, for a while, make things seem to work – but only seem. China is a honeycomb of bad debts, corrupt deals, crime and poverty masked by showpiece cities. Not only did China’s economy take a massive hit from the virus, it is going to keep on taking hits as foreign nations move their supply chains out of China. People are at last awake to how dangerous it is to have their supplies come out of China because of the sort of government China has. We’ll see how China weathers the storm…but it will be a very difficult time for them.
Related: Bloomberg killed a story about the corruption of China’s ruling class. One of the most astonishing things about Coronavirus is how it revealed the extent of China’s corruption of American institutions. They’re all bought, to one degree or another. Our supposed Expert Elite betters seem to have one thing in common – they’ll sell their country out for a few bucks.
Obama finally got around to endorsing Biden.
Don Surber’s plan to reopen America.
Ace rips into the New York Times over their stealth-editing of a Biden story at the behest of the Biden campaign. The story, of course, was about the sexual assault allegations launched against Biden. The bottom line is the accusation is far more credible than that made against Kavanaugh – but the MSM is determined to cover up for Ol’ Joe…because he’s a Democrat, and there’s an end on it.
Rumor mill has it that AG Barr is still rolling steadily along on the investigations with Brennan said to be a large target. We’ll see.
Blogs For Victory 
If Trump doesn’t have the authority to reopen the country as the media currently contends, then how can they blame him for not closing the country soon enough? Do you think they listen to themselves?
Do you think they listen to themselves?
No. If they were consistent (in anything but hate) they would not be Leftists.
See my comments on the discrete (not discreet) thought cells of the Left, unconnected to each other.
The Left is currently in the process of pushing mail in voting REALLY hard. The narrative – “we shouldn’t have to choose between our lives and our most fundamental right to vote”. In other words they are in the process of trying to destroy the integrity of our elections by eliminating any semblance of voter ID and this shall not stand. We need to let Democrats know that we will risk our lives everyday to not live in a world governed by them.
For the most part I don’t do social media, but I do participate in a locally-oriented site with members in my area. It is usually about local affairs, lost or found pets, etc. Recently a guy has come on to dump his hair-on-fire TDS ravings, which seem to focus on convincing everyone of the danger posted by Dictator Trump, particularly his evil plan to “dismantle” the Postal Service so people can’t vote.
Curious, I entered “Trump dismantle postal service” in a couple of search engines, and all I found was typical sniping at Trump for his efforts to privatize the service, as it is many billions of dollars in debt, mostly due to an insane bill passed in 2006 forcing it to pre-fund retirements for the next 50 years or so. But even the anti-Trump sentiments about privatization never said he was trying to eliminate mail delivery to control the election. Evidently some of the more radical sites have been promoting this idea to the already hate-driven sheeple.
Are we all still pretending it’s not just the normal flu season? See this is what happens when you live amongst dishonorable Democrats. Remember when everyone thought Trump was a Russian asset? Or my favorite one of course was that Hunter Biden is a world renowned natural gas expert. The next thing they’ll try to convince us of is that Joe Biden is competent statesman. I am looking forward to that one.
Just saw this over at MarketWatch:
The coronavirus death toll in the U.S. — now topping 23,000 — skyrocketed as families continued to huddle in their homes uncertain of what’s next, while an unthinkable number of more than 16 million people have now filed for unemployment amid an economy grappling with the shutdown.
If 23,000 deaths in a country of 330 million people is enough to cause “families to huddle in their homes” then we have much bigger problems than a virus. We have a weak society afraid of life and unprepared for anything.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-this-screenshot-of-cnbcs-mad-money-host-jim-cramer-is-everything-that-is-wrong-with-america-2020-04-12
We have a weak society afraid of life and unprepared for anything.
