I saw this earlier today and couldn't figure out what happened.
The back story: that first coronavirus victim in the US was reported by President Trump to be a female. Later, Washington state authorities said it was a male. Why the discrepancy?
This is the explanation:
At the briefing earlier today, the president said there were 22 patients in the United States who have coronavirus.
"Unfortunately, one person passed away overnight," Trump said, speaking to a case in Washington state.
“She was a wonderful woman, a medically high-risk patient in her late
50s. Four others are very ill. Thankfully 15 are either recovered fully
or they're well on their way to recovery. And in all cases, they've been
let go in their home.”
After Trump spoke, officials in Washington state said the first U.S.
coronavirus death was actually a male. Asked about the discrepancy, a
senior administration official said the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention briefed Trump earlier that the victim was a female.
Later,
the CDC director took responsibility on Twitter for "erroneously"
identifying the patient as female when briefing the president and vice
president.
If the CDC can't get the gender of the highest profile patient in the United States right, how in the world can we trust them with the rest of their announcements. LOL.
Actually, maybe transgender?
why she walked like a woman,
but talked like a man
--#nottherealWaltWhitman
Note: the coronavirus story overshadows everything else. It's hard to even put together the top stories of the week with coronavirus affecting everything.
Classic movies: wow, TCM is showing some great movies -- "30 days of Academy Awards" is the theme right now -- Tootsie tonight ( a great movie the first time, but I don't care to watch it again) -- I had forgotten that Bill Murray was in the movie. But last night was incredible, one right after the other: Cat on a Hot Tin Room; Rebel Without a Cause; Splendor in the Grass.
I had never seen Cat on a Hot Tin Room before. As a background movie while doing "other stuff," it's an incredibly good movie. Maybe one of the best of this genre. I really enjoyed it.
Rebel Without a Cause: I've seen parts of this movie many, many times, but I don't recall ever sitting through the entire movie. It is simply too painful to watch. The way the James Dean character is treated is more than I can handle.
Splendor in the Grass followed. I have always been curious about this movie -- again, as background -- but after Cat on a HTR and Rebel Without a Cause, I was emotionally drained. I couldn't watch another drama. From wiki:
"Though nothing can bring back the hour / Of splendor in the grass,
glory in the flower / We will grieve not; rather find / Strength in what
remains behind."
But, wow, Cat on a HTR -- what an incredibly good movie, carried by two extraordinary actors. Unfortunately, knowing the backstory of the Paul Newman character makes the ending impossible and a real fantasy. The question is whether the Elizabeth Taylor character knew.
Coronavirus: sorry to bring this up again, but it just crossed my mind -- is President Xi toast? He has three months to get this under control. I didn't read much of the ZeroHedge article -- just what I posted -- so I don't know if "Tyler Durden" touched on this or not. But we could see huge civil unrest break out in China -- if one doesn't get paid, one doesn't eat. A lot of folks aren't getting paid. And if hoarding has already begun in the US, can you imagine the hoarding in China?
And I have yet to post the top stories of the week. It's been that busy.
One night only: by Tuesday, midnight, what happened in South Carolina tonight will be forgotten. But wow, Bernie's supporters have to be shaken and stirred. Bloomberg can see the writing on the wall. It's a two-man race and Bloomberg's not in it.
Bat Out Of Hell, Meatloaf
South Carolina: less than one minute after the polls closed in South Carolina, MSNBC declared Joe Biden the winner. Clyburn is still the king-maker in South Carolina. [Later: Jim Carville just said that -- after I posted my note.] Biden got 60% of the black vote in the palmetto state.The
questions: how big a spread between Biden/Bernie? Will anyone else get
any delegates? Since this is the last state that Biden wins, we still
get back to a brokered convention. Which -- by the way -- will there be a
convention if coronavirus is still a concern? Hillary? Re-calculating;
re-calculating; re-calculating.
