Resign Director Redfield! Now!

 

Director Robert R. Redfield of the US Center for Disease Control has presided over the most scandalous incompetence in a plague season rife with scandalous incompetence.

From The Atlantic, Alexis C. Madrigal and Robinson Meyer report:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is conflating the results of two different types of coronavirus tests, distorting several important metrics and providing the country with an inaccurate picture of the state of the pandemic. We’ve learned that the CDC is making, at best, a debilitating mistake: combining test results that diagnose current coronavirus infections with test results that measure whether someone has ever had the virus. The upshot is that the government’s disease-fighting agency is overstating the country’s ability to test people who are sick with COVID-19. The agency confirmed to The Atlantic on Wednesday that it is mixing the results of viral and antibody tests, even though the two tests reveal different information and are used for different reasons.

This is not merely a technical error. States have set quantitative guidelines for reopening their economies based on these flawed data points.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ashish Jha, the K. T. Li Professor of Global Health at Harvard and the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, told us when we described what the CDC was doing. “How could the CDC make that mistake? This is a mess.”

A negative test result means something different for each test. If somebody tests negative on a viral test, a doctor can be relatively confident that they are not sick right now; if somebody tests negative on an antibody test, they have probably never been infected with or exposed to the coronavirus. (Or they may have been given a false result—antibody tests are notoriously less accurate on an individual level than viral tests.) The problem is that the CDC is clumping negative results from both tests together in its public reporting.

Yes, I know this story broke over a month ago, but I was distracted then trying to rescue my business and my home, so if I did notice it in passing, I was too preoccupied to focus.  I have earned myself a little breathing room now, and looking around I am none too happy with any of it. Unfair? I haven’t seen much fair lately. I have seen people struggling to find work and keep businesses open. I’ve packed groceries for the Salvation Army to hand out to an endless line of families that can’t pay for groceries. Children. Seniors. All ethnicities. I am not seeing much fairness at all.

These amateurs murdering cops and torching businesses and homes think they are scary. Welcome to America, we invented scary. You will beg for fully-funded police before this is over. Those of you not already in jail or otherwise removed from the board. You will beg the police to arrest you and protect you from the Americans whose lives you have ravaged, and their very angry neighbors.

Redfield is an embarrassment to his president and his nation, serving as the face of the agency that couldn’t shoot straight when it mattered most. He has done more damage than any one man should ever be allowed to do. More than Antifa and BLM combined. The fundamental incompetence in misreporting these numbers is so obvious that only the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the View could miss the significance. He hasn’t gotten the job done and he isn’t getting the job done. The CDC needs leadership, not a chair warmer.

I also note in passing that the general gist of the coverage at the time was that the confusion was likely intentional to inflate the apparent count COVID tests being done, which would then be an orange man bad angle. The numbers were coming bad from several states that should have known better, including my own Virginia with their new Democratic regime voted in last Fall. Looks like bipartisan quackery from here.

I look forward to when the press is concerned about main street and Joe lunch pail rather than just taking endless swipes at the man they carried into office on their shoulders with the biggest gift of unearned media ever bestowed on a candidate, over $5 billion worth during the 2016 election campaign. They built him up before trying to tear him down. All for the ratings in both cases.

During the Civil War Lincoln went through a lot of generals until he got to Grant. If we are going to get to the right CDC Director, the president needs to start with firing this one, now, if Redfield won’t step down before Trump comes for him.

Hat tip to Dinesh D’Souza.

Published in Healthcare
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  1. Fake John/Jane Galt Coolidge
    Fake John/Jane Galt
    @FakeJohnJaneGalt

    Replace the President until we get the right one

    • #1
  2. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    I heard about it when it came out. I expected followup reports on the extent of the misreporting and the steps being taken to rectify it. I am still waiting. (I am so naive.)

    This isn’t rocket science. It is counting. 

    • #2
  3. cdor Member
    cdor
    @cdor

    First of all, please accept my best wishes in your efforts to save your business and your home, and, all the while, still finding time to help your fellow man. That is the epitome of tough and selfless @sisyphus.

    In response to the CDC conflating data, nothing about inaccurate facts being thrown about concerning this pandemic surprises me anymore. What I am not understanding immediately is the significance of this error. The number of tests, whether they be one type or another, doesn’t prove a whole lot to me. Some people have been tested numerous times. Others have never been tested. So what conclusion might I draw from counting tests? I don’t even think it gives an accurate picture of the percentage of population contracting the disease. Testing just isn’t random enough. I’m watching PGA this weekend. These guys and their families are constantly tested over and over again. I have never been tested. I even play golf two or three times a week. What the heck! I care about the death rate. When people who are dying with the Chinese Virus, rather than from it, are mixed together with inaccurate, if not dishonest, methodology, that is significant. What am I missing?

