By GREG WHITE
Democratic Candidate
Los Alamos County Council
Mr. Reagor says I offer no solution just a dead end. True, I’m not a scientist or doctor or researcher of infectious diseases and I don’t know the answer, but all Mr. Reagor offers is DEAD! (link)
What I do know is as poor as some states have been at quarantining this virus, and Trump said this also May 4, if no efforts had been made at quarantine, we’d be looking a whole lot worse. Maybe 1.2 million Americans dead.
Mr. Reagor states that the point of his stating New York numbers is that they represent only the cases that self reported and then claims “they” (unclear who they are, NY officials, Gov. Lujan Grisham, maybe Democrats in general), “they simply took a worst-case assumption and then tried to confiscate your rights”. Also stating, “The governor made a mistake, partially based on wrong science.”
He then states, “There is no science presented that argues that this epidemic is much different than normal epidemics.”
Is anyone confused? I didn’t realize epidemics were so common that CoVid-19 is just another run of the mill epidemic and we should accept a high death rate as the same old thing. I would like to think we’ve advanced just a little bit over the Dark Ages.
As of the night of May 4 there were 1.21 million confirmed cases and 65,570 confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the US since the first confirmed death Feb. 28 … just nine weeks ago.
In contrast, the last pandemic, April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010, called H1N1 or Swine flu (there have been several related viruses since 1909 in the H_N_ or Avian and Swine flu category) there were half the cases, 60.8 million with 12,469 deaths. And both strains of Influenza together average 36,000 deaths in an entire year.
If containment measures aren’t maintained, and NO State so far is following what Trump himself said was needed to ease restrictions (two full weeks of declining new cases and deaths daily), simply math says we’re looking at nearly 350,000 Americans dead by the end of February 2021.
Further his claim that states that had no restrictions have fared better than states like New Mexico that did. FALSE! States like Utah seem to be doing good compared to New Mexico, but they do not include their portion of the Navajo Nation whereas we do. Also, you cannot make the assumption that in states with higher case numbers but lower deaths what the reason is. Maybe there is a greater separation between young and old people. Maybe their health systems had sufficient pandemic supplies like ventilators. Maybe something in their environment inhibits the virus from manifesting the worst respiratory symptoms.
The fact they have more cases than New Mexico per capita show their lack of quarantine measures does not work.
Also, you cannot compare states with large cities and states with only large towns like North Dakota whose population is 1/3rd that of New Mexico and more than half of New Mexico in size. New Mexico is 121,607 square miles while North Dakota is 70,762 sq. miles.
Compare these three states:
New Mexico 3,732 cases, 139 deaths;
Oklahoma 3,851 cases, 238 deaths; and
Iowa 8,641 cases, 175 deaths.
Without a lot more data making comparisons between states is at best misleading and at worse plain totally false.
And how can self reported cases be a worse case assumption. Also, Mr.Reagor appears to be accusing the governor of deliberately trying to confiscate rights, then says she just made a mistake. Then attacks her again, “The difference with our state is an authoritarian governor who ignores normal health practices and attacks our rights.”
Everything I wrote two weeks ago has now been proven by scientists and doctors to be true. The antibody tests are highly unreliable. There are No advances coming in the near future. Even Trump is now saying the end of the year at best. EVERYONE is the vulnerable! From a week old baby to a 100 year old person not in a nursing home. Five year olds are suffering heart attacks and 20 year olds strokes.
Every day the list of symptoms and complications grows. Even the dead are doing the unheard of and giving the virus to the living. And there are now thousands of documented cases of people who were very sick with the virus, got better, testing negative for two months, and got sick again and tested positive again. The virus has now mutated into at least five different strains and all are deadly.
Before this HIV was the fastest mutating strain and it took that virus 10 years to mutate to five different strains and now there are at least 60 strains after 65 years since the first case in the Congo. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/269510
HIV is a major cause of death worldwide. Despite this, no effective vaccine or cure has yet been developed. A major obstacle in this endeavor is that rapid viral evolution essentially renders HIV a “moving target”, which also contributes to the inability of the host to control and clear the virus in natural infection. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5414815/
COVID-19 is acting very much like and at the same time even worse than HIV.
Gov. Lujan Grisham most certainly has followed normal health practices and Mr. Reagor is the one with wrong science.
As far as anyone’s “rights” being taken away, that simply is not true. There is no “right” anywhere in the U.S. or N.M. constitution to spread a deadly disease! In fact, there is no “right” in either to own a business or earn a wage. I invite anyone to point out exactly where in either constitution these “rights” exist.
Now of course private business and people earning, and spending wages is a necessity for our State and Country. The Declaration of Independence states as much. But it is Not law. But it does lay out an order of things our forefathers fought and died for and millions of American military members have died for. The first of which is LIFE, followed by liberty and then the pursuit of happiness.
If Democrats choosing LIFE is wrong and the Republicans choosing death is right, then truly Jesus was correct when he said, “In the end good will be called evil and evil will be called good”, and I’m Proud to be a Democrat!