Maybe, to some extent. We know about half of the nation is intellectually disengaged, instead controlled by emotion, at least when it comes to politics, so that is part of it. But part of it is that we are also a nation of lawful people, community-focused people, who genuinely want to do what they can to help in emergencies. I see strength, not weakness, in the willingness to make personal sacrifices for the sake of the greater good. Sure, a certain percentage of those people is panicked, but I think most are pretty reasonable and rational but also willing to trust their leaders and do what it takes to protect others and the nation.
As you know I have been tracking the death numbers for about a month. Starting with the first death nationwide on Feb. 28th (and assuming you can believe the numbers) the number of deaths, on average, doubled every 3 days, going over 18,000 on April 10th (2,000 above the 3-day trend). Going by the original trend numbers, it should have been 32,768 on Apr. 13th and 65,536 tomorrow. Instead, the number reported this morning on worldometers.info/coronavirus is 26,064. So in the last 5 days the daily rate of increase has dropped from 26% to less than10%. The moment of truth will be in another 5 days.
So again, if you can believe the numbers (and I don’t at this point), this thing is slowing waaaaaay down. The projections have constantly been scaled back, from a couple million back in early February to, last I heard, 60,000 a few days ago. My guess is that the 60,000 number will end of being high.
Combine this with the news out of Germany that scientists there, backed up by reports from Korea and China, believe the severity of the illness is affected by the amount of exposure. If they are right, limited exposure to the virus, such as what might be encountered at a grocery store or casual interaction with someone shedding the virus, would likely result in a mild case of the disease—which would, however, generate the antibodies necessary for immunity.
If this is right—and admittedly that is a big IF and it is far too early to count on it and act on it—-the best thing we can do is get out of our houses and start living fairly normal lives. I would expect that to still avoid handshakes and hugs, and to continue extensive hand washing and avoiding touching the face, and protecting others from our coughs and sneezes. It might involve masks and gloves on crowded public transit, at least till herd immunity has built up. But if a light exposure actually does mean a slight case of the disease, we ought to be out there and not fretting too much about it.
We also have to factor in, when talking about numbers, the blatant frauds being perpetrated by hospitals all over the country which are falsely reporting illnesses and deaths as COVID-caused because Medicare and Medicaid offer higher payouts for COVID treatment.
When I was in Las Vegas a few years ago, I never entered a building without heading to a bathroom to wash my hands, and I did the same thing if I touched machines or a lot of doors and handrails while I was in the building. Realizing that everything I touched had been touched by people from all over the world, it just made sense.
Worth a read:
https://townhall.com/columnists/marinamedvin/2020/04/15/israeli-professor-shows-virus-follows-fixed-pattern-
And 60,000 deaths would be equivalent to an average flu season.
I will say again, there is no reason why Montana is under the same restrictions as New York. We could easily open up 60% of this country with zero to little risk. This is one of the most over hyped events in my lifetime and we are in the process of doing far more damage to ourselves and our psyche than any flu virus ever could.
We also have to factor in, when talking about numbers, the blatant frauds being perpetrated by hospitals all over the country which are falsely reporting illnesses and deaths as COVID-caused because Medicare and Medicaid offer higher payouts for COVID treatment.
I heard that the other day. That’s reprehensible!
I will say again, there is no reason why Montana is under the same restrictions as New York.
NYC accounts for roughly 40% of all Coronavirus deaths in this country. Now a lot of that is the fact that they’re packed in like Sardines, but a good portion of the blame has to go their idiot Mayor who was telling people to go on about their lives until 30 days ago.
And a LOT of it has to do with fraudulent reporting.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday that doctors will begin including suspected COVID-19 deaths into their death totals, even if the patient was never tested for the virus.
“Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday the city would begin counting victims (suspected of having coronavirus) who weren’t tested, including those dying at home whose symptoms fit certain parameters,” The Associated Press reported.
A doctor was recently interviewed who said at his hospital they were told to list incoming patients as corona virus patients because Medicare and Medicaid paid more for treating those patients.