    • #3
  4. Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing) Member
    Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing)
    @Sisyphus

    cdor (View Comment):
    In response to the CDC conflating data, nothing about inaccurate facts being thrown about concerning this pandemic surprises me anymore. What I am not understanding immediately is the significance of this error. The number of tests, whether they be one type or another, doesn’t prove a whole lot to me. Some people have been tested numerous times. Others have never been tested. So what conclusion might I draw from counting tests? I don’t even think it gives an accurate picture of the percentage of population contracting the disease. Testing just isn’t random enough. I’m watching PGA this weekend. These guys and their families are constantly tested over and over again. I have never been tested. I even play golf two or three times a week. What the heck! I care about the death rate. When people who are dying with the Chinese Virus, rather than from it, are mixed together with inaccurate, if not dishonest, methodology, that is significant. What am I missing?

    So the CDC not only is blowing the fundamentals, but they haven’t even shown a scintilla of a clue as to the job that actually needs doing. I would respectfully suggest that my point stands, maybe with just a few exclamation points and blinky red letters. 

    Mr. President! I have found you a replacement for Redfield! You might have to reinstate the draft to make it happen, but @cdor is your man!

    • #4
  5. DonG (skeptic) Coolidge
    DonG (skeptic)
    @DonG

    The CDC and NIH are criminals.  The Medicare/Medicaid money used to put people on ventilators for profit is criminal.  Big Pharma and Big Media that have prevent the use of treatments like HCQ are criminals.  We could make some new layers of hell for each of them.

    • #5
  6. cdor Member
    cdor
    @cdor

    …and I forgot to mention Hydroxychloroquine. This pisses me off! Politicizing a drug because President Trump mentions it? How about refusing to do real testing even after thousands of anecdotal cases of success? Now, after months and months, with thousands dying who possibly didn’t have to die, and after tens of millions of people losing their jobs and businesses, an independent test is finally announced that shows significant positive results from using the drug. I should mention, the very cheap drug which is massively available. Even this test didn’t include the use of Zinc as part of a drug cocktail. We have crazy stuff going on and it ain’t gonna be good. 

    • #6
  7. cdor Member
    cdor
    @cdor

    Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing) (View Comment):
    Mr. President! I have found you a replacement for Redfield! You might have to reinstate the draft to make it happen, but @cdor is your man!

    Yea, now that’s funny.

    • #7
  8. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio…
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Good post.  I’m in almost complete agreement.  I’m not sure about this:

    Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing): Redfield is an embarrassment to his president and his nation, serving as the face of the agency that couldn’t shoot straight when it mattered most. He has done more damage than any one man should ever be allowed to do. More than Antifa and BLM combined.

    The jury is still out on how much damage Antifa and BLM will do.  I think that you’re right that Redfield has done more damage thus far, and should resign or be fired.

    • #8
  9. OldPhil Coolidge
    OldPhil
    @OldPhil

    I was watching the PGA tournament from Detroit today, where they highlighted golfer Cameron Champ, who had a good week after having to sit out last week’s event in Connecticut because he tested positive before the start of that one last Thursday. He went home, took three more tests, all of which were negative, and then came to Detroit this week and again tested negative. How much of this onslaught of positive tests in Florida, Texas, Arizona, etc., are really going to be false positives?

    I really have no confidence in any of the numbers. In Virginia today, the Department of Health website (actually a pretty comprehensive site) reported 4 new total deaths in the state, but on a separate page showing “outbreaks”, it reported 5 new deaths in long-term care facilities.

    • #9
  10. Taras Coolidge
    Taras
    @Taras

    “They [the media] built him [Trump] up before trying to tear him down. All for the ratings in both cases.”

    They promoted Trump in the Republican primaries because they thought he was the only potential nominee Hillary was sure to beat.

    • #10
  11. Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing) Member
    Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing)
    @Sisyphus

    Taras (View Comment):

    “They [the media] built him [Trump] up before trying to tear him down. All for the ratings in both cases.”

    They promoted Trump in the Republican primaries because they thought he was the only potential nominee Hillary was sure to beat.

    Yes, and like Dr. Frankenstein they spend the rest of the book trying to kill or escape the consequences of their actions. And while it is true that they considered him the weakest candidate, he also drew by far the highest ratings of any candidate and a lot of whatever else they showed. And their wailing and the gnashing of their teeth as they milk more and more ratings from the man in their own demented way is pleasing to me. 

    And hearing them extol the virtues of the Zombiden as they sell their souls one more time for the cause. As if they still had souls in salable condition. 