South Carolina: the big story? I think this is the biggest story and it is not being reported. Steyer spent his fortune and reputation in South Carolina (and Nevada) and what did he get for all that? Zero, zilch, nada, nil delegates. He will remain a candidate through Super Tuesday, but then it's over. He has three options:
color inside the lines; be a good sport; go to the DNC convention, and support the Democrat nominee;
continue to run anti-Trump ads but as a non-party billionaire; with no future as a federally-elected official;
fade away; call it a day;
South Carolina: the big story: pollsters. "Everyone" predicted a Biden win but there was some doubt. No one predicted a blow-out. Biden delivered a blow-out.
South Carolina: the big story. Caucuses are dead. Weeks after the Iowa caucuses we still don't really know the final count; forty-eight hours after the Nevada caucuses, less than 100% of the precincts were reporting. South Carolina: within a minute of the polls closing, we had the winner, and no one contesting/questioning the numbers. I bet even Iowans are sick and tired of caucuses. Later: it's not even 10:00 p.m. Central Time and 99% of the South Carolina vote is in. Iowans better never call the South backward again. LOL.
South Carolina: the biggest laugh. After the huge Biden win, some talking heads actually suggested Bloomberg might get out of the race. LOL. Bloomberg doesn't see the race starting until Super Tuesday. At the end of tonight, Bernie will have 62 delegates, Biden will have 52 delegates. The Democrat candidate needs 1,991 delegates. [Later: Rachel Maddow is still suggesting that Bloomberg should drop out before Super Tuesday. Give me a break. That was his plan all along: to start on Super Tuesday. Is Rachel Maddow as smart as people think she is. Is she a closet-Biden supporter?]
South Carolina: of course it's the big political story today, but still, the networks, especially MSNBC seem to be really, really over-playing this story. Fifty-four delegates; one state; a southern state? Give me a break. Other than as a "primary state," is South Carolina even important in a national election? 2012: Trump: 55%; Hillary: 41%.
African-Americans: seem to be getting way too much press. Bernie would say it's the Latino/Latina vote. I would agree.
South Carolina: the big story. Some folks wondered if today's turnout would beat the 2016 turnout; no one thought today's turnout would come close to the record turnout in 2008 --
2016: 370,000
2008: record turnout -- 515,000
2020: 505,000 with 96% reporting -- absolutely incredible --
Right now, with about 53% reporting, Biden may sweep the board; Bernie will barely hit 15%. Biden might win every county in South Carolina, including the college towns.
And finally, the most interesting story to watch Tuesday -- how will Bloomberg do -- remember, he has spent almost $600 million (or maybe more). That's more than a half-billion dollars and he's not been on one ballot yet this primary season.
In
late February, 2020, I noted that several XTO wells in Tobacco Garden had
been taken off line. I cannot find any reason why these wells would
have been taken off line.
I just checked the five XTO wells in Tobacco Garden that are still on the confidential list, that are in the same area: nothing has changed. They are still on the conflist, and there is still a rig on site, on the pad, #36627.
The four wells with no production in 12/19:
30256, Tobacco Garden 11X-17E;
23839, Leiseth 24X-22E;
21208, Jore 34-22NWH; and,
20719, Bergem 44-28NWH;
The five wells in the general area that are still on
confidential; on the same pad, and with a rig on site, permit number
followed by API:
33631: 33-053-09121
36630: 33-053-09120
36629: 33-053-09119
36628: 33-053-09118
36627: 33-053-09117
Checking FracFocus for two of the above, no frack data posted.
South Carolina: less than one minute after the polls closed in South Carolina, MSNBC declared Joe Biden the winner. Clyburn is the king-maker in South Carolina. Biden got 60% of the black vote in that state.The questions: how big a spread between Biden/Bernie. Did anyone else get any delegates. Since this is the last state that Biden wins, we still get back to brokered convention. Which by the way -- will there be a convention if coronavirus is still a concern? Hillary? Re-calculating; re-calculating; re-calculating.
South Carolina: the big story? Steyer spent his fortune and reputation and what did he get for all that? Zero, zilch, nada, nil delegates.
Farmers: apparently President Trump signed the bill that eliminated the estate tax ("death tax") on small farms, small businesses. I had not heard that. I don't know if that's accurate. I will check that later.
Coronavirus: absolutely fascinating. Re-posting from February 25, 2020 -- this is the third time this has been posted, I believe. It's that interesting. The original post, and two re-postings:
Is this a bio experiment gone awry in Wuhan?
