Why is the COVID death rate so low in Africa?

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, it could just be poor statistics-taking and reporting. But apparently the death rate has not gone up, either, and a rise in that would be more noticeable. So it seems the low rate of (and/or better prognosis from) COVID in much of Africa is real.

Could it be, could it possibly be – the widespread use of hydroxychloroquine?

You’d never know from this article that such a thing is even a possibility. The Science article discusses the data from Africa – it’s even titled “The pandemic appears to have spared Africa so far. Scientists are struggling to explain why” – but nary a whisper about the drug.

Is the drug already widely taken in African countries where malaria is endemic? I’ve been trying to discover whether that is the case, and I’m hesitant to say it is because I read somewhere, months ago, that malaria in Africa became resistant to the drug some years ago and so it’s no longer all that widely used there. I can’t seem to find that information at the moment.

However, hydroxychloroquine and possibly its predecessor chloroquine certainly have been used in Africa for COVID. In fact, some countries in Africa using it for that purpose did not stop doing so even when the bogus Lancet article came out, unlike most of Europe. Perhaps that happened because in Africa they are very familiar with the drug and its risks and/or lack of risk. Also, they’re probably not so heavily invested in the business of discrediting Trump at all costs. At any rate, several made a bold decision to keep going with the drug (see also this).

There is also this practice (the article is from early April):

Despite loud appeals for caution, Africans are rushing to embrace chloroquine, the venerable anti-malaria drug touted as a possible treatment for coronavirus.

From hospitals in Senegal to pharmaceutical companies in South Africa and street sellers in Cameroon, chloroquine has fired hopes of a medicinal fix against a virus that is set to scythe through Africa’s poorly protected countries.

Chloroquine and derivatives such as hydroxychloroquine have been used for decades as cheap and safe drugs against malaria, although their effectiveness in this field is now undermined by growing parasite resistance…

…in many settings across Africa, chloroquine has been placed in the front line against coronavirus.

Its rise stems partly from desperation, given Africa’s meager capacity to deal with a pandemic on the scale seen in Europe or the United States.

Burkina Faso, Cameroon and South Africa have swiftly authorized hospitals to treat virus patients with the drugs.

Around half of infected people in Senegal are already being prescribed hydroxychloroquine, Moussa Seydi, a professor at Dakar’s Fann Hospital, told AFP last Thursday.

Every patient who was recommended the drug accepted it, “with no exceptions,” he said.

In Democratic Republic of Congo, President Felix Tshisekedi last week declared it was “urgent” to produce chloroquine “in industrial quantities”.

My guess is that their long experience with the drug makes both the medical establishment and the population unafraid of it. There is also a black market:

“Local people have been buying it, apparently without prescription, which is dangerous.”

…Alice Desclaux, a doctor at the Institute of Development Research (IRD) in Senegal, said the risks from self-medication from chloroquine were largely rooted in illegal sales.

“Chloroquine has always been on sale informally in Africa,” she said.

“It’s still used to cause abortions” and even for attempted suicide, Desclaux said.

In one backstreet pharmacy in Douala, Cameroon’s economic hub, the manager said he had run out of stock. For anyone who wished to order some, “careful, the price has gone up,” he said…

The chloroquine craze is not just affecting the black market for drugs — it is also spurring the production of counterfeit medications.

The whole article is worth reading, although it’s from an early point in the pandemic. It could explain a lot.

And this is from an article written in June:

In Senegal and Madagascar for example, COVID-19 patients on hydroxychloroquine and the herbal remedy Artemisia annua have been observed to recover faster from the disease with lower deaths. In both countries, even with rising cases, recovery rates from Covid19 are much higher – consistent with the observations in most malaria prone countries. Interestingly, malaria is not prevalent in Africa’s Covid-19 hotspots of South Africa and North Africa.

Fascinating, I think.

Why are so many blue cities committing suicide?

