Trump's secret herd immunity campaign

 We learned during a December 16 House committee hearing that in June and July Trump's political appointee, Dr. Paul Alexander, pushed HHS  Health and Human Services) to adopt herd immunity as a policy. The scientists continued to advocate to wear maks and social distance but the message coming from the President was very different. The scientists' voices were played down or shunted aside or ridiculed.. In August Trump appointed TV herd immunity advocate, Dr. Scott Atlas, as his COVID-19 adviser in the White House (He resigned Nov. 30).

New Trump coronavirus adviser Scott Atlas pushes controversial 'herd immunity' strategy - The Washington Post

 The herd immunity theory is that if enough got the disease, the disease would go away. After all, that was how the medieval bubonic plague (black death) killed 10% to 20% of the population of cities and the Spanish Flu ended with over 675,000 estimated dead by 1919 in the US that was one-third the population size of 2020. Either the population was made immune by surviving the disease or they were dead. Any number of experts believe herd immunity in COVID-19 would result in two million dead plus Americans.  By June, Sweden had tried herd immunity and so many died, they had to abandon their policy.  Their experience was no secret.  I had been following the issue in early summer and the advocates for herd immunity policies ignored the Swedish experience. It was widely reported worldwide. December 17 in his annual address, the King of Sweden said their approach "has failed". Coronavirus: Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf says coronavirus approach 'has failed' - BBC News

Spanish Flu - Symptoms, How It Began & Ended - HISTORY

https://www.history.com/news/pandemics-end-plague-cholera-black-death-smallpox

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/16/trump-appointee-demanded-herd-immunity-strategy-446408

This Trump-backed initiative, in action and mostly in podium and tweet words explains so much why Dr. Anthony Fauci was demonized and sidetracked for advocating mask-wearing and social distancing, that wearing a mask became so politicized, why Trump held super spreader events, and how it happened that the US had the highest death rate in the developed world. President Trump will go down in history for his great lies. It was "just like the flu" and we "are rounding the corner" it will "go away in the spring". This was not due to his ignorance. It was intentional because in February he admitted on tape to journalist Bob Woodward it was air born and more deadly. If the purpose was to keep business open and the economy viable, Trump succeeded with stimulus checks and warm weather until then did not. Now in the fall and early winter, it was not just hot spots that had to close down, but nearly every state is facing a resurgence and shutting down again.    It will be until late June 2021 that herd immunity will be achieved with enough of the population getting the shot. The more who are immunized,  the death rate should slowly decrease.  That is the sad good news.

All of Trump’s Lies About the Coronavirus - The Atlantic

U.S. Has Highest COVID-19 Death Rate in Developed World | EMS World

https://www.history.com/news/pandemics-end-plague-cholera-black-death-smallpox

From my blog posting about Sweden's experience in May 2020 updated :

Sweden has received great praise from the anti-stay at home activists in the US. Let them get herd immunity. No stay at home rules., they demand. Those advocates look to Sweden as a model of no required rules to stay at home, schools are open, and it is open for business,. It is an apple to oranges comparison with the US. Those on the right should consider what makes Sweden different than the US. It is socialized...no one goes without good health care; there are no really poor people living cramped in rooms because they have a tax policy that accomplishes far less income disparity.. If you want to stay at home because you fear you may get the virus, you get 100% of your salary. What part of this would the right-wing in our country like to adopt.if they want that outcome. because they have a tax policy with still accomplishes little income disparity. If you want to stay at home because you fear you may get the virus, you get 100% of your salary. In spite of that, they still have 6 times the deaths as their neighboring Socialist countries who instituted stay at home and other strict.rules and not great economic gain.

Per Business Insider, As of April 28, 2,274 people had died from the coronavirus in Sweden, making its per capita death rate nearly six times that of Norway and Finland who had very stringent stay at home rules and similar socio-economic characteristics. https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-norway-sweden-different-coronavirus-responses-fatality-rates-2020-4

Per Financial Times in early May, Sweden will likely feel little benefit to its economy. Current growth figures are about the same as Norway and 10% better than Finland. https://www.ft.com/content/93105160-dcb4-4721-9e58-a7b262cd4b6e?fbclid=IwAR21e-GeSCoC6Yhiu-EHMKAI6EXTaOs15VrR071QGtprqcKEfmFSyGOZFoA
Per Reuters,“The healthcare system is under great pressure,” said Per Follin, the head of infectious disease control in Stockholm. “We need to keep going with the measures we have so this ends quickly.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-sweden-stockholm/sweden-to-shut-bars-and-restaurants-that-ignore-coronavirus-restrictions-idUSKCN2262AX

Trump's political commissars : How mind control works in his war against science.