    Lord have mercy.

    • #11
  12. OldPhil Coolidge
    OldPhil
    @OldPhil

    OldPhil (View Comment):

    I was watching the PGA tournament from Detroit today, where they highlighted golfer Cameron Champ, who had a good week after having to sit out last week’s event in Connecticut because he tested positive before the start of that one last Thursday. He went home, took three more tests, all of which were negative, and then came to Detroit this week and again tested negative. How much of this onslaught of positive tests in Florida, Texas, Arizona, etc., are really going to be false positives?

    I really have no confidence in any of the numbers. In Virginia today, the Department of Health website (actually a pretty comprehensive site) reported 4 new total deaths in the state, but on a separate page showing “outbreaks”, it reported 5 new deaths in long-term care facilities.

    Virginia today reported NO new deaths (as of yesterday) on its Department of Health website. First time that’s happened since March 26, when I started keeping track of the data. Also, only 354 new positive cases, the lowest number since April 15. According to the Virginia Hospital and Health Association, current hospitalizations due to Covid-19 have declined from 888 on July 1 to 783 yesterday. Of Virginia’s total 1,853 deaths, 1,135 (61%) have come in long-term care facilities.

    • #12
  13. MichaelKennedy Inactive
    MichaelKennedy
    @MichaelKennedy

    cdor (View Comment):

    …and I forgot to mention Hydroxychloroquine. This pisses me off! Politicizing a drug because President Trump mentions it? How about refusing to do real testing even after thousands of anecdotal cases of success? Now, after months and months, with thousands dying who possibly didn’t have to die, and after tens of millions of people losing their jobs and businesses, an independent test is finally announced that shows significant positive results from using the drug. I should mention, the very cheap drug which is massively available. Even this test didn’t include the use of Zinc as part of a drug cocktail. We have crazy stuff going on and it ain’t gonna be good.

    My wife’s internist and her hospitalist are convinced that HCQ caused her to have an aborted case of SARS 2.  Without the HCQ she would most likely have died a  month ago.  She has taken it for years for rheumatoid arthritis.

    • #13
  14. MichaelKennedy Inactive
    MichaelKennedy
    @MichaelKennedy

    OldPhil (View Comment):

    I was watching the PGA tournament from Detroit today, where they highlighted golfer Cameron Champ, who had a good week after having to sit out last week’s event in Connecticut because he tested positive before the start of that one last Thursday. He went home, took three more tests, all of which were negative, and then came to Detroit this week and again tested negative. How much of this onslaught of positive tests in Florida, Texas, Arizona, etc., are really going to be false positives?

    I really have no confidence in any of the numbers. In Virginia today, the Department of Health website (actually a pretty comprehensive site) reported 4 new total deaths in the state, but on a separate page showing “outbreaks”, it reported 5 new deaths in long-term care facilities.

    The case numbers are clearly being manipulated as well as the deaths, of which about 25% were not due to the virus

    • #14
  15. OldPhil Coolidge
    OldPhil
    @OldPhil

    MichaelKennedy (View Comment):

    OldPhil (View Comment):

    I was watching the PGA tournament from Detroit today, where they highlighted golfer Cameron Champ, who had a good week after having to sit out last week’s event in Connecticut because he tested positive before the start of that one last Thursday. He went home, took three more tests, all of which were negative, and then came to Detroit this week and again tested negative. How much of this onslaught of positive tests in Florida, Texas, Arizona, etc., are really going to be false positives?

    I really have no confidence in any of the numbers. In Virginia today, the Department of Health website (actually a pretty comprehensive site) reported 4 new total deaths in the state, but on a separate page showing “outbreaks”, it reported 5 new deaths in long-term care facilities.

    The case numbers are clearly being manipulated as well as the deaths, of which about 25% were not due to the virus

    A woman in our community announced on the local FB page today that she has the virus. She said she was in the emergency room with a 104 temperature and tested negative, but the doctor told her she had it because “there are lots of false negatives.” But no false positives, right, Doc?

    Then she went on to say she’s not sure how she got the virus that she hasn’t tested positive for, but she was on a trip to the Midwest and even though she didn’t spend any time with anyone indoors, “there were a lot of other people we saw on our trip who were not wearing masks and helping to protect me.” Unbelievable.

    • #15
  16. Roderic Coolidge
    Roderic
    @rhfabian

    Sorry, but this sudden respect for and trust of news media reporting leaves me cold.

    I’m not able to find any credible confirmation of any of this stuff about the CDC botching the numbers.