The Chinese physician who first called attention to this died? Is he the
only physician that has died of Covid-19? Exactly what were the
circumstances of his death? How many other physicians have died? I
haven't heard of any others.
How did a "country physician" come up with the cause of this brand new
infectious disease, seemingly overnight? Explanations for most
unexplained cases like this are preceded by four articles in the Lancet, two articles in The New England Journal of Medicine, and a breakthrough article in Nature. But
in this case, no research articles, but simply a "country doctor"
discovering the cause. And then he's dead; within days. Shoot, the
incubation period is two weeks. Jeffrey Epstein did not hang himself.
Many, many more questions. The questions fall into two categories. The
first category is for Sherlock Holmes to answer: where/how/why/when did
the virus appear. I think there is enough circumstantial evidence for
Sherlock to start working some theories. In fact, my hunch is that
Sherlock Holmes would have already sorted this out. It's too bad Richard
Feynman is no longer with us. He, too, would have it figured out.
Algore, the inventor of the internet and discoverer of global warming --
I'm surprised we haven't heard from him.
Here is a quick recap of what has happened so far in China:
The deadly Covid-19, i.e., SARS-like coronavirus,
originated as a byproduct of banned "gain of function" genetic
engineering conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Contrary to
the conventionally accepted official narrative, it then spread,
presumably by accident, to a nearby food market, where it infected
patient zero and the rest is history (in the meantime, anyone who
reported that the virus was sourced at the Wuhan Level-4 biolab was
ostracized, shunned, threatened, arrested or simply ordered to retract
their statement or research). [See below.]
In the early days of the pandemic, in hopes of avoiding a panic,
Beijing actively rounded up any doctors who tried to sound the alarm on
the danger that the coronavirus posed. Only three weeks later, around
Jan 20, did China start reporting official numbers associated with the
disease.
Just days after it "broke the seal" on the information blackout,
Beijing quarantined over 60 million people in major Chinese cities, in hopes of avoiding a further panic,
and preventing further spread of the virus. Ultimately, over 700
million people - half of China's population - was put on some form of
lock down. Panic had by now spread across the mainland, as virtually
nobody in China had any idea what the facts were aside from the
government's propaganda.
As a result of the widespread quarantine, China's economy came to a
complete halt and for weeks after the Lunar new year, various
high-frequency indicators showed that the economy has failed to reboot.
Realizing that an economic paralysis could be just as devastating for
its primary objective of preserving social calm and stability, Beijing
had a change of heart.
Faced with a catastrophic dilemma, and forced to choose between
either economic collapse due to mass quarantines, or economic collapse
due to a frozen economy - with the bulk of China's SMEs which are
responsible for 60% of China's GDP, facing insolvency in 2-3 months
unless things return to normal - Beijing reversed track and started to
openly manipulate the coronavirus data in mid-February to contain the widespread panic
and give the impression that it had the pandemic under control, even
though periodic reports demonstarting just how Beijing was lying about
the real numbers and occasional "changes in definition" which resulted
in a surge in "new cases" confirmed to the population how Beijing was
purposefully underreporting the full extent of the pandemic. This only made the distrust worse, not helping to contain the rising panic.
And that's just the beginning. Unless I missed it, ZeroHedge does not mention that the Wuhan physician who first identified the cause of that "first death," was said to have died of the disease. As many have said, Jeffrey Epstein didn't hang himself.
In addition, just earlier today, I said that folks would start calling this a pandemic sooner than later. Seasonal flu -- with millions infected in the US, and with tens of thousands of deaths from seasonal flu in the US -- seasonal flu does not meet the definition of epidemic in this country, according to the CDC.
February 29, 2020: the daily statistics won't be out for about eight hours, but right now the big news is in the US. Data, as of 2:17 p.m. Central Time, February 29, 2020:
US: five new cases (now at 68), and the first death, an individual in Washington state with minimal additional details.