Updated: 9/17-21/20 

Our family's experience with dictator mind controllers were those who were at college-age in the early days in Communist Yugoslavia with Josef Tito as the dictator. There always had been a commissar circulating among the students making sure that whatever was said or thought conformed with the ideology and orders of the upline.. Not only did they tell students what the current line was of the day, those students who were cheeky enough to speak or indicate independent thought could have their academic careers curtailed or worse. This is what happens in a dictatorship.

Back in the communist era in the USSR and also in Nazi Germany, there was a political commissar in charge of making sure thoughts, words, and deeds conformed to the political leader or party line, throughout their society. Now, in the Trump administration, it appears there are informal commissars who make scientific reports curtailed, rewritten, or buried, particularly when it comes to mortality figures of COVID regardless of scientific findings or the effectiveness of masks and the timing of the availability of immunizations. We may not yet have a dictatorship, but our wannabe autocrat, Donald Trump, is showing the same tendencies to act as others before him did.  

  What Trump is doing is even more insidious than either Stalin or Tito because both of these mid-20th-century communists appeared to believe in their own ideology, but Trump believed one thing and told his followers to believe something else.

In the last century, political ideology was used to make science conform to the Marxist ideology of dialectic materialism and the belief of their godfather leader, Josef Stalin. The same attack on science also happened in Yugoslavia where my husband to be was a medical student. He had to parrot back in his oral exams the State approved theory of Lysenko that rejected natural selection in biology and instead dwelt on the engineering of grafting and other methods of activist interference that validated dialectic materialism, even though he thought it was hocus pocus. Thirty years before that, Nazis had embraced eugenics and phrenology to rationalize the inferiority of non-Aryans, paving the way for guilt-free extermination of Jews, gypsies, and eventually even Slavs in the future.. Science eventually ruled and both fascism and Marxism died along with those regimes. That is what happens in dictatorships.

It is also happening in the Trump administration. A recent flap concerned "Antifa", which the right-leaning media and the Trump administration has set up as the organization to fear, angry black people violently demonstrating. He appointed two acting heads of the Department of Homeland Security to echo his own personal views making the case that Antifa was an organization that organized the  Portland riots. Only FOX reported that DHS had found evidence that Antifa organized the Portland violence.  The DHS leadership has little credibility, led by political cohorts of the president that were never confirmed by the Senate. https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/21/politics/gao-homeland-security/index.html   The FBI is more trustworthy. and their director  of the FBI testified under oath Sept 17 said that Antifa was an ideology, not an organization. https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-race-and-ethnicity-archive-bdd3b6078e9efadcfcd0be4b65f2362e   Earlier findings were also that no one from Antifa had been charged in those demonstrations, as were also concluded in the George Floyd riots. It is also noted that Joe Biden condemns violence from either the right or the left and considers violent riots not to be protests, but just that: riots.

 Now, in the Trump administration, it appears there are informal commissars who make scientific reports curtailed, rewritten, or buried, particularly when it comes to mortality figures of COVID regardless of scientific findings. Bob Woodward's recently released book RAGE was very disturbing in that Donald Trump was neither ignorant nor unfocused about the deadliness of COVID 19, and he wilfully kept that information from the American public because he didn't want to "panic" them (or Wall Street). I wonder how many believed Trump's line and refused to wear a mask or socially distancing themselves in a sign of loyalty to Trump or blind belief he spoke the truth...and consequently became victims of COVID. They were the suckers of a diabolical con man. A study released in late May traced the spread of most COVID infections to counties in the US which had voted strongly for Trump in 2016 found that counties that voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016 had a higher rate of COVID infections than the national experience. The study did not say why, but from the pages of social media, at that time mask-wearing was the badge of Democrats and Trump loyalists followed their great leader and shunned masks.  I recall an interview of residents of the huge retirement in Florida, The Villages, where you could tell who was a Democrat because Democrats wore masks. Republicans did not. .https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/05/29/mapping-covid-19s-spread-from-blue-to-red-america/

