Death and Dying: By the Numbers In America

QUESTION: How many people in the U.S. die each day from overdoses involving PRESCRIPTION opioids?

ANSWER: According to recent data published by the Center for Disease Control (CDC), approximately 41 people/day (14,965) are dying from an overdose involving prescription opioids. This CDC website – https://www.cdc.gov/rxawareness/index.html – provides resources for individuals struggling with opioid drug abuse.

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330,147,087

That’s the estimated population in the United States as of this writing, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Population Clock.

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.

539,320

Outgoing CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield, MD is a FAILURE as a leader.

Dr. Robert R. Redfield, MD – 18th Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

But allow me to be more explicit.

Dr. Robert R. Redfield, MD is a goddamn moron for whom I have no professional respect.

Why do I write that?

Like his soon-to-be former boss – the outgoing 45th President – he is, and remains, an ineffectual (mis)leader, under whose oversight the agency, like America, has languished, and suffered significant loss. Furthermore, also like his soon-to-be former boss – the outgoing 45th President – he refuses to accept responsibility for any of it.

The outgoing President, himself an utterly incompetent goddamn know-it-all moron, has a knack and penchant for identifying and naming the most utterly incompetent boobs to important positions within the administration.

Does that mean Redfield is a “most utterly incompetent boob”?

Not necessarily.

Of course, if you’ve been paying the least bit of attention for the past year, or so, you’d know the moronic and utterly idiotic things he’s done, and the equally moronic and contradictory things he’s said to justify, in response to the coronavirus pandemic in the United States.

But here below, read what he said recently in an interview with NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly on All Things Considered. • [Commentary in italics, within brackets, preceded with a •, following Redfield’s remarks.]

Outgoing CDC Director Warns Of Pandemic’s Peak:
“We’re About To Be In The Worst Of It”

January 15, 20216:07 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
by Mary Louise Kelly

Mary Louise Kelly: “Why has the U.S. done so much worse than the rest of the world?”

Robert Redfield: “I think this virus has a unique ability to have differential pathogenesis in different people. And what it really does is it exploits the underlying health condition of the individual it infects. And so, I would argue one of the reasons we’re having more significant death in this country than, say, Sweden is because unfortunately, the underlying health conditions — with obesity, diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease and the significant health disparities that we have in these illnesses in our nation — haven’t been effectively addressed.”
• [Pass the buck, please. There is EXACTLY ONE research paper in the entire National Library of Medicine with the subject “differential pathogenesis” in its title which is about COVID-19: Molecular Aspects of COVID-19 Differential Pathogenesis. The gist of the paper’s findings is that a type of the female hormone estradiol increases the levels of Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE2), and that ACE2 apparently has some role in preventing severity of symptoms associated with COVID-19 infection, although, “ACE2 expression is dramatically reduced with aging in both genders. The levels of ACE2 expression, which could be sex- and age-dependent, have a protective role against lung and kidney injuries that could impact the severity of COVID-19 illness in male vs. females and old vs. young individuals.” As well, TMPRSS2, a cellular transmembrane protease, has a role in the severity of the disease, insofar as the “expression levels of TMPRSS2 protein are regulated by levels of androgen and androgen receptors … women and children have a lower level of androgen and androgen receptors than men, and therefore, TMPRSS2 could play a potential role in the severity of COVID-19 pathogenesis in men.” The study’s authors also write that, “it could be possible that the expression levels of ACE2 and TMPRSS2 impact virus infectivity and pathogenesis among different groups of individuals, considering the variation in the expression levels in older men compared to the women and children.” It is well known that individuals with comorbidities of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, heart diseases, and cerebrovascular disease, are at increased risk for poor outcomes, and increased risk of mortality, if infected with COVID-19, and the authors specifically state that the treatments for such conditions may very well place such individuals at increased risk for poor outcomes by writing that they “could be linked to the ACE2 function during SARS-CoV-2 infection and the cardio-metabolic treatments that may interfere withACE2–virus interaction.” The study’s authors conclude that, “variations in the expression levels of SARS-CoV-2 receptors and co-receptors, due to physiological and co-morbidity conditions, could impact the differential pathogenesis of COVID-19.” Contrary to what Dr. Redfield says, the virus does NOT have “a unique ability to have differential pathogenesis in different people.”]

Kelly: “But in terms of how the U.S. has responded, in terms of how the CDC has responded … are you able to defend the Trump administration’s record on this as anything other than a catastrophic failure?”

