Money laundering. How many of those taxpayer dollars came back as campaign donations or other favors to the politician(s) that sent the money to China?

As much as I have suspicions, I really don't think that was involved. Maybe I am just to naive.

However, NIH grants always are divided into direct and indirect (administrative ) costs. Indirect costs are not a trivial part. If one considers that the maximum R01 grant is $250,000 per year for 5 years for direct costs, and if only one such grant was given, that leaves a minimum of 3.7 - 1.25 = $2.45 million to the Chinese Communist Party. NB: There may be two R01 grants involved. The only one I tracked was R01AI 110964 which is acknowledged in this paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0010-9

 

​

 

I had only seen pictures of the Milky Way. It was magnificent.

As a kid here on the coast (before streetlights and yard lights in this area) the Milky Way was beautiful. Now it is just barely a smudge in the heavens.

 

Everclear was the first alcohol I ever drank. Freshman year in college... bathtub in the basement... cheap grape juice... Purple Jesus’!

My God, you drank Purple Jesus as well? We had that at dorm parties, where a plastic garbage can was full of the stuff, and they took that garbage can up and down with the elevator in the residence, stopping at each floor of course.
Only thing I remember is the morning after, "Jesus, what the heck was that purple stuff??" Well, maybe it was early afternoon...

 

https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/21/coronavirus-analysis-recommends-less-reliance-on-ventilators/

By using ventilators more sparingly on Covid-19 patients, physicians could reduce the more-than-50% death rate for those put on the machines, according to an analysis published Tuesday in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

The authors argue that physicians need a new playbook for when to use ventilators for Covid-19 patients — a message consistent with new treatment guidelines issued Tuesday by the National Institutes of Health, which advocates a phased approach to breathing support that would defer the use of ventilators if possible.
...
There is a growing recognition that some Covid-19 patients, even those with severe disease as shown by the extent of lung infection, can be safely treated with simple nose prongs or face masks that deliver oxygen.The latter include CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) masks used for sleep apnea, or BiPAP (bi-phasic positive airway pressure) masks used for congestive heart failure and other serious conditions. CPAP can also be delivered via hoods or helmets, reducing the risk that patients will expel large quantities of virus into the air and endanger health care workers.

 

Take your vitamins!

https://www.grassrootshealth.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Vit-D-COVID-Severity-0421.pdf

 

Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up smoking!

 

Take your vitamins!

https://www.grassrootshealth.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Vit-D-COVID-Severity-0421.pdf

Possibilities:

• Vitamin D is prophylactic against severe Corona Virus infections
• Vitamin D is indicative of other reasons: more time outdoors, more exercise, younger (drinks milk -- many of us old folks can not do this!)
• Low Vitamin D is indicative of other co-morbidities: i.e. Osteoporosis.
• Severe infections reduce Vitamin D concentrations in blood stream

And I am sure there are others.

 

Take your vitamins!

https://www.grassrootshealth.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Vit-D-COVID-Severity-0421.pdf

Interesting thought, also people of color have less Vitamin D and as Joey points out older folks not getting outside as much might also suffer, not to mention blood pressure pills that lowers Vitamin D but I can’t find any evidence for it?

kv

 

There are a number of articles on the vitamin D effect but it hasn't yet attracted the attention I believe it is due. As @joeyd999 notes, correlation is not causation. But most Americans are deficient in vitamin D anyway and have nothing to lose by getting up into that safer range.

 

https://www.kptv.com/news/gov-brown...cle_5b7bc88e-8579-11ea-a845-1b9f3e236a8e.html

All hospitals, surgical centers, medical and dental offices will be able to resume non-urgent medical procedures on May 1, but they will have to follow new requirements for COVID-19 safety.

In March, Gov. Brown ordered Oregon hospitals to stop all non-emergency procedures to preserve supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

People are dying because other medical care is not getting done. Finally, my kid can get her braces I've already paid for.

 

Spotted on the newly opened beaches of Florida... Notice how everyone is 6' apart?

 

The times they are a'changin...
Traffic light for bathroom break is new normal in coronavirus Italy
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...new-normal-in-coronavirus-italy-idUSKCN22521J

 

Spotted on the newly opened beaches of Florida... Notice how everyone is 6' apart?
View attachment 205184

Still safer than NYC parks.

 

My proclamation: It's time to end the panic and the shutdown. The snake in our sleeping bag has turned out to be almost toothless.

Treat with prophylactic vitamin D, protect the old folks, move on.

It's looking to be less dangerous than the flu. A lot of people don't even bother to vaccinate themselves from that. No need to wait for the Wuhan vaccine.

 

As a costly experiment it proved we can contain a very contagious virus on a national basis with extreme measures. We should count our blessing that the distribution of deadly effects was limited to mainly those with high exposures (medical) and older people with pre-existing conditions.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109867/coronavirus-death-rates-by-age-new-york-city/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1106372/coronavirus-death-rate-by-age-group-italy/

 

... we can contain a very contagious virus on a national basis with extreme measures.

Did you mean cannot? I'm not sure we achieved much containment at all. We only got off easy because the Wuhan Red Death turns out to be the Wuhan mild nuisance.

 

Did you mean cannot? I'm not sure we achieved much containment at all. We only got off easy because the Wuhan Red Death turns out to be the Wuhan mild nuisance.

I didn't say we stopped it but I think we did, as a shotgun approach, contain it from the most vulnerable population where the effects are not a mild nuisance.

 

I'm curious as to why the "experts" think (or are trying to make us think) a continued shutdown is going to make Wuhan go away. It will not.

IMHO, Wuhan is with us for the long run, probably the same as typical flu. It's not just going to vanish on some arbitrary date after which everything goes back to normal.

Everyone will get infected eventually -- unless they have some innate genetic resistance to the virus. This assumes, of course, no vaccine. But a vaccine is at least a year away -- if ever. In that time, world-wide economic devastation will exceed any damage done by the virus itself.

Any curve flattening has been done -- most (mostly all? all?) hospitals are not getting overrun by mass casualties. People know how to continue to protect themselves, if they choose to. Time to open up and let nature take its course.

 

I'm self-isolating buddy, the seniors nursing home hot-tub party is down the street.