Programming note: Today, Tuesday, I'll be back behind the Golden EIB Microphone for another three hours of substitute-host-level Excellence In Broadcasting on America's Number One radio show starting at 12 noon Eastern/9am Pacific. You can dial us up either via the iHeart Radio app or on one of over 600 stations across the fruited plain, such as our old friends at WNTK New Hampshire, where you can listen to the full show from anywhere on the planet right here.
I was also in for Rush yesterday. You can hear a few moments from Monday's broadcast here.
On today's show, we'll attend to all things Covid and Lockdown, but we'll also try to get to some of the other news - Kim Jong-un's dead-parrot routine, the media's protection of Joe Biden, and the disturbing revelations about the dirty stinking rotten corrupt FBI/DoJ's treatment of General Flynn. I played the Kim story mainly for laughs yesterday: He's observing social distancing, but he's doing it vertically so he's six feet under from his cabinet; he's rumored to be in a vegetative state (North Korea); etc. But the remarks by President Trump re Kim at last night's press conference were intriguing, and suggested that he has a heads-up on where this story's going. So it will be interesting to see if anything else emerges on that front today.
Thank you to Mr Snerdley and the team for propping me up these two days. Rush will return tomorrow at 12 noon Eastern. Stay tuned here for this week's edition of Laura's Links shortly after today's Rush, and for a brand new edition of The Mark Steyn Show right here tomorrow morning. Members of The Mark Steyn Club are welcome to weigh in with their comments on any of the above. For more about the Club see here.
See you on the radio at noon Eastern - and do give me a call.
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The saddest part of this is that the unfettered growth of fiat money (some say borrowed) has fertilised the flourishing of the vilest produce, les Fleurs du Mal. Clearing the ground will require more than the Lady in the Van.
This is my final comment, if anyone is interested.
Sayonara.
Sigh-onara, J!
As a famous sailor liked to say, that's all I can stands, I can't stands no more. I'm talking about the "cheap Chinese crap" meme that so many of you like to throw around, with Walmart often thrown in. If you're going to use that, why don't you just go ahead and finish the thought with, "bought by all those deplorables who can't afford better"? Go ahead, say it.
You know, I hate that all of us can't furnish our lives with treasures from Tiffany's and Nieman Marcus, but doggone it, we just can't afford it. Just the other day, I was talking to one of those truly essential workers, one who stocks our grocery shelves. I couldn't help but notice that she wasn't wearing Versace or Prada. I thanked her for working and she laughed and said, "I have to work if I want to eat." I'll bet she shops at Walmart and probably has a lot of cheap, Chinese crap in her home.
So knock off the condescension. I don't think people buy that stuff because it's Chinese made. I think they buy it because it's what they can afford.
Your point is well taken Steven, but for most of my life the products that are now "cheap crap from China" were made in America The quality of those products was better (as I can prove by comparison since I still have garments made over 50 years ago), and we could afford them. The CHANGE that has come about is evil and putrid, whereby we have, in many respects, become a service jobs economy instead of a manufacturing economy, once manufacturing products that workers could take pride in and the quality of which consumers took for granted. The political and economic powers, both Republican and Democrat, that brought this about have much to answer for. That is why I complain bitterly about "cheap crap from China," and the hostile foreign power that holds our welfare in its hands.
I said I still have garments that over 50 years old, but that is also true for everything else, e.g., household goods, tools, etc. In every case the quality of the Chinese made products is utterly inferior.
Really Paul, you wrote that on a 50 year-old, American made computer?
But seriously dude, buy some new clothes.
Is snark your only tool Steven? i have better tools than that and they were made long, long ago--not in China.
Mark, now that Hillary Clinton has endorsed Joltin' Joe, does that put Chelsea at the top of his potential VP candidates?
The one bit of information we are stuck with with COVID-19 is the "curve". It's always been implicit that we must, at some point, let the curve play out. We can flatten the curve, we can make it look like a camel's hump, or it can be V shaped, but the curve remains inescapable. I think the comparison with Neville Chamberlain is a good one. The curve he was facing was an inevitable war with Nazi Germany. He knew Britain wasn't ready for that yet, so he sought to flatten the curve by proclaiming peace in our time so Britain had more time to prepare and possibly have the added benefit of making Hitler think Britain wasn't taking anything seriously and slow down their own mobilization. To me, this is verified by Churchill, the great prophet of the coming conflagration, who never, to my knowledge, ever held Mr. Chamberlain in contempt but regarded him as an entirely honorable man. Yes, a little curve flattening may have been necessary in our situation as well, but sooner or later we will still have to face the curve, and it may not be that bad.