Redfield: “Well, I’m actually very proud of the response that CDC has done. I think if I have one criticism that

Representatives Tulsi Gabbard and Ilhan Omar Refuse to Go To The Front of the COVID-19 Vaccine Line.

Hawaii U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard, D-2

Even though Presidential Policy Directive 40 (PPD-40) of July 15, 2016 (National Continuity Policy), and POS45’s Executive Order allows them to.

Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii tells it like it is and calls out the hypocrisy!

Ilhan Omar of Minnesota – whose father died from COVID-19 – is also delaying her vaccination until others have theirs first.

It would makes sense if it was age, but unfortunately it’s of importance and its shameful.

We are not more important then frontline workers, teachers etc. who are making sacrifices everyday.

Which is why I won’t take it.

People who need it most, should get it.

Full stop. https://t.co/JQgMftm5wX

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) December 20, 2020

THESE are the examples

Which is more deadly? War, or COVID-19?

American COVID-19 Deaths
WILL SURPASS
the
TOTAL Number of Deaths
in the
Vietnam and Korean Wars
COMBINED.

33,686 + 47,424 =81,110

81,110 – 68,387 = 12,723

Remember those numbers.

What are they?

The first figure – 33,686 – represents the number of deaths in the Korean War.

The second figure – 47,424 – represents the number of deaths in the Vietnam War.

The third figure is the sum (total) of the two numbers.

The fourth figure – 68,387 – represents the number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States, as of 0450 UTC (Universal Coordinated Time), Monday, 4 May 2020.

The fifth figure – 12,723 – represents the difference between the current number of COVID-19 American Deaths and the Total number of Deaths in the Korean and Vietnam Wars combined.

Sadly, that fifth figure WILL surpass the the third figure in a matter of days.

Already, the TOTAL number of American COVID-19 deaths has SURPASSED the number of deaths in Vietnam (47,424), Iraq (3836), Afghanistan (1833), Gulf War (149), and the Beirut Deployment (256) COMBINED – 53,498.

But here’s the sad, startling fact:

This has all happened in the space of a couple months – since 20 January – a mere 106 days. On the other hand, those wars lasted far, far longer.

So, you tell me

Shocking Findings: 96% of Prison Inmates Infected with COVID-19 HAVE NO SYMPTOMS

We have been told that the MINIMUM asymptomatic (without symptoms) range was 30-50% for the general public, which means that the number of POSITIVE cases is very likely UNDER–COUNTED by that amount, and therefore at LEAST 30-50% HIGHER than tests show, precisely because without symptoms, few, if any, are being tested.

The rationale such individuals have is, ‘I don’t have symptoms, so why should I get tested?’

And that is the classic “Typhoid Mary” Mallon case of the early 20th Century in which Mary Mallon infected many with Typhoid Fever (some of whom died), and NEVER – not even once – EVER showed any signs or symptoms of disease – not even on her deathbed.

And she did NOT die of Typhoid Fever.

And what you’re about to read is PRECISELY what needs to happen to EVERYONE in America.

That is,

EVERYONE

SHOULD BE TESTED,

EVEN IF

THEY HAVE

NO SYMPTOMS!

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In four U.S. state prisons, nearly 3,300 inmates test positive for coronavirus — 96% without symptoms

By Linda So and Grant Smith

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Sun Apr 26, 2020 / 7:59 AM EDT

(Reuters) – When the first cases of the new coronavirus surfaced in Ohio’s prisons, the director in charge felt like she was fighting a ghost.

“We weren’t always able to pinpoint where all the cases were coming from,” said Annette Chambers-Smith, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. As the virus spread, they began mass testing.

They started with the Marion Correctional Institution, which houses 2,500 prisoners in north central Ohio, many of them older with pre-existing health conditions. After testing 2,300 inmates for the coronavirus, they were shocked. Of the 2,028 who tested positive, close to 95% had no symptoms.

“It was very surprising,” said Chambers-Smith, who oversees the state’s 28 correctional facilities.

As mass coronavirus testing expands in prisons, large numbers of inmates are showing no symptoms. In four state prison systems — Arkansas, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia — 96% of 3,277 inmates who tested positive for the coronavirus were asymptomatic, according to interviews with officials and records reviewed by Reuters. That’s out of 4,693 tests that included results on symptoms.