  That commissar control over the CDC is going on until this very day: 9/21. . The commissars won. The person appointed to make sure the CDC and HHS deliver reports that supported..Twice the White House authored guidelines regarding testing for COVID under the name of the CDC but it was never edited or had the approval of its scientists. . In spite of con man Trump, vaccines will not be available until mid-2021 to the general public. What happened to CDC Robert  Redfield? Maybe the political commissar of the CDC had to take leave due to his mental problems...Caputo went bye-bye" Michael R. Caputo told a Facebook audience without evidence that left-wing hit squads were being trained for insurrection and accused C.D.C. scientists of “sedition.” per the NY Times. and Redfield also had the spine to contradict con man Trump and then say contrary to him..masks are even better than vaccines in controlling COVID. My God...the CDC is trying to save its credibility. Wonder how long it will be before Trump fires him. Trump retorted:;"Redfield was confused. He gave wrong information  Maybe he misunderstood the question" In response, Redfield tweeted: wear a mask, social distancing, etc. The war has become Con Man Trump v science. Science won that battle: the guidelines were reversed 9/18/20 https://www.yahoo.com/gma/cdc-releases-clarification-testing-guideline-175200566.html

Another CDC change in their analysis of the spread of COVID happened 9/20/20.  It is born mostly by airborne particles that can stay in the air and can infect people more than 6 ft. away in certain situations. .  This has implications for indoor, large group gatherings unmasked, which Trump relishes.Per the CDC "There is growing evidence that droplets and airborne particles can remain suspended in the air and be breathed in by others and travel distances beyond six feet (for example, during choir practice, in restaurants or in fitness classes)."

Per Yahoo News: "Experts on aerosols and the coronavirus said the change constitutes a profound shift in the understanding of how the virus that has claimed almost 200,000 lives in the United States spreads.  Previously, the federal health agency had said the coronavirus spreads mainly between people within about six feet of one another and through direct propulsion of exhaled droplets that land in the noses and mouths of individuals nearby. The CDC also said — and still says — that people may become infected by touching something that has the virus on it and then touching their mouth, nose or eyes, but that touch is not the main way it spreads."https://news.yahoo.com/cdc-says-coronavirus-spreads-mainly-034950288.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=fb&tsrc=fb

However, this posting from the CDC, released on a Friday, 9/20 was taken down on the next Monday as a "posting made by mistake"  What triggered this embarrassment is thought to be the World Health Organization challenging their data or lack of it.  However, Trump's secretary HHS Alex Azar announced he was taking over the FDA rulemaking 9/21 .This could also be the reason the CDC under HHS and Azar again reversed itself for not being in lockstep with Trump. It could also be an administrative screwup.  We will know when their "revision of the revision" is released.  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/health/azar-hhs-fda.html 

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/coronavirus-update-cdc-changes-then-deletes-new-guidance-on-airborne-transmission-164441858.html

For more: scroll down

''. 

Officials said Wednesday that vaccine distribution will be set in motion "within 24 hours" of FDA approval.

CBSNEWS.COM

CDC director says COVID vaccine won't be widely available until mid-2021

Officials said Wednesday that vaccine distribution will be set in motion "within 24 hours" of FDA approval.

.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattperez/2020/09/17/report-controversial-cdc-guidelines-discouraging-covid-19-testing-were-imposed-on-agency-by-hhs-and-white-house/#7c745c71310

7https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/14/us/politics/caputo-virus.html?smid=fb-share&fbclid=IwAR15UuAolp1hWvJJKtsz6lE8GHnZ3Tfyfw8CeIgHVwl1MMMn3gz0BAZQ2VE

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/11/exclusive-trump-officials-interfered-with-cdc-reports-on-covid-19-412809

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/top-hhs-official-takes-leave-absence-after-facebook-rant-cdc-n1240051

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sturgis-motorcycle-rally-superspreader-johns-hopkins-research-doubt/

Trump loyalists at the Health and Human Services Department have been exerting influence on the Centers for Disease Control’s weekly reports on all disease outbreaks, the coronavirus and beyond.

NYTIMES.COM

Political Appointees Meddled in C.D.C.’s ‘Holiest of the Holy’ Health Reports

Trump loyalists at the Health and Human Services Department have been exerting influence on the Centers for Disease Control’s weekly reports on all disease outbreaks, the coronavirus and beyond.

Why isn't this COVID 19 like HINI Swine flu? or any other flu?