Update: It looks like they’re continuing to just make up numbers. Yesterday morning at this time the number of deaths for the U.S. shown on worldometers.info was 26,064. The last number of new deaths I saw last night (it’s supposed to reset at GMT0 (7PM EST) was around 2,400, bringing the total up to about 27,500. This morning they show 817 new deaths, but the death total has mysteriously jumped to 33,405, or over 7,000 in one day, more than 3 times what was forecast for April 15th. Even at 33,405, it’s still only about half what it would have been today if it had continujed to double every 3 days.
Have you seen the protests this morning in Michigan???
Hell yes.
There are a lot of really angry people out there. It’ll be interesting to see who they hold accountable in November.
The folks in Michigan are especially angry.
With any luck Biden will choose Gretchen Whitmer as his running mate and help the Trump campaign plus let Michigan rethink its lurch to the left.
I think he still has his eye on the svelte chick from Georgia, Stacey Abrams.
Abrans checks off more SJW boxes doesn’t she hahahahahahaha
Here’s an example of just making up numbers.
According to the worldometers site, the count last Friday (4/10) was a little over 9,000, and the count on Monday was a little over 18,000. I haven’t been recording daily numbers because everyone reports them differently and at different times of day, but likely all 3 days (Saturday, Sunday & Monday) were significantly higher than the so-called “single day record.
Will more taxes take care of Covid-19? Or is that just for climate change?
Pretty tough to even talk about raising taxes at this point given how many people are out of work — unless, of course, they retroactively make the stimulus payments taxable.
I have read that higher temperatures inhibit the virus, so global warming is a good thing, right?
I might not sell my Excursion after all……..
LOL
The latest from the YCMTSU file.
CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta claimed Tuesday that President Donald Trump is using China as a “scapegoat” for the coronavirus pandemic.
WHAT !! ?? Are you telling me that President Trump has the unmitigated gall to actually claim this virus came from China?? Doesn’t he realize that this is the kind of thing that can easily be checked with a quick reference to pretty much any online news feed? He is so brazen.
Oh wait………
This is kind of fascinating.
That is interesting and I wonder why we haven’t seen any media reports on this. Oh that’s right …. the media has zero interest in solving this problem, it’s too good for ratings. Right now Lady Gaga is on MSNBC talking about the emotional distress from this issue. She’s so wise.
Hey, she was wise enough to stay behind Joe Biden when she filmed that promo with him.
Your linked article says: Both chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have the side effect of elongating your electrocardiogram QT wave. This means the electrical activity in the heart is altered, which can lead to seizure, fainting and sudden death
Yes, this is true. And has been known for about 40 years or so, but the effect is only with people with a pre-existing condition of an elongated QT wave anyway. That is why patients are screened for that before the drugs are prescribed.
I was intrigued by the references to zinc combined with the other drugs. Zinc has been recommended for years to help minimize cold symptoms, or even avoid catching a cold, and now its effect on viruses is even more important.
I can see some November headlines now.
A. Trumps steals the elections by not allowing mail-in (email in, call in) votes.
B. Trump wins by default – Only conservatives were unafraid to go to the polls.
C. Election disaster – Must Hold New Election to be Fair.
D. Trump is a Dictator – Must be Ruled Unconstitutional.
The left never lets a crisis(real or invented) go without concocting a thousand reasons why they should be in charge. I pray to God that NEVER happens, ever again.
“Exclusive: California State Election Official Confirms Double-Voting by Mail in Super Tuesday Primary”
Gee, what could go wrong using mail in voting in a national election?
Gee, what could go wrong using mail in voting in a national election?…..especially when we can print out our own ballots from an online site? That’s what Mental Giant Michelle Obama is promoting.
So the “experts” and the media have completely over exaggerated the flu season, shut the economy down, and are now releasing inmates:
One day after Florida officials released more than 160 inmates to slow the spread of the coronavirus in jails, one of them shot and killed a man in Tampa, the authorities said.