The numbers are the latest evidence to suggest that people who are asymptomatic — contagious but not physically sick — may be driving the spread of the virus, not only in state prisons that house 1.3 million inmates across the country, but also in communities across the globe. The figures also reinforce questions over whether testing of just people suspected of being infected is actually capturing the spread of the virus.

“It adds to the understanding that we have a severe undercount of cases in the U.S.,” said Dr. Leana Wen, adjunct associate professor of emergency medicine at George Washington University, said of the Reuters findings. “The case count is likely much, much higher than we currently know because of the lack of testing and surveillance.”

Some people diagnosed as asymptomatic when tested for the coronavirus, however, may go on to develop symptoms later, according to researchers.

The United States has more people behind bars than any other nation, a total incarcerated population of nearly 2.3 million as of 2017 — nearly half of which is in state prisons. Smaller numbers are locked in federal prisons and local jails, which typically hold people for relatively short periods as they await trial.

State prison systems in Michigan, Tennessee and California have also begun mass testing — checking for coronavirus infections in large numbers of inmates even if they show no sign of illness — but have not provided specific counts of asymptomatic prisoners.

Tennessee said a majority of its positive cases didn’t show symptoms. In Michigan, state authorities said

CDC Chief OK’s FREE COVID-19 Testing for ALL

If you, your loved ones, or someone you know, needs, or wants to be tested for COVID-19, GO GET TESTED AT NO COST TO YOU!

THIS IS A MATTER OF PUBLIC HEALTH!!

And, EVERYONE IS AT RISK –  not just the elderly, infirm, or those with other health conditions – EVERYONE!

Representative Porter questioned Dr. Redfield in committee on Capitol Hill March 12, and as a long-time consumer advocate attorney, discovered the law provides that CDC Director has FULL AUTHORITY to “authorize payment for the care and treatment of individuals subject to medical examination, quarantine, isolation, and conditional release…”

See the video on her Twitter timeline.

Read 42 CFR 71.30.

§ 71.30 – Payment for care and treatment.

(a) The Director may authorize payment for the care and treatment of individuals subject to medical examination, quarantine, isolation, and conditional release, subject to paragraphs (b) through (h) of this section.

(b) Payment for care and treatment shall be in the Director’s sole discretion and

Got your COVID-19 mask on?

The time is NOW!

The CDC has written that,

“We now know from recent studies that a significant portion of individuals with coronavirus lack symptoms (“asymptomatic”) and that even those who eventually develop symptoms (“pre-symptomatic”) can transmit the virus to others before showing symptoms.

This means that the virus can

Hey Kids! Keep EVERYONE Safe! Help Stop Spreading COVID-19 Coronavirus!

The pandemic (meaning, “the worldwide spread of a new disease”) is now upon us with COVID-19 coronavirus.

While there are particularly worrisome aspects of this disease, one of the most overlooked aspects of it is that someone can be a carrier without showing any signs, or symptoms of infection, or disease.

In other words, folks are (not “can be,” but ARE) spreading the disease WITHOUT KNOWING IT.

So, why don’t they know they have it?

First, they’re asymptomatic – that’s medical jargon meaning “they don’t show signs of symptoms of having the disease.”

Second, they’ve NOT been tested. (And, I put the blame for that problem squarely upon Trump, because he gutted the National Security Council and White House infrastructures which would handle such crises.

In numerous articles published as far back as 2017, from a wide variety of sources, it’s broadly acknowledged that

Trump Budget Slashing Gutted Coronavirus Emergency Response

Trump’s hated of “everything Obama” has already harmed America.

Now, it’s harming Public Health.

That man is a genuine threat to the security of the United States. He simply has NO understanding of the complexity of the matters placed before him on the platter of the Presidency. He is utterly out of his league.

Consider this sampling of inane things he’s said about coronavirus (COVID-19):

First, it was, “We have it all under control.”

Followed closely by, “It’s very small problem in this country.”

And on its heels was, “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA.”

Which was later accompanied by, “We have it totally under control. It’s going to be fine.”

As things progressed, and it because clear that it was only a matter of time before Americans were affected, he said in Davos, Switzerland that, “We do have a plan, and we think it’s going to be handled very well.”

Now that the fecal matter has started to hit the fan, he decided to make a rare, live, emergency telecast to address the nation, and said that, “I have decided to take several strong but necessary actions to protect the health and well-being of all Americans.”