China holding steady at around 50 new deaths each day;
South Korea with a whopping 813 new cases, far more than what China even had (433), today;
despite that huge increase in new cases, South Korea is reporting only one new death (one can expect new deaths to come over the next few days)
Italy: with about half as many new cases (239) as China; considering the difference in population, that's very, very alarming for Italy; in addition, eight new deaths in Italy compared to just that one new death in South Korea;
Iran: statistics almost identical with Iran; total cases almost doubled overnight; 43 total deaths; 9 new deaths;
Diamond Princess: no new cases; no new deaths;
I keep looking for a historical precedent. It's very possible the 1918 influenza pandemic is the best historical model. See "1918 "Spanish" influenza" link below. The takeaways:
a pandemic will be declared within six month; and,
the pandemic will burn itself out before a vaccine is widely available
overall cumulative hospitalization rate for the season increased to 53/100,000
the percentage of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza is 6.9%, which is below the epidemic threshold of 7.3%
My hunch: "this" will be called an epidemic a lot more quickly than "they call it" for "seasonal flu." It is very likely, it will be called a pandemic before "epidemic" criteria are met.
The Chinese physician who first called attention to this died? Is he the
only physician that has died of Covid-19? Exactly what were the
circumstances of his death? How many other physicians have died? I
haven't heard of any others.
How did a "country physician" come up with the cause of this brand new
infectious disease, seemingly overnight? Explanations for most
unexplained cases like this are preceded by four articles in the Lancet, two articles in The New England Journal of Medicine, and a breakthrough article in Nature. But
in this case, no research articles, but simply a "country doctor"
discovering the cause. And then he's dead; within days. Shoot, the
incubation period is two weeks. Jeffrey Epstein did not hang himself.
Many, many more questions. The questions fall into two categories. The
first category is for Sherlock Holmes to answer: where/how/why/when did
the virus appear. I think there is enough circumstantial evidence for
Sherlock to start working some theories. In fact, my hunch is that
Sherlock Holmes would have already sorted this out. It's too bad Richard
Feynman is no longer with us. He, too, would have it figured out.
Algore, the inventor of the internet and discoverer of global warming --
I'm surprised we haven't heard from him.
The second category, the public health angle, which is now the "only"
medical angle: if you were "king/queen for a day" and could institute
your plan to control this infectious disease how/what would you do? What
policies would you dictate?
Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) is part of the NIH Intramural Research Program and is located in Hamilton, Montana.
Operated by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, RML conducts research on maximum containment pathogens such as Ebola as well as research on prions and intracellular pathogens such as Coxiella burnetti and Francisella tularensis.
RML operates one of the few Biosafety level 4 laboratories in the United States, as well as Biosafety level 3 and ABSL3/4 laboratories.
In February 2020, electron microscope images of Novel Coronovirus strain COVID-19 were collected at RML.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) has produced images of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2, previously known as 2019-nCoV), the causative pathogen of Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19), on its scanning and transmission electron microscopes this week.
Note that the images do not look much different from MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, which emerged in 2012) or the original SARS-CoV (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus, which emerged in 2002).
That is not surprising: The spikes on the surface of coronaviruses give this virus family its name – corona, which is Latin for “crown,” and most any coronavirus will have a crown-like appearance.
RML investigator Emmie de Wit, Ph.D., provided the virus samples as part of her studies. Microscopist Elizabeth Fischer produced the images, and the RML visual medical arts office digitally colorized the images.
I went over to the granddaughters' house about 9:00 a.m. this morning, to take Sophia, the 5-y/o, going on sixteen, to gymnastics.
Downstairs in the kitchen Alexa was playing the songs from Frozen 2.
Sophia came down from upstairs, and immediately heard Frozen 2 playing but was upset that someone had not paused it when her favorite song was playing, as she had asked (which I found out later). [Wow, that's a run-on sentence.]
She said, "Oh, no, why didn't Mom pause it."
Me: "I don't think you can 'pause' Alexa."
Sophia: "Here, hold my milk. Alexa, pause."
And, of course, the music stopped until Sophia told Alexa to start again.
Later, about half an hour later, we are driving to gymnastics. From the booster seat in the back, Sophia asks me if I'm still learning "Alexa."
I said I guess I was (since I didn't know Alexa could pause).
She then said, rubbing more salt into that wound, "would you like me to teach you?"