President Trump has a three phase plan for reopening the country. The Left also has a three phase plan. The first phase is what we've already been experiencing in our being forced to getting used to being shut down all over the place. This is Venezuela Phase I. Venezuela Phase II is going to be the relentless invalidating of any and all steps and progress as the months go by. An example of what this might look like might be the development of a vaccine. The vaccine will have to be 100% available immediately, it must be absolutely proven to be 100% effective by the most onerous bureaucratic process, and it must be shown to be 100% free of side effects. But this won't be enough. Even the most trivial fault or lack of verification will engender further invalidation of all efforts and the sustaining of fearfulness. We will all come to believe there is nothing conclusive we can do about anything. Nothing will save us from the relentless narratives of fear and distrust. Our resolve will be broken. Venezuela Phase III will be if all this succeeds in defeating Trump and the Democrats win the White House and retain control of Congress. Then it will be the Abyss.
Another great day. I no longer rejoice in these, knowing the subtext of what the substitute days mean, but they are still important and top notch. Rush gets it, and Mark gets it. 'nuff said.
Mark, has the boy king in Ottawa closed the airwaves to deny your weekly chat with John Oakley? I always enjoy the interviews.
Would have eagerly listened to noon hour of RL yesterday because he is one of the few still fighting to save the nation from self-annihilation...As soon as MS was announced as guest host, the station was changed. It's been a tough period of realization and adjustment after learning MS has feet of clay. Sadly, MS was hosting again today when the let's-try-it notion overtook me in the noon hour -- just in time for a riff by MS about the sad demise (suicide) of an ER MD. To think that he would enjoin the single-data-point extrapolators just compounds the horrors of 2020. (Can this be the same MS who crisscrossed the world and dangerous territories on behalf of human rights and stood up to PC-debaters? And more to the immediate point, what about all the suicides among those who have lost their jobs and businesses due to the ill-conceived notion that we can lock down and stay safe?)
We are staring down tyranny and way too many people are blinking. Sadly, MS, who should be fighting to end shutdowns and lockdowns, is sheltering in place.
For the nth time: Herd immunity will not be built by people avoiding each other, children being kept away from school and large quantities of disinfectant being used on every surface. It will be built by people who still have courage going out and living life and accepting illness and death as part of it. (As for comments about occupied ICU beds -- yes, there's crowding in some hospitals because some governors will not let patients be moved to evenly disperse. And as for embolisms -- sitting around day on end in any sort of structure without getting exercise is a real set up for clots.)
It's truly, truly astonishing -- and oh so disappointing -- that MS of all people (the man who understands the flaws in the climate 'science') is caving to the hysteria/mass psychosis (or more accurately put, the utter manipulation of weak and craven people).
I won't really reply Diane since "MS" can certainly do that for himself. I will say that I haven't got any idea what you're talking about. Is it just a case of "Foreign Guest Host Bad" or something much more sinister?
Diane, I'm sure Mark will speak for himself, but in the meantime I don't know what else you expect him to do. Mark's gifts are his overarching grasp of history, culture, politics, and above all, his ability to articulate the hard truth as no one else can. He can only do this with the media tools at his disposal, and he is doing that very well--his "from my lockdown to yours" is shtick. I can't write more due to a giant bandage on one of my fingers hindering my typing. You will no doubt receive lots of responses to your comment. Be well.
Herd immunity hasn't worked out for the "courageous" meat packers, unfortunately.
Speaking of "weak and craven people", what's the story with the US Armed Forces? All these images of young men in uniform spaced metres apart and wearing masks. A case of "hysteria/mass psychosis", or what?
It's a shame you didn't listen yesterday, Diane. Mark was pretty steamed about the lack of a Plan B (to say nothing of Plans C, D, and E) to lockdown and quarantine. Weeks have become months, and months look like a godsend compared to the possible years added to our home confinement. Today, he expanded the argument to the State's suspension of the First Amendment. Certainly the freedoms of religion and assembly are under direct fire, but aim is being taken at the freedom to speak and to petition the government for redress of grievances. If those lamentations betray feet of clay, size me up for cement overshoes. If you've drifted away from Mark's orbit, you may have missed his reading of Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year. Plagues have a way of visiting hysteria and mass psychosis on a weak and craven people. They are more to be pitied than censured.