The New Neo Posted on by

Stories like this about New York City’s decline may cause you to say “Remind me why I should care.” But they make me sad, because I still find it hard to wrap my mind around the suicide of a city such as New York, my home town and still the putative residence of many people I know. I remember times when New York was a wonderful place to live or to visit.

I realize that the city’s current slide began with the election of unrepentant far-leftist Bill de Blasio as mayor. But still – and despite the fact that because of term limits he’s not up for re-election – his destructive moves somewhat puzzle me.

He reminds me of a homeowner who can’t pay his mortgage, and so when his house is foreclosed on he seizes the opportunity to trash it prior to leaving. Is de Blasio merely having a nihilist and vengeful fit of pique? Or is he just too stupid to know the effect of his actions?

Or – and this is my leading theory – does he think that, before leaving office, he may as well move the Overton Window as far to the left as possible (policy-wise), because he thinks that from this time forward the New York voters will never again vote the left out of office? New York has a history of doing just that, of electing a Giuliani-type when the city sinks too low. Maybe de Blasio thinks some sort of critical mass of leftist voters has been reached, in which that can never happen again.

Whatever de Blasio is doing and for whatever reason, it seems that it’s catching. New York is not the only city that seems to be committing suicide. Minneapolis, Portland, and Seattle are not far behind, with Chicago in there somewhere as well. And then there’s the state of California.

Reflections on wearing 18th Century clothing

The New Neo Posted on by

Suprisingly interesting – at least to me, and to the person speaking as well. This young woman wore 18th Century clothing for five years, and she talks about the experience. The talking part starts at 2:08.

The small tattoo on her left arm is, of course, not an example of historical accuracy. However, tattooed ladies were sideshow attractions in the circuses of the 1800 and 1900s:

These “Tattooed Ladies” were covered — with the exception of their faces, hands, necks, and other readily visible areas — with various images inked into their skin. In order to lure the crowd, the earliest ladies, like Betty Broadbent and Nora Hildebrandt told tales of captivity; they usually claimed to have been taken hostage by Native Americans that tattooed them as a form of torture. However, by the late 1920s the sideshow industry was slowing and by the late 1990s the last tattooed lady was out of business.

Just in time for the practice to go mainstream.

And this post wouldn’t be complete without…

2020 America: It’s Orwell crossed with Lewis Carroll

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s become difficult if not impossible to watch those video compilations of the left’s reaction on Election Night 2016 to their dawning realization that Donald Trump has won. The videos are no longer entertaining or funny, if in fact they ever were.

The reason? They chronicle the beginning of the psychosis that has gripped half of America, and that in the minds of that half, justifies anything and everything that can be used against Trump, including the most remarkably widespread duplicity on the part of politicians, pundits, and the press. It would be hard to watch those videos now without thinking that the people in them are so determined to avoid a 2020 repeat that they will stop at nothing to prevent one.

From commenter Barry Meislin:

And if the country has to be destroyed so as to “RESTORE” to power those truly deserving to be the rulers of the country, then destroying the country thus becomes THE moral crusade of our times. THE ethical imperative of the age.

What is fascinating /curious/nauseating — and yes, scary — is that so many liberal, decent, caring, ethical, moral, bright, talented, sophisticated and intelligent people have been persuaded that this is what must be done. Have bought the finely-wrought lies, the “moral imperative” — the EVIL — of those who wish to do all this hook, line, and sinker.

Have they not read their Orwell? Have they not pondered the brutal and perverse consequences of the mass brainwashing of entire groups and countries? (Some of the most cultured countries the world had ever known, in fact?)

Well, yes, they have, actually. But everything has been turned on its head. Everything is mirror-image.
Everything is topsy-turvy.

Their reality has been totally, entirely—successfully—perverted.
(Lewis Carroll has merged with George Orwell to create everything that the Founders feared…and yet nothing really new, known as it has been since at least the times of the Psalmist.)

So that Orwell shows them — proves to them — that Trump and his supporters must be destroyed. The tragedy and destruction of the 20th century, likewise proves to them that Trump must be thwarted.