But thankfully we’re all home and safe from the flu, well except for that one guy. Things are going well.
This is so sweet:
California’s Governor Newsom reveals $125 million plan to give $500 checks to undocumented immigrants in the state to help them cope during Covid-19 crisis
$500 will buy quite a bit of booze and drugs so good for Gavin, looking out for the small business drug dealers and allowing addiction to destroy more lives.
$125 million would charter several planes to send them home in style, solving several problems at once.
20 years ago Rush Limbaugh warned of the “feminization of our society”
We are there.
Pretty hard to match wisdom like this:
Joe Biden: “We should not send you back to work until it’s safe to send you back to work. This is a false choice. The way you revive the economy is you defeat the disease.”
Here is a letter to the Governor of AZ from a Doctor in Scottsdale and I could not agree more nor have said it any better.
#ReopenARIZONA
April 6, 2020
Dear Governor Ducey,
I am a family physician practicing in Scottsdale, Arizona. While other physicians and I recognize the immense pressures and responsibilities you have in this COVID-19 situation, we feel that some of your current policies need to be reconsidered. Medical experts in the fields of epidemiology and virology are determining our country’s response to COVID-19 with the sole purpose of minimizing COVID-19 infections and deaths. While their research is essential, our country must keep this pandemic in perspective. In fact, relatively few Americans will die from COVID-19, and yet our misguided efforts to save lives are straining our economy, ruining millions of lives, and causing immeasurable harm for the sake of an effectively small impact on our nation’s health. The United States population is 331 million; approximately 2.8 million Americans die annually. More than 1.2 million die from heart disease and cancer alone; another 500,000 die from fatal accidents, chronic lung disease, and cerebrovascular disease (based on 2017 CDC data). Most experts agree that the COVID-19 death rate will decline as more testing is available and will likely end up at <1%; most of those deaths will be in older patients with a shortened life expectancy due to pre-existing chronic disease. More than 80% of cases have been categorized as mild, and the vast majority of people who become infected will fully recover and help provide us with "herd immunity."
I am frustrated to see dozens of obese shoppers don masks and gloves to "protect" their health while they fill their carts with the soda, chips, frozen pizza and processed foods that are far more deadly than the virus. Why do our public health discussions not address these "pandemics" which are far more widespread and take many more lives? Your citizens are following social distancing guidelines put forth by the CDC, but they ignore the abundance of other CDC guidelines regarding exercise, maintaining a healthy weight, cancer screenings, and routine child and adult vaccinations that are proven to prevent disease. Your current policies are so narrowly focused on COVID-19 that they neglect the health risks that will kill far more of your citizens. When you post your COVID-19 statistics, consider also posting the number of deaths due to chronic disease, accidents and suicides that have occurred during the same time period. That will give people a better perspective, and maybe even help them identify and reduce their greater risks.
Bankrupting our local businesses and shutting in our citizens are not improving their health, only diminishing our resources. My colleague outside of Denver informed me that her hospital is losing $1 million per day and it is having to furlough medical staff. I know the hospital group I am affiliated with here in Scottsdale is well below census because the pandemic model thus far has been grossly inaccurate. But in the meantime, you have forced the closure of all fitness and recreation facilities despite multiple medical studies demonstrating that moderate exercise, as well as socialization, improves immune function and promotes longevity. You have restricted dentists and periodontists to treat only emergent cases, when in fact there is a proven correlation between oral health and cardiovascular disease. Coronaviruses are here to stay; maybe instead of saving Americans from the pandemic, you should focus your efforts on making them healthy enough to survive it.
Policymakers insist we need to take these extreme measures to protect the vulnerable. But what definition of "vulnerable" are you using? Are you including your citizens who are vulnerable to poverty, substance abuse, neglect, mental illness, domestic violence, child and elder abuse, and suicide? Are you aware that our millennials are expected to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents due to substance abuse and mental illness? COVID-19 targets the old and sick, but isolation and loneliness kill indiscriminately. We are embarking on a time when overdoses, assaults, murders, and suicides due to this forced media recession may far outnumber the deaths caused by the virus.