MS RL ER MD ICU. Initially I did not understand this.
Dead on as usual Diane - He has much in common with Fox News hosts who also caved immediately to this national hysteria. Only in the last two weeks has Tucker Carlson whom I greatly respect come to his senses finally and has dared question Dr. Fauci - the point man from day one in this national nightmare. Laura Ingraham has been doing excellent works recently with Dr. Smith - a man Trump should be listening to. Now we're beginning phase two of this collective insanity with this preposterous idea of testing millions of Americans so we can somehow ensure the 'safety' of our people before they can be allowed to return to work. This will further delay re-opening of businesses. When Larry Kudlow criticized the state of Georgia for opening up too early it left me slack jawed as I've always admired the man. Our apathetic and ill-informed populace bears much responsibility for this national catastrophe. That our people cravenly complied when effectively placed under house arrest by governors and mayors still stuns me. This precedent that "it's for your own good'
will become very familiar when the left regains power. I had thought that the upcoming election was for all the marbles and still admire Donald Trump but I doubt that it matters all that much now.
It's not binary, RAC. People can say that Covid deaths are real and that lockdowns of entire nations are absurd and tyrannical, as Mark and Tucker have done. Both have called out Fauci/ the CDC for going from "minuscule" to "millions" to "modest".
Even China had the sense to do a localised lockdown to get doubling times under control (even though the disease must've spread to elsewhere in the PRC).
I can't recall the whole comment, but you and Steven had a disagreement many weeks ago where you mentioned the R0 for Covid - and that "panic was justified".
Mark's audio intro "From my house arrest... to yours" is supposed to be humorous.
PS. More interesting than conservatives who claim Wuhan was a cast under-count while NYC a massive over-count are those who basically say nothing about China (or any deaths): they are desperate to continue the current economic arrangement relationship at all costs (set in motion by those like McKinsey's Peter Walker - per Tucker's interview).
Just don't put all those initials / acronyms together in one string like that. I think we've all had enough morbid news lately...
If this is house arrest, why has the traffic on my little rural two-lane highway been busier than I ever remember the past two days? At least for now, we're disrupted but not shut down.
Voice of reason. Thanks.
What a weird comment, Diane.
"To think that he would enjoin the single-data-point extrapolators just compounds the horrors of 2020." What does that even mean?
"Enjoin"??????? As the great theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli was wont to say when he encountered a really lame idea, "It's **not even** wrong."
Also, "Sadly, MS, who should be fighting to end shutdowns and lockdowns, is sheltering in place." Again: ???He does the Limbaugh show from his own studio ("Ice Station EIB"). Are you expecting him to travel to New York City to use a studio there? If so, why?
Wow Diane, can you do this? Seems that every time I criticize Mark, that comment doesn't see the light of day. Well, if we can do it now, I mostly agree with you. Mark has been weak on this. He's getting better, but still a bit weak. Remember when he was focused solely on the death toll from Italy, literally the worst case scenario? And all his touching obituaries for show biz people who have been taken from us too soon, usually when they're in their 90s.
Mark and Tuckers started out being alarmists and are now moderating that. But they were sure piling wood on the "shut it all down and panic" fire for awhile there.
You know Kate, I do recall that argument. At the time, RAC was all panic all the time with his R naught mantra. Now I have nothing against people changing their minds due to new information, but I started by saying that the economic carnage could be worse than the disease and haven't changed my tune.
Now Mark says today that China must be punished and I'm sure you agree. Yet again, I challenge you and Mark to say just how you plan to punish them.
Personally, I think the whole China thing is like a magician's diversion. Look over here at this evil nation this hand (while I make your constitutional rights vanish in my other hand).
Hey Diane, first of all, the Rush Limbaugh show is carried on hundreds of stations throughout America and you can listen on line for free on most of the affiliates so it's not clear what you are talking about when you refer to "the station was changed". If you had listened, you would have heard Mark thoroughly denounce the totalitarian shut downs. Your accusation that Mark Steyn has "feet of clay" is actually disgusting. One can sympathize with the suicide of an ER doctor and be against the tyrannical actions of government at the same time. Do you understand that many things can be true at the same time?
As for economic tragedies, Mark has made specific mention of the fact that the economy is the lifeline of free countries and that it cannot be shut on and off at whim. He denounced the entire concept that some business and workers are "essential" and some non-essential.