How are such gross perversions corrected?
How are the brainwashed “deprogrammed”?
How is the listing ship righted?

I have often wondered how it is that so many people I know – well-meaning, intelligent, well-educated, ordinarily kindly – have subscribed to this philosophy. My only answer is that, if the left controls almost all sources – and certainly the sources those people read – the left can say anything and be believed. And it’s even better if the people live in a blue bubble, and if alternate sources are discredited as crazy, racist, stupid, and evil.

I have learned that most people are not curious about the other side. Most people are content with keeping up with news in a very minimalist way and not questioning it.

Recently I had an exceptionally interesting discussion with a friend of mine. She’s a Democrat and can’t stand Trump. But I’ve started talking to her now and then in the last month or two about politics, because she is a person with an open mind in general. And she surprised me greatly recently by volunteering that she watched the entire GOP convention this year. She added that, when she mentioned that fact to her friends, and asked them if they had watched, every single one said the equivalent of “no – why would I be interested?”

This surprised her. “Why wouldn’t they want to know what the other side is saying?” she asked me. My answer to her was that this was the difference that made her unusual. I said that in my opinion most people don’t want to know, don’t want to hear, don’t want to have their belief system challenged by anything that could threaten it.

She is different; she wants to know. I don’t know what causes that difference, but I certainly notice it.

The MSM: playing the “confirmation via gossip” game

The New Neo Posted on by

Is there anyone out there whose vote has been changed by the current MSM attack on Trump? You know, the one that quotes four anonymous sourcing as saying that Trump called American war dead “losers” and “suckers”?

I believe that most people made their minds up long ago on how to vote in the 2020 presidential race. As for anyone undecided, those people puzzle me, and so I can’t figure out what they think. But the MSM has lost so much credibility, and anonymous sources have been wrong so many times, that anyone paying a particle of attention would write this story off.

The press is trying to inflate the story by claiming it’s been “confirmed”:

And who are these witnesses? Well, that’s the problem: we don’t know. The Atlantic refuses to say who they are. The Atlantic claims that they want to remain anonymous. Why? Because they’re afraid of mean tweets. No, I am not making this up. Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic actually said this and expected to be taken seriously.

So the story smells bad from the get-go.

The smell gets worse, though, as other witnesses in that meeting came forward denying that Trump said anything remotely like what is being claimed. And one of those witnesses is John Bolton, certainly no Trump fan…

There waa a lot of silly talk on social media over the weekend that the story has been “confirmed” by various news agencies, i.e the AP, Washington Post, and even Fox News. But what does “confirmed” mean in this context? See, it’s starting to sound a lot like the Ukraine hoax where some anonymous whistleblower said something which was attested to by some other guys who, as subsequent questioning revealed, weren’t first-hand witnesses at all. So their “confirmation” was pretty much worthless.

So basically what we have are news agencies “confirming” the story by pointing at other reporting the same thing. This is not reporting. This is a circle jerk.

Well:

Now Trump has not only denied he ever said that, but he’s added tweets saying “I never called John a loser.” That last bit piqued my interest, because I thought I remembered Trump calling McCain a loser for being captured during the Vietnam War, and the Snopes article I just linked quotes Trump saying that McCain was a loser, and criticizing his being captured.

Not Trump’s finest hour, IMHO.

However, I believe that the MSM would like the reader to think that Trump called McCain a “loser” because he was captured, and that this somehow confirms their hit piece in which they say he called war dead “losers.” Yes, Trump called McCain a loser, despite his denial. But it wasn’t for his Vietnam War record. It was because John McCain lost the 2008 election to Obama.

In other words, Trump called McCain a loser because McCain was a loser in 2008. Ho hum. The reason the topic of McCain’s being taken prisoner came up in that same interview was this:

[The discussion occurred at] an appearance then-candidate Trump made at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa. Conservative pollster Frank Luntz asked Trump if it was appropriate for a man running for the country’s highest office to refer to McCain — a war hero and navy pilot who became a prisoner of war after his plane was shot down over Vietnam — as a “dummy.”