He also said in that emergency live telecast address to the nation that, “We declared a public health emergency and issued the highest level of travel warning.”

In the same breath, he said, “To keep new cases from entering our shores, we will be suspending all travel from Europe to the United States for the next 30 days.”

Just last year, he:
• Cut the budgets of the Centers for Disease Control, and other Public Health-related budgets,
• Firing the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including those of the
––National Security Agency,
––National Security Council,
––Health and Human Services,
––Department of Homeland Security,
• Gutting the entire management infrastructure of the White House, and
• Killing the Complex Crises Fund

…DESPITE all that budget bloodshed like Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, he had the unmitigated gall and audacity to say that, “We are at a critical time in the fight against the virus.”

And sadly, it’s highly doubtful that anyone truly believes him when he said, “I will always put the well-being of America first.”

It’s not as if anyone believes him now, anyway. Members of the Cabinet are in fear of him, that they’ll lose their jobs being fired by Tweet, so they simply turn into jelly, and keep their ideas to themselves… since he knows how to run everything, anyway. So what difference does it truly make?

The next thing is to GET HIM OUT OF OFFICE!

But, moreover, this article goes in-depth to show and explain the things he’s done which have had a horrific effect upon Public Health -and- National Security.

That is NOT how to “Make America Great Again.”

Come November, you know what to do.

VOTE HIM OUT!!!

Trump Has Sabotaged America’s Coronavirus Response

By Laurie Garrett
January 31, 2010
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/

When Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), declared the Wuhan coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern on Thursday, he praised China for taking “unprecedented” steps to control the deadly virus. “I have never seen for myself this kind of mobilization,” he noted. “China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response.”

The epidemic control efforts unfolding today in China—including placing some 100 million citizens on lockdown, shutting down a national holiday, building enormous quarantine hospitals in days’ time, and ramping up 24-hour manufacturing of medical equipment—are indeed gargantuan. It’s impossible to watch them without wondering, “What would we do? How would my government respond if this virus spread across my country?”

For the United States, the answers are especially worrying because the government has intentionally rendered itself incapable. In 2018, the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure. In numerous phone calls and emails with key agencies across the U.S. government, the only consistent response I encountered was distressed confusion. If the United States still has a clear chain of command for pandemic response, the White House urgently needs to clarify what it is

If the United States still has a clear chain of command for pandemic response,
the White House urgently needs to clarify what it is – not just for the public but for the government itself,
which largely finds itself in the dark.

When Ebola broke out in West Africa in 2014, President Barack Obama recognized that responding to the outbreak overseas, while also protecting Americans at home, involved multiple U.S. government departments and agencies,

”We are preparing as if this were the next pandemic.” -Dr. Nancy Messonnier, MD, CDC airborne disease expert

GET READY!

Coronavirus is very likely coming to your town!

Dr. Nancy Messonnier, MD, is the Director of the Center for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD) of the CDC, held a press conference about coronavirus February 3, 2020, and said in part, that,

“We expect we will see community spread in this country.
It’s not so much a question of if this will happen any more, but the rather more correct question to be asking is, ‘When this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness?’“

Coronavirus/COVID19 deaths = 2700 (and counting)

Dr. Nancy Messonnier, MD, is the Director of the Center for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD) at the CDC.

SARS deaths = 774 (per CDC)
MERS deaths = 858 (per WHO)
SARS+MERS = 1632

Remember when Trump said, “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be fine.”?

He also said, “We do have a plan, and we think it’s going to be handled very well. I think China’s in very good shape also.”

He was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland January 22, 2020, and was interviewed by Joe Kernen of NBC’s Squawk Box program when he said “we have it totally under control.”

He said further that, “We do have a plan and we think it is going to be handled very well. We’ve already handled it very well. The CDC is terrific. Very professional.”

He later said to reporters that, “we do have a plan… China’s in very good shape also” before a meeting with Nechirvan Barzani, President of the Kurdistan Regional Government, also while in Davos.

An increase from 1 to 53 is a 5200% INCREASE.

Would you say that’s “totally under control,” or not?

Here’s the verbatim transcript of pertinent portion of the Squawk Box interview:

JOE KERNEN: It was a couple of years ago. Before we get started– with- we’re going talk about the economy and a lot of other things–the CDC– has

Roll Tide! Alabama ranked 2nd Nationally!

Roll Tide, y’all!

