All Things Wuhan

I.  The Wuhan Flu / Chinese Coronavirus / Kung Flu / Lung Pao Sicken

One would think that after two months of wall to wall Kung Flu, we would know a great deal about it.  But if you’re like me, I still have more questions than answers.  Whatever name one calls it, Wuhan Flu isn’t really a flu, but for most who get it, the symptoms seem to be mild and it might as well be a simple flu.  That said, if you are immunocompromised in any way, whether by age, disease, or both, this is a very nasty disease indeed.  The five minute video below explains the progression of the disease. (H/T PJM)

And you’ll find a good compendium of practical information on the virus and protecting against it at Maggies Farm:

The virus is very fragile;  the only thing that protects it is a thin outer layer of fat.  That is why any soap or detergent is the best remedy, because the foam CUTS the FAT (that is why you have to rub so much: for 20 seconds or more, to make a lot of foam).  By dissolving the fat layer, the protein molecule disperses and breaks down on its own.
HEAT melts fat;  this is why it is so good to use water above 25 degrees Celsius for washing hands, clothes and everything.  In addition, hot water makes more foam and that makes it even more useful.
Alcohol or any mixture with alcohol over 65% DISSOLVES ANY FAT, especially the external lipid layer of the virus. . . .
The fact that it is a new virus in nature with potentially severe complications and moderately high transmissibility person to person is at the heart of the world panic, perhaps more than is justified.  That said, we still do not know just how deadly the Wuhan Flu actually is.  The worst seems to be playing out in Italy, but Neo-Neocon asks whether their numbers can be trusted?  What is the excess death rate there?

II.  Government Action, Treatments & A Possible End To The Great Hunkering

President Trump has been nothing if not proactive in addressing the Wuhan Flu.  The Washington Examiner has a list of 74 actions undertaken to date by the Trump administration. For example:

WHOLE-OF-GOVERNMENT RESPONSE

  • President Trump declared a national emergency, inviting States, territories, and tribes to access over $42 billion in existing funding.
  • Trump signed legislation securing $8.3 billion for coronavirus response.
  • Trump signed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, ensuring that American families and businesses impacted by the virus receive the strong support they need.
  • To leverage the resources of the entire government, the president created a White House Coronavirus Task Force to coordinate response.
  • Vice President Pence named Dr. Deborah Birx to serve as the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator.
  • The president has held multiple teleconferences with our nation’s governors to coordinate response efforts and offer his full support.
  • The president has approved major disaster declarations for impacted states like New York, Washington, and California.

TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS

  • In January, Trump reacted quickly to implement travel restrictions on travel from China, buying us valuable time to respond to the virus. . . .

Do see the entire list.  Like him or hate him, Trump has not been indecisive.

There are apparently numerous drug trials now ongoing to determine the best way to treat the Wuhan Flu — and IBM’s supercomputer at ORNL has identified 77 drugs that are worth further study. One drug that is both being tested and has already shown, in a small study and anecdotally, to successfully treat the Flu is a combination of several anti-viral drugs and a drug used to treat malaria, hydroxychloroquine.  Obviously, if this pans out, it will significantly change our response to the disease and allow for the return to some semblance of normality sooner rather than later.   Trump announced at a Town Hall yesterday that he would like to see the U.S. “opened up” by Easter Sunday, a little over two and a half weeks away.  Fingers crossed on this.

III.  Progressives and the media versus the rest of U.S.

Trump Derangement Syndrome is dialed up to 12 at this point, as progressives in Media and politics are determined to destroy Trump and carry a mumbling, barely sentient Joe Biden across the finish line in November.  There is only one thing in the news now — the Kung Flu — and progressives are trying all they can to make use of it.  They want a simple narrative — whatever Trump says is a lie and whatever he does is wrong at best, immoral and wrong at worst.

The problem is that Trump is leading from the front and quite visibly.  He appears in briefings every day on the virus and then spends an hour or more answering questions from a largely hostile press.  He has been as effective as the mindless progressives have been ineffective.  The net effect of that has been . . . :

The majority of Americans approve of President Trump’s job performance overall, and even more have a positive view of his administration’s response to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic — a phenomenon that appears to be growing day by day — according to a Harris poll released Thursday.

Allowing Trump to appear before the American people unfiltered is decidedly not working, so, as Powerline documents, the alphabet networks, CNN and MSNBC are all now limiting their coverage of Trump’s daily pressers.  That is as stunning as it is unforgivable.  It is just turning the temperature up another degree on what is at the moment a cold civil war.  To listen to these same worthless scum who spent three years peddling the Russia hoax now claim that Trump is lying to America and thus Americans shouldn’t be exposed to that is simply beyond any sense of decency.