Trump said: “He lost [the 2008 election], so I never liked him as much after that because I don’t like losers.”

When Luntz repeated that McCain was a war hero, Trump said: “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.”

So Trump did use the “loser” designation for McCain. But it was in the context of McCain’s 2008 loss. Trump even added that it was after that loss the he stopped liking McCain: “I never liked him as much after that…” Trump himself makes no link between the “loser” accusation and McCain’s war record; the link is Luntz’s, and Trump merely says that McCain wasn’t a war hero.

I’m so sick of the MSM. With very few exceptions, they have no integrity whatsoever. As General Sherman said:

I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are.

In 2005 I wrote a lengthy post on the history of the anonymous source, and I reposted it here. As with so many things, it began with Watergate:

As trust in the press grew, it seems that the time-honored journalistic methods of sourcing, previously acting as a system of checks and balances against the power of the press, were now considered unnecessary.

The most famous anonymous source of them all, of course, was Deep Throat of Watergate fame. He was not only a seminal figure in Nixon’s denouement (and thus a hero to liberals everywhere), but he was so renowned that he had his own nickname, taken from a popular porn flick. It turns out that Deep Throat had another claim to fame: he was the trailblazer in the practice of relying on anonymous sources, now so commonplace in today’s journalism.

I had suspected all along that Watergate might be at the heart of it, but it was difficult to document when I first tried to do some online research on the subject. I finally struck pay dirt with this article [note: the link is now dead] from American Journalism Review…It turns out Watergate was indeed a watershed in the use of this practice.

I suggest you read the whole post. But here’s another quote (from another dead link, this time to a 1998 interview with Allen H. Neuharth, the founder of USA Today) [my emphasis]:

Traditionally journalists were taught to believe in accuracy above all else. And that changed. I think it changed with Watergate, and I think the anonymous source is the most evil thing that newspapers and the media have adopted or adapted in the last 25 years [said in 1998]. It started with Watergate, (when) journalists coming off college campuses (were) determined to be (Bob) Woodward or (Carl) Bernstein. They believed that because of Watergate’s successes there was dirt under every mat in front of every office. They came out as young cynics. The journalists of my generation were taught to be skeptics. And there’s a hell of a difference between a skeptic and a cynic. All you need to do is be accurate and fair.

Neuharth said that in 1998. I wrote the original post in 2005, and the revised version in 2017. Now I would add that today’s “journalists” are neither skeptics nor cynics. They are leftist true believers, working for a cause: the installation of a permanent leftist elite authority controlling the press, the government, and everything else. They are propagandists, and that should be clear by now to every single American.

In Canada, they do it with masks

The New Neo Posted on by

At least, that’s the official recommendation:

Skip kissing and consider wearing a mask when having sex to protect yourself from catching the coronavirus, Canada’s chief medical officer said on Wednesday, adding that going solo remains the lowest risk sexual option in a pandemic.

Dr Theresa Tam said in a statement there is little chance of catching COVID-19 from semen or vaginal fluid, but sexual activity with new partners does increase the risk of contracting the virus, particularly if there is close contact like kissing.

And I think it’s fitting that the recommendation comes from Canada, because Leonard Cohen – one of Canada’s greatest exports – anticipated it all:

Trump announces that the federal government will no longer sell anti-racist trainers the rope with which to hang ourselves

The New Neo Posted on by

Interesting:

Critical Race Theory, translated into racist “anti-racism” training, is a leftist ideology that has been shown to foster more racial hatred and tension. The groups behind it are quite explicit about wanting to utterly change our system, and about their support for far left philosophies and programs. They hide themselves in the righteous cloak of being against racism, but they are among the most racist elements of society and what they preach is for the most part a highly destructive racism. I have written about the phenomenon before, in greater detail

So no, the government shouldn’t be supporting and paying for these training sessions. It is a scandal that, until now, they have been doing so.