You talk a very big talk, but what have you actually done to protect freedom? What are you doing "fighting to the end"? What exactly do you expect Mark Steyn to do?
There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Mark Steyn is "caving" to anything. Your comments are rude, belligerent and just wrong and you clearly are unable to comprehend that one can be concerned about the tragic deaths (murders actually) of innocent individuals due to this deadly, disgusting China virus, government incompetence, the overreach of government and one's personal health and safety at the same time.
Are you able to walk and chew gum at the same time?
Diane is using the "social distancing" passive, Laura. She just means that she changed the station.
The panic I was referring to was in attempting to stop the spread of a 2.2 virus which was impossible as events have proven. That it would spread no matter what we do should have been obvious from day one. I recall that you were one of the first to lay into Diane for daring to suggest a much saner response. The lack of herd immunity is a very real concern now despite your snarky comment recently about the meat processing plants. Now we have the worst of both worlds with the virus now widespread in American but without herd immunity given the slowing down of the spread due to social distancing. This increases the possibility of encountering round two in the fall. Wake up Kate!
My panic as you called it was that a virus with a R0 of 2.2 would spread like wildfire and it did despite the lockdown as recent events have shown. I stand by every word in that entry and have not changed my mind one bit. My R naught mantra??? Are you implying I was wrong Steven? What the hell is wrong with you?! By the way beyond your snarky comment about me I happen to agree with everything you have stated here. America is indeed corrupt to it's core and will emerge from this insanity so weakened it will have no possible recourse against the Chinese. Do a little research on world trade and you'll discover that China is to world commerce what Amazon is to U.S. commerce - totally dominant. There is virtually no product we can make that China can't manufacture for half the cost and with equal or better quality. How can we expect to compete with this mega-giant on the world stage? We can't and you're correct that Mark and Tucker are delusional on this issue. As the events of the last 4 years have made clear there are few Gov't agencies that haven't been infiltrated by the far left. The dept of the treasury is the only agency I fully trust now. We agree on so much I truly do not understand your animus toward me. I won't deny that it pisses me off Steven.
Hey RAC, I have no animus towards you. In fact, I may have misinterpreted what you were saying. That's partly on me, but somewhat on you for being vague. In what I could find, you did seem to want to close grocery stores and you did say that printing trillions of dollars was bad, but that we had to do it and you took no issue with it.
However, and here's the biggie, it seems that some of the archives are missing. When I look under "Columns & Essays" "Politics & Current Affairs", There is a gap from 3/11 to 3/18. No columns for that week. That seems to be the week when were discussing this and Kate even quoted me from 3/14. Can any of you find columns from those missing dates?
Before I remark further, I'd sure like to read what we were saying to each other and I can't if I can find the comments in question. I recall discussions that seem to have gone missing. I need to reread those.
Wide awake, RAC - but your comment contains huge internal contradictions, such as "it would spread no matter what we do" "the slowing down of the spread due to social distancing." Which is it?
And what was the "much saner response" that either you or Diane suggested? The only suggestion, as I recall, was to let it "play out", which is basically what's occurred at meat plants which shut down because of widespread employee absence as disease ripped through them.
The snark was because "courage" (Diane's term) doesn't come into any of this: it's about the rate of disease transmission. If a third of the army is out of action, it's a big problem. So too with food industry workers. Herd immunity can't develop if disease spreads exponentially, and assuming it's relevant (in terms of mutations) the process has a long way to go based on the presence of antibodies in only 15% of the NYC population.
I stick by previous comments on the topic, including quarantine of the infected (confirmed or suspected) as opposed to the at-risk for indefinite periods; and the need for localised, short-term shutdowns for NYC type situations which are likely to occur as the disease waxes and wanes in the US.
I think you're right, Laura, you can say something critical in a constructive way if you want and you can say something in a destructive way if also you want. What is the end goal of one vs. the other? Not much to guess about there.
"You can't have the state taking war powers and using those war powers on their own citizens." M. Steyn
"Hold my beer." Maui Liquor Commission
BTW, you wondered why there was both a Maui Liquor Commission and a Maui Commission on Liquor (or suchlike). Ever heard of the People's Front of Judea? ("Splitters!")
Great show yesterday - on both Covid and non-Covid, and things big and small (including the article on superspreaders).