The primal screams of the left have been at 12 since the very start of this, when they were calling Trump a racist for shutting down flights from China in January.  I go to Memorandum daily to see the coverage.  It is beyond belief.  The entire MSM is one giant fever swamp of Trump hatred.  PJM has a list of the top ten MSM hit jobs on President Trump as regards coronavirus, all of which were repeated continuously throughout the MSM echo chamber, and all of which turned out to be false or misleading to the point of being false.   The fact that Trump is being seen favorably despite all of this is just amazing.

For example, there is the imbroglio over Trump’s embrace of hydroxychloroquine.  When Trump spoke at a press briefing a week ago about the possibility of using hydroxychloroquine to treat Wuhan Flu, he was obviously confused about what the legal requirements were for doctors to prescribe the drug.  He seemed to imply that the FDA had jumped through hoops to make that happen.  Cue every MSM “fact checker” who got a chance to yell “FALSE.”  Who in the hell cares?  The only things that matter are that doctors can legally prescribe any FDA medicine for off label use and that there is enough of the drug available to try against the disease.

Then some idiots tried to self-medicate by finding a chemical product — a fish tank cleaner — with chloroquine PHOSPHATE in it and consumed it, killing the husband and putting his wife in the ICU.  The MSM amazingly tried to blame Trump for this.  Ace of Spades does the story justice.

IV.  Aftermath

The consequences of this virus will no doubt be several.  One will certainly be a thorough review of our regulations and protocols for responding to a pandemic.  Regulation and bureaucracy proved ludicrous impediments to fast and efficient action, particularly after the CDC failed in its initial attempt to send out a working test for the virus.  It is a systemic issue that will require new protocols during an emergency.

All else involves China.  To begin with, China’s wet markets are a petri-dish for disease that the Chinese government needs to address.

We once might have smugly laughed off China’s wet markets as a Third World aberration, a medieval leftover, somehow still lingering around as a quaint vestigial bit of Chinese culture in a rapidly developing country. What we’ve learned in recent months however is that those wet markets are an even more serious security risk than Osama bin Laden looking for American flying schools from his computer in a secret location somewhere in Afghanistan. The viral threat emanating from China’s sub-Western health practices has at least an outside chance of killing more American civilians than soldiers have died in all of our wars. That’s how serious the threat is.

The fact that a novel virus came out of a Chinese wet market was not unexpected, making the world’s failure to demand China clean up their markets inexplicable.  Clearly, this is something that can no longer be avoided.

What was unexpected was China’s role in covering up the disease until the virus had escaped into the world.  What was also unexpected was that the World Health Organization would prove to be ineffective at best, corrupt and beholden to Communist China at worst.  The Daily Caller has a detailed timeline. None of this bodes well for China.  Let’s give the final words on that issue to Victor Davis Hanson:

. . .  The coronavirus could be the straw that breaks the proverbial back of the Chinese camel, stooped under the recent weight of a trade war with the U.S., the revelation of 1 million Uighurs in reeducation camps, the crackdown on Hong Kong democracy protesters, and news of the sprawling Chinese internal-surveillance apparat. The world is now both terrified and put off by China, and such anathemas will only harm its already suspect and misbegotten Silk Road neocolonial schemes.

Although we cannot see it now, spin-off effects from the panic and frenzy will eventually fuel more economic recovery. Oil prices are nearing record modern lows, ensuring cheap gas for spring and summer American drivers. Cheap mortgages and car loans likewise will spur buying, as will relief once the virus wanes and splurging ensue.

It will be salutary for Americans to once again appreciate the value of muscular labor, as those who grow food, transport it, and provide us energy and sanitation while protecting us from danger, foreign and domestic, have allowed millions of Americans to stay home, sequestered and quarantined but safe with plenty of food, water, and uninterrupted sanitation and public safety. In these days of crisis, we should not forget that millions of often unmentioned Americans have made us the world’s greatest energy and most diverse food producer — a singular position that China, with over four times our population, envies.

Before the outbreak, China was trying to game its trade war in terms of how best to hurt the hated Trump administration. Ironically, its abhorrence only strengthened the U.S. in ways no one in the pre-COVID-19 days could have imagined.

Call it paradox, irony, karma, or even tragedy, but China emerges from its deceit about the coronavirus outbreak in its weakest position since its Westernization began under Deng Xiaoping. And the U.S., after some rocky months ahead, if it stays calm, will likely reemerge in its strongest state in memory vis-à-vis its rivals.

It couldn’t happen to a nicer group of communists.