Sadly, the U.S. suffers nearly 50,000 suicides annually, a number which will surely increase given the recent unemployment and isolation that has been imposed upon us. My husband was widowed during our last economic recession when an out-of-work architect attempted suicide by running his SUV into his late wife's sedan. My stepson's colleague committed suicide last week, and I personally know of two other suicides in the past two weeks (please note that the two suspected COVID cases I treated during the same timeframe have fully recovered). Daily I am treating patients for pandemic-related anxiety and depression, and no doubt I will soon lose some of those to suicide and substance abuse as well. Would your citizens choose this trade-off? I am not sure, but at the very least, educate them as to these realities and let them decide which “vulnerable” population they opt to save.
Finally, in addition to practicing medicine, I am a small business owner who owns a solo private practice. I am infuriated by the disregard for Arizona small businesses and the government's usurpation of control at every level, particularly when I am educated enough to know that Covid-19 comprises only a small portion of our overall health crisis. Furthermore, Arizona is not New York or San Francisco. We are not a vertical city; we do not have their population densities nor their homeless populations. While the benefits of closures in those cities may outweigh the financial losses and economic/social hardships, blanket policies to close Arizona and similar states clearly do not. You are applying irrelevant models to your citizens and gravely harming the majority in the process. I urge you to examine local studies and statistics to make wise, relevant policies for our state.
What policies would I recommend? Evaluate each county individually. Keep the hospitals below census but do not bankrupt them. Discourage unnecessary travel. Advise older patients with pre-existing conditions and patients who are immunocompromised to be cautious and stay home. Incentivize biomedical companies to develop more efficient testing methods and pharmaceutical therapies. Increase production and the discriminatory use of personal protective equipment for our medical providers. Educate the public on basic hand washing and hygiene. Tackle the homeless epidemic where disease runs rampant. production and the discriminatory use of personal protective equipment for our medical providers. Educate the public on basic handwashing and hygiene. Tackle the homeless epidemic where disease runs rampant. In the meantime, open up businesses, open up the cities! Educate your citizens on how to best fight this virus, how to optimize their immune systems and resiliency, and then allow them to resume their normal lives. Implement policies to help optimize the health – physical, emotional, and economic well being of your citizens so that they do not fear COVID19, but instead are strong enough to overcome it. You have your citizens’ attention like never before, now use this opportunity to get them healthy so that they can survive not only this pandemic, but also the ones that will undoubtedly follow.
Respectfully,
Jennifer Fontius, MD
Great letter, and I completely agree.
I’d add that a big publicity push to educate people on how to develop their immune systems would be valuable. We as a nation have become so dirt-phobic, with mummies rushing to sanitize kids on playgrounds with Wet Wipes, etc. that our bodies have never had to develop resistance to pathogens.
I know when I started my horse business I kickstarted my immune system, because I was dumping so much stuff into it it had to react to. Just cleaning stalls I was breathing dust containing atomized horse manure and urine and sweat and who knows what else had been brought in on hair coats, hooves, etc.
And I was never sick—except for a slight cold some Januaries after going to the National Western Stock Show and being around a few thousand people from all over the country.
A couple of weeks ago I was getting my oil changed and chatting—-at a safe distance, of course—-with another customer about this. When he left we said good-bye and I said “stay dirty”, which surprised the clerk till I explained it to him.
Americans need to be educated about having strong immune systems, and that means cutting way back on sugars, carbs and alcohol.
