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My February birthday fund-raising campaign for this website, Behind the Black, is now over. Despite a relatively weak initial three weeks, the last week was spectacular, making this campaign the second best ever.

 

Thanks to every person who donated or subscribed. It continues to astonish me that people who can read my work for free like it enough to donate money voluntarily. Words cannot express my appreciation for that support, especially in these uncertain times.

 

If you have been a regular reader and a fan of my work and have not yet donated or subscribed, please consider doing so. I take no ads, I keep the website clean from pop-ups and annoying demands (most of the time). Thus, I depend entirely on my readers to support me. Though this means I am sacrificing some income, it also means that I remain entirely independent from outside pressure. By depending solely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, no one can threaten me with censorship. You don't like what I write, you can simply go elsewhere.

 

You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:

 

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New data suggests COVID-19 is weakening in deadliness

New research, as well as impressions from scientists in a number of locations worldwide, is suggesting that the Wuhan flu is becoming with time a less lethal disease, mimicking behavior seen previously with other similar coronaviruses.

[S]everal …American scientists, including some at Arizona State University, announced findings in May that could bolster claims that the virus is less deadly than it once was.

The scientists at ASU said that they had detected a gene deletion in one sample from several hundred Arizona patients that potentially reduced the fitness of the disease. Notably, they claimed it was similar to a deleted sequence observed in the 2003 SARS virus that was observed near the end of that disease’s epidemic—possibly signaling that COVID-19 may be bound for a similar fate.

Those conclusions were echoed by scientists in Spain this week, who proposed that COVID-19 may have adopted what the researchers call a “don’t burn down the house” strategy, “reducing the severity of the infection and tissue damage without losing transmission capability.” In effect, the disease could be opting to become less lethal so that it can spread more easily—a hallmark of evolutionary behavior, and also a boon for anyone who gets infected with the milder strain.

Meanwhile, the evidence continues to suggest that the overall mortality this year is not significantly different than other years, and that the Wuhan flu “isn’t much worse than than a bad seasonal flu.”

Finally, the leftist demonstrations yesterday and today prove that the demands that we social distance, that we wear masks, that we shut down the economy and bankrupt a quarter of the population in order to slow the spread of COVID-19, were all a lie. Suddenly, it’s okay to march down streets in crowds, as long as that crowd is in favor of the bigoted organization Black Lives Matter and opposed to Donald Trump.

But then, it was all a patently obvious lie from the beginning. First we were to social distance for a few weeks to slow the spread (not stop it) so that hospitals would not be overwhelmed. Then we had to close-down all businesses arbitrarily chosen by governors as non-essential (noting that this choice almost never included big corporate chains). Then the lock-downs and social distancing had to be extended, sometimes forever, in order to stop the disease. And then we needed to wear masks everywhere, even though it is clear from the scientific evidence that masks do little while actually increasing the wearer’s health risk.

The moment however the left, which was where most of these demands were coming, had a new cause that required demonstrations and protests, these new “norms” went out the window. At least they are out the window for the next few days, while the George Floyd protests continue. Once those die down, expect the demands to return, and to be applied (as they have so far) selectively, aimed mostly at hurting those the left sees as their enemy.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

7 comments

  • LocalFluff

    “COVID-19 may have adopted what the researchers call a “don’t burn down the house” strategy”
    So this virus is more intelligent than the leftists!

  • Col Beausabre

    I wonder if it has occurred to anyone else that the Wuhan Flu panic and its destruction of the economy is but a small scale preview of the Climate Change panic and its economic results.

  • LocalFluff

    @Col Beausabre
    The climate doomsday lie has certainly made many idiots much more prone to PANIC! For whatever reason they hear in fake media. Jesus H Greta has changed business from fossil fuels to virus, you know. The leftists, and their manipulated children pawns, are only in it for the panic propaganda. Trying to make non-thinking people afraid. Same purpose, different lies.

  • Greg the Geologist

    Actually, radio host Dennis Prager made this point early on, calling the government response to the Wuhan virus a ‘dress rehearsal’ for what the Left will try to do with Global Warming – declared by them to be an ‘existential threat’. If you can justify such a response to a potentially dangerous (but not Black Death level) disease, you can easily justify something just as draconian for the supposed risk of Destroying the Planet.

  • Phill O

    The World Health Organization has determined that dogs can not pass Covid-19 and has released all dogs in quarantine. In short
    WHO let the dogs out!

  • wayne

    ref–“..may have adopted what the researchers call a “don’t burn down the house” strategy..”

    I like this statement from a poetic standpoint,—- but it is not how evolutionary adaptation actually functions in the real world. Cause & Effect are mixed up, it’s what the Behaviorists call an “explanatory fiction.”
    It’s similar to saying that “giraffes have long necks in order to eat choice foliage at the top of trees.”

  • Cotour

    JUST HOW IMPORTANT IS ISOLATION DURING COVID 19?

    New Jersey governor Phil Murphy, super Liberal, has established all kinds of regulations and restrictions for the people of New Jersey related to Covid 19, but he states that in the light of protests and rioting its essentially more important to protest? (And riot?) Just how threatening is this virus if a governor in America can make such a choice and a statement? If there is a deadly virus contagion among us then shouldn’t that supercede and delay any social display of displeasure with authority like mass gatherings? ( And riots?) Why has the governor contradicted himself here?

    https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2020/06/08/murphy-walking-tightrope-between-encouraging-activists-maintaining-public-health-1291897?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000162-1a53-d34d-a77f-fb776fb40000&nlid=630318

    “Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said he “can’t imagine” telling protestors to stay home during the corona virus pandemic during a press conference Monday, Politico reported. The governor, who along with other leaders have warned residents to avoid large gatherings to slow the spread of COVID-19, said he could not advise protestors to “ignore systemic racism” and stay in their homes. ”

    The governor thought that the virus was such a deadly threat to the people that he has shut down most all business in the state, chosen to essentially destroy his economy, but encourages mass gatherings because of a social issue? As far as he is concerned there are no restrictions on protesting, do as you please. But you are banned from working and making an income. His statements do not quite square with me. Not even a mention of the virus and how threatening it is.

    You can go to a protest and wear a mask, or not, in very close quarters with thousands of other human beings during a virus contagion that has spread throughout the world and killed several hundreds of thousands, but you were not able to operate your business in a safe manner as determined by you. And this, like much, actually most all, of what the Liberals and now Leftist Democrats propose, it does not make common sense to me.

    All will be revealed in these extreme conditions in America today, and that is the sunshine that allows the people to see who they should hire and who they should fire. Lots and lots of firing.

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