http://ethicsalarms.com/2020/05/12/the-senate-senate-pandemic-hearing/
Ethics Time At The Senate Senate Pandemic Hearing
MAY 12, 2020 / JACK MARSHALL
There is no reason why a Democratic Senator couldn’t have distinguished
himself or herself today during the Senate Health, Education, Labor and
Pensions Committee hearing, eschewing politics and partisan talking points
with a statesmanlike and courageous presentation, thus earning Ethics Alarms
accolades.
Instead, we got disinformation from Senator Warren, the party’s prime
demagogue.
Questioning the ubiquitous Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Senator Warren asked for Fauci’s
confirmation of inflated figures.
“As I understand it, we have about 25,000 new infections a day and over 2000
deaths a day … and some are estimating we could be at 200,000 cases a day by
June,” she said.
“Wrong, Fearmonger Breath!” the good doctor essentially said, as he disputed
the 200,000 new cases per day by June figure and said he expected the real
number to be much lower. The other two figures were also false, however.
The 200,000 new cases per day by June estimate was probably from that leaked
draft report that the Times put on its front page this weak, presumably to
scare people. The White House disavowed the report and its prediction , the
CDC disavowed the report and its predictions, and the scientist that created
the model disavowed it too, since there were multiple possibilities
included and he hadn’t completed his calculations. Elizabeth Warren the
half-baked model anyway, because that’s the kind of thing she does. Her
other numbers…well, nobody knows where they came from. According to the NBC
News death tracker, which compiles information from state officials, the
daily Wuhan virus death rate in the U.S. has been under 2,000 since the
beginning of May. NBC News’ new case tracker shows that while the number of
new cases was around 25,000 a day through April, the rate has fallen off
since the beginning of May.
The White House corrected Warren’s misrepresentations later.
From the truth-seeking perspective, rather than the false narrative-building
approach, we had Senator Rand Paul, who is a physician (an ophthalmologist),
challenging the authority of experts from a position of some authority
himself.
After questioning Fauci on data that recovered patients will have some
durable immunity (Fauci agreed), the wisdom of children returning to school
and students returning to college, since the mortality rates for rates for
ages 0-18 are near zero, and the conventional wisdom-shattering example of
Sweden, where children have continued to go to school and almost no
restrictions were placed on businesses or the public. The mortality rate in
Sweden is lower than in many other European countries, and it hasn’t had to
torpedo its own economy.
Paul also correctly criticized the models that the media worships…you know,
like with climate change. (Did you know that this May is on a course to be
the coldest since the 1890s? Just thought I’d mention it. ) Pointing out
that the virus models have been more wrong than right, Dr. Paul said that in
his home state of Kentucky there have been fewer deaths (so far) from the
Wuhan virus than from an average flu season. Outside of New York and
surrounding states, Paul said, the effects of the pandemic have been
relatively mild. Paul opined that the national lockdown was absurd. Then he
told Fauci,
Really the history of this when we look back will be wrong prediction after
wrong prediction after wrong prediction starting with Ferguson in England. I
think we ought to have a little humility in the belief we know what’s best
for the economy. As much as I respect you, Dr. Fauci, I don’t think you are
the end-all. I don’t think you are the one person that gets to make a
decision. We can listen to your advice, but there are people on the other
side saying there is not going to be a surge and we can safely open the
economy. The facts will bear this out. But if we keep kids out of school for
another year, what’s going to happen is that the poor and underprivileged
kids who don’t have a parent that can teach them at home are not going to
learn for a year. I think we ought to look at the Swedish model. It’s a huge
mistake if we don’t open schools in the fall.
I have never been enamored of Senator Paul (or his father), but he has his
moments.
This was one of them.