I am glad you said that because I have lived my life that way as well. I remember when my kids were toddlers years ago and both the wife and I were working and putting the kids in daycare. Well naturally they came home with everything. A lot of our friends would rush their kids to the doctor the minute they came down with stuffy noses and get them on some prescription being the “good parent”. The wife and I both agreed on letting the kids immune system kick in, and it did and always does. My family and I rarely come down with colds and when we do get something we ride it out. Sometimes to the point of fault lol. As I said earlier I think my son came down with this Covid right after the Super Bowl and he was in rough shape to the point where I was thinking he should go in ….. but he didn’t. Let the immune system kill it.
When you think about it, it’s amazing that our generation (Amazona’s and mine) survived to adulthood. The things we did as kids (I double dare you to jump off the garage roof), the places we played (unsupervised) — and dirt, lots of dirt. Car seats? What’s that? Hell, we didn’t even have seat belts until the mid 60’s. Bike helmets? Uh, NO!
The one thing I have no memory of — taking antibiotics when I got sick. You got sick; you got over it — no big deal.
Great letter. This should be given to every governor in every state.
This is rather disturbing. What the heck to police need personal medical info for?
Your link is FUBAR, and I’m not sure how to fix it//Moderator
In 2007, the late Senator Tom Coburn issued a well-documented report entitled, “CDC Off Center—A review of how an agency tasked with fighting and preventing disease has spent hundreds of millions of tax dollars for failed prevention efforts, international junkets, and lavish facilities, but cannot demonstrate it is controlling disease.” In the years since, there have been reports documenting multi-million dollar CDC studies on topics like the prevention of gun violence, how parents should discipline children, and chronic health conditions among lesbian, gay, and bisexual populations.
In 2017 alone, the CDC spent over $1.1 billion on chronic disease prevention and health promotion, $215 million on environmental health, and $285 million on injury prevention—all purposes that are addressed by other federal agencies. That money could have been used to prepare for communicable diseases, including replenishment of our stockpile of masks and ventilators. In other words, it could have been used to do the work the CDC was created to do.
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/thoughts-current-crisis
Does anyone else realize the need to shrink the federal government, that is, unless you’re one of the few to benefit from such far overreach? This is just one example of many.
I think all of our heads would explode in unison if we were to really see the size and scope of the federal bureaucracy and the duplicity and incompetence that is a natural by product.
UPDATE: The federal government is sending stimulus checks to dead people. Game. Set. Match.
One of the many things the Right has failed to do is educate America about the massive, bloated and unconstitutionally powerful federal bureaucracy. There have been some passing comments on Trump slashing some agency budgets and staffs, but it hasn’t been explained and the Left has gotten more mileage out of whining that cutting into the EPA authority, as one example, is destroying the Earth !!! but even that has only had minimal traction on the more radical fringes—probably due to fear that more squealing might result in some hard-line explanations of what was done and why it was necessary.
Look at the quote from my link—the CDC alone wasted about a billion and a half dollars on redundant programs, and in the overall scheme of things the CDC is a pretty small agency.
And maybe it is time to revisit the massive ammo buying done by so many agencies—that sure fell off the radar, didn’t it? Why would the Social Security Administration need hundreds of thousands of hollow-point bullets?
The federal government is sending stimulus checks to dead people.
Calm down, Cluster. They are only being sent to dead people who voted. Nothing to see here.
… the CDC alone wasted about a billion and a half dollars on redundant programs
That’s frightening and inexcusable.
Just now ….
MSNBC is accusing Fox of spreading misinformation and not telling the truth
YCNMTSU hahahahahahahaha
I am just thinking out loud here so go with me a little bit, but what if America elected a black man for President? And maybe if he then surrounded himself with a similar man to be attorney general and then put other similar men/women in advisory positions in an effort to oh I don’t know … “fundamentally transform” this country. Do you think the media would stop complaining?
Do you think the media would stop complaining?
Yes, till someone else is elected to clean up the mess.
I think this virus hast a lot of people including Democrats starting to wake up and realize just how insufferably bad much of our media is.
They are starting to catch on because someone is finally calling them out on it. Not just people like us, muttering to each other about them being Agenda Media, but someone with a microphone and a pulpit who has been willing to call them what they are. To do it repeatedly, and not give them any slack.
