Don's Tuesday Column

       THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson   Red Bluff Daily News   3/31/2020

 Facts, data first; then conclusions

Predictions, projections and media-driven propaganda from partisan hacks with phony veneers of impartiality—must yield to righteous judgement. Readers can draw intelligent conclusions about why news media spend little time on the following:

Many polls put public approval of President Trump’s handling of the Coronavirus pandemic (Wuflu for short) in mid-50+ percent; it must be accepted by the anti-Trumpers that his performance and decisions have enhanced, not reduced, his support. It contradicts their steady stream of toxic, Trump-deranged “news” from CNN/MSNBC/CBS/ABC/NBC/NPR/PBS, feeding their hatred and disgust for Trump, screaming “HE LIES.”

A recent ABC poll buried the result that while people gave Trump 49 percent overall approval (highest in their polling history)—and “60 percent for his handling of the pandemic”—“the confidence they have in the federal government’s ability to handle the outbreak is 66 percent.” That number has to be interpreted to mean that without Trump’s name in it, two-thirds of Americans are confident that, with President Trump in the lead, our government will handle the Wuflu.

The near-daily briefings by Trump, V.P. Pence and their team of medical experts have high, “Monday night football” viewership ratings, even as the networks cut away to (on Sunday) infomercials and replayed sports events where the winners are known. So, even the holy grail of broadcast “Ratings” must be ignored to diminish Trump’s version of “fireside chats,” lest the public, confined as they may be at home, have reason to think well of the media-hated Trump. Briefings could be shorter; the media owes it to the public to cover every minute. If Trump’s so “incompetent,” show us, ok?

When an opinion-writer says that Trump is “widely criticized,” it only means that every media and political voice on the left tries to drown out any reports of Trump’s good decisions and accomplishments. Look up “List: 74 actions taken by Trump to fight virus and bolster economy,” by Paul Bedard, March 23 (www.washingtonexaminer.comwashington-secrets).

Trump’s actions—analysis of efficacy can wait until it’s over—must be juxtaposed with other authority figures: Both N.Y. Governor Cuomo and Mayor DeBlasio have disingenuously bashed Trump over equipment shortages while acknowledging the warehousing of things like ventilators and the lack of real-time shortages of other things like N95 masks. DeBlasio kept an infected Brooklyn Technical H.S. open. For all medical facilities, projections of shortages don’t add up to current dire straits; there are only spotty shortages now.

The so-called “worst case” projection of deaths (2+ million?) was effectively deconstructed—and the media’s baited-breath scare-mongering refuted—by Dr. Fauci of Trump’s team. He said that, when factoring in the mitigating “social distancing,” those numbers decline by a factor of perhaps 10 or more. An Oxford college prediction of half-a-million U.K. deaths was lowered to 20,000 or less; for comparison, that would be about 12,000 deaths in California. While numbers are fluid and unknowable going forward, the daily increases of infections and deaths seem to be dropping into single digits. Don’t be surprised if we see the rate “flattening” over the next month.The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation predicts 81,000 deaths, less than the deaths from diabetes each year.

While bashing Trump for supposedly not being alarmed in the early stages (they would have screamed “scare-monger” if Trump had said it was “out of control”), DeBlasio and his top health advisor told people to party and attend Chinese New Years gatherings. The New Orleans’ mayor could have read the infection data and cancelled Mardi Gras, but didn’t; she chose rather to blame Trump afterwards as her town became an infection “hot spot.”

Rising numbers of Wuflu-infected and -dead lead the news in thinly-veiled attempts to besmirch Trump over a pandemic that came here from China, carried by travelers into Washington, New York and California. They’ve created “hot spots” in cities that suggest 1) the ill-advised packing of people into high-rises, mass transit and crowded streets (hence the lower infection rates in Los Angeles); and 2) the “hot spots” don’t overlap Fox News strongholds.

America has nearly the lowest per capita death rates in the world: 6.3 per million vs. 5.2 in Germany; 1.67% of those infected vs. 0.75% in Germany. The “fake news” says America has the most deaths in the world. China, folks, reports no new infections or deaths because they’ve stopped testing and they have lied about everything from the beginning—they want America’s deaths to look highest.

As pro-China as the W.H.O. has been, they pronounced America the most prepared nation to deal with Covid-19; your news sources probably didn’t report that. Partisan hacks, including Joe Biden and the DNC, have peddled the debunked lie that Trump said the “coronavirus was a Democrat hoax”; he clearly explained that the Democrat attempts to make him at fault were a “hoax.”

 Back to supplies: Obama inherited the mandate that N95 PPE respirator masks be restocked after being depleted during flu outbreaks; he failed to do so after the H1N1 “swine flu.” Gov. Cuomo failed to restock his stored ventilators but then falsely asserted it was Trump’s fault. A typical hospital doesn’t keep any more of the $15,000 ventilators than they foresee needing, absent a pandemic—not Trump’s fault.

Proving they ignore science, Nevada and Michigan Democrat governors have refused the now-FDA approved malarial drug combo for their doctors to prescribe. Wake up!

The same ideological people that say it’s racist to call it the “China coronavirus”—China is not a race—support college admissions quotas that disfavor high-scoring Asian applicants for minority racial balancing of freshman classes. That’s real racism.

We’ll see if the inner despots of Cuomo (NY), Newsom (Ca), Garcetti (LA) Brown (OR) and Inslee (WA)—who won’t call it martial law—let citizens resume living free lives when this is over.