Updated: 5/11/20    
 There is a dangerous pitch by right-wing media and earlier by others on FOX.attempting to play down the impact of COVID.  No big deal " This COVID is just like any other flu pandemic such as HINI and so why the panic. COVID-19 must be being hyped because of liberal politics to make Trump look bad. "  Go ahead and rally protest demonstrations against governor's stay at home orders the President urges on tweets. "Don't be ignorant. It would not be good for your health," is my answer to those who fall for it. Per Jerad Polis, Colorado Governor, on Colorado Public Radio May 11, " of seniors who get the virus, 3 or 4 will end up in the hospital; for non-seniors, the odds are one in ten. This is not like any other flu".
I got a vaccination for swine flu., HINI There is none for coronavirus yet. As a novel virus, no one has immunity. This virus is a different animal. It is more infectious, though it is so new, the estimates vary and they may vary from place to place.  The reproduction number for swine flue, the number one person can infect is 1.75.(The R0 factor; pronounced R naught)  With coronavirus, one carrier can infect more than 3.5, per some estimates. The CDC was on top of the swine flu that emerged in the US in April.2009..had treatment methods identified by May and a vaccine developed by September. All treatment drugs for COVID 19 none, but In clinical trials. Vaccine for COVID 19, a year and a half away.  Swine flu timeline is from the CDC website.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-pandemic-timeline.html
https://labblog.uofmhealth.org/rounds/how-scientists-quantify-intensity-of-an-outbreak-like-covid-19  and the swine flu R0 factor is from Wikipedia with documented references. Any R0 factor under 1 means the virus is dying out.

The BS still being the spiel from Trump media is still COVID was not worse than flu. This from Scientific American: "If we compare, for instance, the number of people who died in the United States from COVID-19 in the second full week of April to the number of people who died from influenza during the worst week of the past seven flu seasons (as reported to the CDC), we find that the novel coronavirus killed between 9.5 and 44 times more people than seasonal flu. In other words, the coronavirus is not anything like the flu: It is much, much worse."
If we compare, for instance, the number of people who died in the United States from COVID-19 in the second full week of April to the number of people who died from influenza during the worst week of the past seven flu seasons (as reported to the CDC), we find that the novel coronavirus killed between 9.5 and 44 times more people than seasonal flu. In other words, the coronavirus is not anything like the flu: It is much, much worse.

My family is a blessing; I have in my own immediate family, a team of experts helpful for writing my blog and columns. One daughter is an MBA in health administration and part of her curriculum was epidemiology. She took the threat of COVID -19 seriously and knew the death rate targeted older people like her mother. A son, Harvard MBA and Stanford economics, keeps me fact-checked and grounded in business and economics. Most of his consulting business clients are small business startups, many abroad. We have first cousins and a grandson in the New York area and he splits his time between Colorado and there. What goes on in New York and Connecticut is personal to us. Fortunately, he arrived in Colorado March 3 after two weeks of travel in Turkey, Spain, Germany, and Manhattan and we both went into quarantine for two weeks in our Winter Park home at daughter's insistence...and we practiced social distancing in the same home. He was exposed many times to COVID -19 in that February trip, but he wiped down everything he could, including airline seats and trays. We consider ourselves lucky. So far so good, and I have still not left the house. Mortality for COVID in my over 80 age group is 14%. 80% of those on ventilators die.

     From my earlier blog posting in March.: We have heard of historical comparisons to COVID-19 to other mega pandemics.  There are certain advantages of my living so long, but still vivid in my memory bank was the polio epidemic of the late 1940s when I was in elementary school and before Salk and his miracle vaccine freed us from fear. Like the 1940's polio, COVID- 19  has no vaccine and no medicines to stop its progression. We can only treat the symptoms and avoid those who are infected.   We did not call it social distancing then, but we did it.  It was not enforced by a government but by my parents. In sweltering summers of eastern Oklahoma, we were not able to go to swimming pools or to cool off in air-cooled movie theaters.  We could only play with our neighborhood gang.    We did not complain.  We did not try to avoid the rules.  One look at the pictures in Life Magazine of children lying in rows of iron lungs was enough to put the fear of God in us. It worked. Our neighborhood gang escaped the disease.  The irony has not escaped me.  As a child, I was the most vulnerable to polio; as a person well over 60, I am once again the most vulnerable to another deadly epidemic and I am socially distancing myself with a vengeance. March 26; https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-team-failed-nsc-pandemic-000023392.html There was a playbook to deal with a pandemic left by the Obama administration in the wake of other pandemics and ignored by Trump's.  One more example of Trump's judgment and priority failures.