We’ve seen what happens when Donald Trump refuses to take their crap. We’ve seen what happens when people like Jim Jordan and Devin Nunes and the rest of the Congressional warriors have not just stood up to the bully-boy Leftists but taken the battle TO them. Every person on the Right who does this energizes and supports the next person who does it, so now we have Kellyanne Conway, for example, telling press snot Paula Reid
“”Paula, I actually don’t know what’s happened to you, respectfully,” Conway replied. “I don’t know why you’ve changed, and you’re in the briefing room screaming at Anthony Fauci and the president of the United States. I, frankly, think it’s unbecoming. But that aside, I will answer the question about how they’re going to help America, which is why I’m here.”
The White House counselor continued, “I think you’re here for a different reason, it seems, these days.””
I suggest that the new tone of the Right, that of “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more”, is one reason they are melting down. They not only have not been able to unseat Trump or even damage him, they have run into a wall of open disgust with them that is, finally, being publicly verbalized.
So re: these civil liberty restrictions and the proposed “immunity passes”. Whatever happened to the “keep your laws out of our uterus” mantra? Where’s that crowd? Do we still have “choice”?
Interesting…not just the speculation about why this has happened but the information about how things work in China.
The Closing of 21 Million Cell Phone Accounts in China May Suggest a High CCP Virus Death Toll
https://www.ntd.com/the-closing-of-21-million-cell-phone-accounts-in-china-may-suggest-a-high-ccp-virus-death-toll :
Cell phones are an indispensable part of life in China.
“The digitization level is very high in China. People can’t survive without a cell phone,” Tang Jingyuan, a U.S.-based China Affairs commentator told The Epoch Times on March 21. “Dealing with the government for pensions and social security, buying train tickets, shopping… no matter what people want to do, they are required to use cell phones.”
“The Chinese regime requires all Chinese use their cell phones to generate a health code. Only with a green health code are Chinese allowed to move in China now,” Tang said. “It’s impossible for a person to cancel his cell phone.”
This COVID-19 panic is having some interesting results. One is an increase in research. I was really interested in this:
A friend who built a successful software-based control system that dominates its market wondered why various demographic groups were affected so differently by this virus? He dug deep into the data and concluded that there was a strong correlation between the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine and people’s susceptibility to Wuhan. Young people who got both the original shot and the booster seem almost immune. Older people who were never vaccinated and those who eschew vaccinations are much more vulnerable. The data overlaid almost perfectly with the hypothesis. A Harvard measles study seems to lend credibility to this theory. It motivated me to get a booster. You may consider it as well.
https://townhall.com/columnists/gilgutknecht/2020/04/19/pulling-the-tooth-slowly-n2567183
I went to a link in this paragraph and found this:
Reporting Oct. 31 in Science, the researchers show that the measles virus wipes out 11 percent to 73 percent of the different antibodies that protect against viral and bacterial strains a person was previously immune to — anything from influenza to herpesvirus to bacteria that cause pneumonia and skin infections.
They believe that over time this immunity deficiency is repaired: Elledge, Mina and colleagues found that those who survive measles gradually regain their previous immunity to other viruses and bacteria as they get re-exposed to them. But because this process may take months to years, people remain vulnerable in the meantime to serious complications of those infections.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191031204630.htm
But it is interesting to speculate that many of us older folks, who had measles, might have some holes in our immune systems because we did have measles, and might not have fully repaired the damage done to our ability to fight off disease.
One thing that came to mind is the question: Would a measles vaccine given to older people have some effect on protecting them (us?) from this corona virus? I’m sure this has been looked into, and would be interested in seeing what they conclude.
Damn. Trying to keep up with things seems to include learning all sorts of esoteric and previously unrequired things—who knew we would be using the word “Ukraine” so often, for example, not to mention “hydroxychloroquine”. And now measles and immunity.