But you might wanna’ hang your head and weep at this one.

It’s nothing to be proud about.

According to

In Response to John Goodwin’s FaceBook Post

A man named John Goodwin made a public post on FaceBook, which also included a link to an OpEd published in the Washington Post on November 9, 2016, which was written by Charles Camosy (PhD, University of Notre Dame), and entitled “Trump won because college-educated Americans are out of touch.” Dr. Camosy is an Associate Professor of Theological and Social Ethics at Fordham University, and the author of a book entitled “Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for A New Generation.”

Mr. Goodwin’s FaceBook profile is sufficiently ambiguous of himself, though in his public post which is time & date-stamped 9:45AM, November 10, 2016, and ostensibly geolocated from Washington, D.C., he wrote of himself that, “I haven’t posted about the election mostly because 1) I do this for a living and most of you don’t,” which would lead one to suppose that at some level, he works in or with public policy, or more likely, with politicians.

I do not.

However, suffice it to say, that for many, many, many years, I have remained immensely interested in public policy, though I do not now, nor have I ever made my living from it, or influencing, or attempting to influence others in elected office.

In other words, I have taken the high road.

Mr. Goodwin’s public post to FaceBook is linked herein, as is the article upon which he expounded.

https://www.facebook.com/goody37/posts/10154328123133884

In order to fully understand the matter of discussion herein, I encourage the reader to fully read this item following herein, as well as Mr. Goodwin’s post, and the OpEd upon which he opined

I have responded to Mr. Goodwin’s post as follows:
His words appear italicized, and in “quotation marks.”
My commentary follows immediately after.

“…not everyone lives in big cities.”
• That is correct. The United States Census Bureau says that 80.7% of American reside in urban areas. In fact, they report that “the population density in cities is more than 46 times higher than the territory outside of cities.” So that leaves a whopping 19.3% in rural areas.

“I didn’t grow up with money.”
• Money had been invented by the time I was born. But seriously, someone votes for Donald Trump as if the wealthy are advocates for the impoverished or even the average American? C’mon. Mr. Born-With-A-Silver-Spoon-In-His-Mouth? Really?

“…not everyone went to elite colleges.”
• According to the United States Census Bureau, “in 2015, almost 9 out of 10 adults (88 percent) had at least a high school diploma or GED, while nearly 1 in 3 adults (33 percent) held a bachelor’s or higher degree.” I’m in the 33%. So I’m an elite. Thanks!

“You think they (people who eat at

Wash Your Nasty Hands!

“It’s essential to wash your hands, because 50% of all food borne illness has been tied back to unclean hands, or unwashed hands, or improperly washed hands.”

–Carl Borchgrevink, Associate Professor in The School of Hospitality Business, Michigan State University

Forget washing, just take a giant spoon into the toilet, grab up a heaping helping of that stinky brown goodness & eat it.

Yeah.

Folks wouldn’t imagine doing that, but they won’t wash their hands, either.

What’s the difference?

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/261875.php

The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) says that the one thing people can do to lower the spread of infectious diseases is to

CDC: Heath Data shows Abortions fall 5%, largest drop in a decade

CDC: Abortions fall 5%, largest drop in a decade

By Michael Muskal
November 21, 2012, 1:41 p.m.

The rate of abortions in the United States fell by 5%, the largest single-year decrease in a decade, researchers for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

The decline is outlined in the annual abortion surveillance data for the year 2009, the latest available. It was published on Wednesday in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

About 18% of all pregnancies in the United States end in abortion, the CDC noted. Factors from the availability of abortion providers, state laws, the general economy and access to health services including contraception, can

It’s official… I’m a nerd.

Image via Wikipedia Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Hey!

What do you read for fun?

It seemed an entirely apropos title for this entry.

What DO I read “for fun”?

Well, here are two excerpts from items I’m now reading.

Black Children are an Endangered Species – the Face of Modern American Genocide

The majority of abortions

are performed in

ethnic minority communities.

The majority of abortions performed in America are upon ethnic minority women. Would that be called "ethnic cleansing," or "genocide"?

The Centers for Disease Control define abortion as a procedure “…that was intended to terminate a suspected or known intrauterine pregnancy and to produce a nonviable fetus at any gestational age.”

At ANY gestational age?

What about during labor? That’s any gestational age.

But then… would it be murder, instead?

A 30-year study by the pro-abortion Alan Guttmacher Institute revealed that