With the economy now getting CPR, the virus looks as though it has quite a way to go to reach herd immunity in most places. (With or without mutations.) In the US, the 15,000 people in ICU - with a disease that didn't exist a few months ago - are facing shortages of dialysis machines rather than ventilators. And healthy middle-aged people are having "silent hypoxia" and strokes and cardiac arrests - from Covid. (And bad multi-organ failure - eg. Nick Cordero.) Which isn't to be alarmist, but to note that it is very definitely not "just the flu". And yes, "nobody knows nothing".
The "all cause mortality" graphs (compared with historical averages) by John Burn-Murdoch help to resolve the deaths issue for major outbreaks - eg. Bergamo 463%, NYC 299% - with no similar (other cause) mortality spikes in "uninfected" areas in lockdown.
Perhaps it's time to start thinking about next time, and how we'll prepare for and respond to a pandemic. Or bioweapon attack.
We started thinking about what to do after the SARS epidemic in 2003 and this is what we came up with.
BTW, hospitals get paid more for a COVID-19 diagnosis so you really can't believe U.S. statistics either.
It would be disappointing if the US Covid stats are as much as a lie as China's - but in the opposite direction.
For diagnoses and deaths, there are no doubt errors (deliberate or otherwise) in both directions at the periphery. But it's *really* difficult to get admitted to an ICU for organ failure - and to go onto a ventilator, dialysis machine, ECMO etc - without a basis for it. And the 30 per cent false negative result for Covid tests continues.... 30%! The aforementioned 41-year-old had severe respiratory failure of unknown cause weeks ago - and tested negative twice before a third test showed Covid, which is a very common scenario and explains a lot of the "suspected" Covid deaths in major outbreak areas.
PS. If you're not convinced about the prevalence of Covid, see the John B-M graphs (on Twitter, with links) mentioned above: huge "all cause" mortality spikes in Lombardy, Madrid, Guayaquil, NYC etc above baseline ... with no corresponding excess deaths in "non-epicentre" regions that have locked down. The 20,000-plus additional deaths above baseline in NYC are due to something other than extra "regular" deaths.
PS. I completely agree with you (re previous thread) and non-Covid excess deaths - transplant, cancer, cardiac etc - that will follow in the coming weeks and months.
Any test with a 30% error rate is not just worthless, it is an active hazard. When I hear all the emphasis on testing and ventilators with an 80% death rate,I cringe. These two things have become superstitious talismen..
I know that there are viruses that are killing people, but I have heard that some patients have gastric issues. From my layman's view, at least some of those cases are probably another flu virus. Seasonal flu still exists and in the U.S. likely kills at least 20,000 a year, sometimes as high as 60,000, so you have to separate those deaths from those of ChiCom-19. There must be a viral competition for victims going on.
The misdiagnoses will not be sorted for a long time, Kate, particularly because there is political (and perhaps financial) advantage to the left in keeping the Covid-19 numbers high. I have no doubt that the cause of death distribution numbers will remain uncorrected wherever possible. Such is the corruption that surrounds us.
"Seasonal flu still exists and in the U.S. likely kills at least 20,000 a year, sometimes as high as 60,000, so you have to separate those deaths from those of ChiCom-19."
So seasonal flu diagnoses (often not even tested) are always reliable - but not Covid?
How many of those annual, nationwide seasonal flu deaths occur in just one area of NY in March-April each year?
The more sensitive test for Covid is actually a chest CT scan, with changes that are - unusually - present when pre-symptomatic. Many of the bizarre clinical syndromes and "sequential organ failure" patterns being described are not at all consistent with seasonal flu (pneumonia etc).
Specific causes of death aside, if you look at the "all cause mortality" spikes where major outbreaks have occurred, what happened in NYC in March-April is the same exponential phenomenon that occurred in Wuhan in January. Same thing in Ecuador, too.
What's odd is people criticising China's role in dealing with a viral epidemic that's suddenly "not Covid" as it spreads to other countries. This is why the West - basically thanks to conservatives - will continue to do business with "our friends": We can hardly accuse the CCP of causing 95 percent of coronavirus deaths - and then say that the diagnoses outside Wuhan are wrong.
Unfortunately, Paul, there appears to be as much political advantage on the right in keeping the numbers low.
There wasn't even the capacity to perform post-mortem tests on out-of-hospital deaths during the NYC surge, and bodies won't be exhumed for that purpose (although a few have been in some states to confirm "unexplained" deaths in February).