    For some purposes lumping antibody and PCR tests results is legitimate.  For example, in estimating the total number of people, or the proportion of people in the population, who have some degree of immunity to COVID-19.  Many people don’t realize that the antibody tests were developed from tests made for other coronaviruses.  So they naturally cross react with them.  About one third of all colds are due to coronaviruses, and people who have had such a cold will most likely come up positive on these tests. (Although the testing to show this hasn’t been done yet!)  Such people probably do have some immunity to COVID-19.  

    Part of the trouble is that states have been taking CDC results and spinning them their own way.  Different states are using them in different ways to make policy.  As you can guess, for blue states the numbers justify policies that keep things shut down, and the converse for red states.

    In any case, these tests, whether PCR or antibody, should not be considered the gold standard of diagnosis.  They are not accurate enough for that.  If PCR is used as the standard then COVID-19 is underdiagnosed.  If the antibody test is used then some people who come up positive most likely never had the virus, and we further the fiction of the “asymptomatic case”, which probably doesn’t exist.  

    As Beda Stadler, a Swiss professor of immunology (cited above), writes, the most destructive memes about this disease are 1) that it is “novel” and nobody is immune, 2) that people could remain asymptomatic even while spreading the disease.  To those I’d add the false reports of very high death rates.  All of these came to us from China.  It has taken time to dispel these myths.

     

     

    • #16
  17. TeamAmerica Member
    TeamAmerica
    @TeamAmerica

    In NJ, Pennsylvania and NY, the Dem. governors ordered nursing homes to accept covid19 patients. As a result, afaik roughly half of the deaths from covid19 have been in nursing homes.

    Did Dem. governors in many other states have the same policies with similar results?

    • #17
  18. ToryWarWriter Coolidge
    ToryWarWriter
    @ToryWarWriter

    TeamAmerica (View Comment):

    In NJ, Pennsylvania and NY, the Dem. governors ordered nursing homes to accept covid19 patients. As a result, afaik roughly half of the deaths from covid19 have been in nursing homes.

    Did Dem. governors in many other states have the same policies with similar results?

    I believe a total of 5 state governments did this all democrats.  Though I dont recall all of them.

    • #18
  19. MichaelKennedy Inactive
    MichaelKennedy
    @MichaelKennedy

    Roderic (View Comment):
    Such people probably do have some immunity to COVID-19.

    There is some speculation that the Sabin live polio vaccine could also be helpful. I have not seen any studies on this and it is speculation so far as I understand it.

    • #19
  20. Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing) Member
    Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing)
    @Sisyphus

    ToryWarWriter (View Comment):

    TeamAmerica (View Comment):

    In NJ, Pennsylvania and NY, the Dem. governors ordered nursing homes to accept covid19 patients. As a result, afaik roughly half of the deaths from covid19 have been in nursing homes.

    Did Dem. governors in many other states have the same policies with similar results?

    I believe a total of 5 state governments did this all democrats. Though I dont recall all of them.

    Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. California rescinded a similar order after 10 days. These orders violated federal guidelines. 

    • #20
  21. MISTER BITCOIN Inactive
    MISTER BITCOIN
    @MISTERBITCOIN

    Roderic (View Comment):

    Sorry, but this sudden respect for and trust of news media reporting leaves me cold.

    I’m not able to find any credible confirmation of any of this stuff about the CDC botching the numbers.

    For some purposes lumping antibody and PCR tests results is legitimate. For example, in estimating the total number of people, or the proportion of people in the population, who have some degree of immunity to COVID-19. Many people don’t realize that the antibody tests were developed from tests made for other coronaviruses. So they naturally cross react with them. About one third of all colds are due to coronaviruses, and people who have had such a cold will most likely come up positive on these tests. (Although the testing to show this hasn’t been done yet!) Such people probably do have some immunity to COVID-19.

    Part of the trouble is that states have been taking CDC results and spinning them their own way. Different states are using them in different ways to make policy. As you can guess, for blue states the numbers justify policies that keep things shut down, and the converse for red states.

    In any case, these tests, whether PCR or antibody, should not be considered the gold standard of diagnosis. They are not accurate enough for that. If PCR is used as the standard then COVID-19 is underdiagnosed. If the antibody test is used then some people who come up positive most likely never had the virus, and we further the fiction of the “asymptomatic case”, which probably doesn’t exist.

    As Beda Stadler, a Swiss professor of immunology (cited above), writes, the most destructive memes about this disease are 1) that it is “novel” and nobody is immune, 2) that people could remain asymptomatic even while spreading the disease. To those I’d add the false reports of very high death rates. All of these came to us from China. It has taken time to dispel these myths.

     

     

    I read today that 30 to 80 percent of the population has ‘natural’ immunity to covid because of previous exposure to cold and flu-like diseases

     

     

    • #21
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