All the Covid stats are inflated according to conservatives - except for China's, apparently. There's an abundance of clinical expertise on social media!
That's despite the exponential ICU admissions and deaths *above baseline* in NY replicating what happened in Wuhan (but not found in other regions of the US under arbitrary lockdown).
The overall mortality will be under 1 percent even without mitigation - as widely predicted back in January - which is not inconsistent with much higher CFRs where major uncontrolled outbreaks occur.
But the politicisation of the virus - by both sides of US politics - is very bizarre to watch.
Earlier today, I read (Daily Wire, methinks) of two cases attributed to COVID-19: one, in California, a young man that died of an overdose while testing positive for the virus; the other, a 61-yo man that died of a head injury sustained in a fall that died while CoV positive.
I can certainly understand tallying the test results (provided they test everyone coming through these hospitals so that the counts have some significance) but to add these two people to the death toll from the virus assures us that there will not be any usable data when it comes to making policy that makes sense.
Has the individual doctor who recorded a suicide as Covid been identified, named and referred to the relevant licensing board? Because that would be very easy to ascertain, and the first piece of information to confirm.
As for falls, many Covid cases have presented with syncope/ collapse/ fall injuries due to cerebral hypoxia and emboli, and cardiac arrhythmias. (The 41yr old mentioned in an earlier comment has had a pacemaker inserted in ICU.) Many of the waves of nursing home deaths have occurred in the context of falls. The ICU Covid admissions have high rates of multi-organ failure, with respiratory issues sometimes the least-worst aspect (and not necessarily typical of ARDS).
Rather than relying on the anecdotal Daily Wire report x2, it's worth looking at the UK ICNARC weekly data showing critical care admission data for 6720 Covid patients to ICUs since mid-March.
And let me know what you make of *all cause* mortality spikes in Bergamo, NYC, Madrid etc. Are we assured that stats for >20,000 excess deaths in NY in a 4-5 week period are "unusable"?
There's a Minnesota doctor, Scott Jensen, who's also a state senator. On April 8 at the PowerLine blog, John Hinderaker did a brief piece about Jensen revealing a startling message about death certificates from the state's health department to all physicians. The same blog entry has an embedded video of the TV interview of Jensen that first attracted attention to the point.
Here's the text from that PowerLine entry:
"Dr. Scott Jensen is both a physician and a Minnesota state senator. Yesterday he was interviewed by a local television station and dropped a bombshell: he, and presumably all other Minnesota doctors, got a seven-page letter from the Minnesota Department of Health that gave guidance on how to classify COVID-19 deaths. The letter said that if a patient died of, e.g., pneumonia, and was believed to have been exposed to COVID-19, the death certificate should say that COVID-19 was the cause of death even though the patient was never tested, or never tested positive, for that disease.
"Dr. Jensen found this to be irregular and contrary to the usual practice for filling out death certificates. It seems intended to inflate the number of Wuhan flu deaths; it is hard to see any other potential purpose. The most entertaining thing about the exchange is the shock expressed by the interviewer.
"Can we trust the COVID fatality counts that we are being given daily? I think it is fair to say that powerful forces would like to maximize the apparent impact of the disease."
I was going to rely on my extensive OJT but instead cite Lancet, a medical journal from a small island chain off the coast of Europe somewhere. CT scans of COVID-19 patients only had 61% opacity while 20% showed no sign at all. The opacity would also show up for flu and pneumonia patients so a CT is not a definitive test. CT's are not widely available and tests are expensive so they are not a practical tool for the pandemic. We should be concentrating on developing a Star Trek Medical Tricorder, this would solve a lot of diagnostic problems.
The follow-up to the story was that
1. There has been limited availability of testing in Minnesota, which Jensen acknowledged.
2. Suspected deaths are not included in the Covid mortality stats in that state unless subsequently confirmed by a test result (and added in retrospect).
There are now loads of case series on imaging as a complementary part of the diagnosis.
Chest CT is highly sensitive (>97% - in contrast to 70% true positives for RT-PCR Covid swabs) - but not specific - although some patterns are very typical, such as "GGO" in presymptomatic cases. It's been widely used in hospitals in China and Europe, with "contaminated" CT rooms assigned for that purpose.
I always liked that song, "Abraham, Martin, and Jong".
The anthem of the upcoming Greater Depression will be "Brother Can You Spare A Yuan."