Here’s an excerpt from the official White House announcement:

It has come to the President’s attention that Executive Branch agencies have spent millions of taxpayer dollars to date “training” government workers to believe divisive, anti-American propaganda.

For example, according to press reports, employees across the Executive Branch have been required to attend trainings where they are told that “virtually all White people contribute to racism” or where they are required to say that they “benefit from racism.” According to press reports, in some cases these training have further claimed that there is racism embedded in the belief that America is the land of opportunity or the belief that the most qualified person should receive a job.

These types of “trainings” not only run counter to the fundamental beliefs for which our Nation has stood since its inception, but they also engender division and resentment within the Federal workforce. We can be proud that as an employer, the Federal government has employees of all races, ethnicities, and religions. We can be proud that Americans from all over the country seek to join our workforce and dedicate themselves to public service. We can be proud of our continued efforts to welcome all individuals who seek to serve their fellow Americans as Federal employees. However, we cannot accept our employees receiving training that seeks to undercut our core values as Americans and drive division within our workforce.

The President has directed me to ensure that Federal agencies cease and desist from using taxpayer dollars to fund these divisive, un-American propaganda training sessions. Accordingly, to that end, the Office of Management and Budget will shortly issue more detailed guidance on implementing the President’s directive.

I wonder how successful the MSM and the Democrats will be in their Orwellian campaign to brand this move of Trump’s as racist.

“Silence is Violence” leads, of course, to compelled speech

The New Neo Posted on by

Jonathan Turley has this to say on the subject:

“Silence is violence” has everything that you want in a slogan: Alliteration. Brevity. Simplicity. It also can be chilling for some in the academic and free-speech communities.

On one level, it conveys a powerful message that people of good faith should not remain silent about great injustices. However, it can have a more menacing meaning to “prove the negative” – demanding that people prove they are not racist.

In a prior column, I warned of the thin line between speech codes and speech commands, as people move from compelling silence to compelling speech: “Once all the offending statues are down, and all the offending professors are culled, the appetite for collective suppression will become a demand for collective expression.”

The line between punishing speech and compelling speech is easily crossed when free speech itself is viewed as a threat…

The concern over speech codes becoming speech commands would have been viewed as utterly absurd just a few years ago. Now, even calls for civility in dialogue have been denounced as racist dog whistles. Trinity College professor Johnny Williams condemned those who call for civility as “uphold[ing] white supremacist heteropatriarchal capitalist power.”

The whole thing is worth reading. I have tremendous respect for Turley, who in recent years has shown not only intelligence but courage as well. However, there’s something I think he’s leaving out of his piece. Actually, a couple of things.

The first is that the phrase “Silence is violence” is an oxymoronic statement, emblematic of the toxic combination of illogic and anti-libertarianism that characterizes what passes for thought among the left these days, especially the academic left. And by “these days” I mean for many decades.

Silence is not violence and cannot be violence. It is not even speech. Nor is speech violence, although speech can contain a call to violence. This blurring of the line between speech and acts is not accidental nor is it trivial. The distinction between the two is one of the pillars of our legal system, and one of its great triumphs. Harmful speech is largely protected (except for defamation), but harmful actions are much more likely to be judged and penalized.

My second objection to Turley’s piece: when he writes that “the concern over speech codes becoming speech commands would have been viewed as utterly absurd just a few years ago,” I beg to differ. Yes, it would have been denied by the left a few years ago, to get the camel’s nose in the tent. And no doubt many naive people, unaware of how the left works, would think it an absurd possibility. But anyone familiar with the left would have to know that, as with Havel’s greengrocer parable, compelled speech would be on the agenda sooner or later.

Jordan Peterson recognized the problem years ago, and in fact it was the topic gained him fame in 2016 when he opposed a Canadian law that he said would compel the use of certain pronouns:

He zeroed in on Canadian human rights legislation that prohibits discrimination based on gender identity or expression.

Dr Peterson was especially frustrated with being asked to use alternative pronouns as requested by trans students or staff, like the singular ‘they’ or ‘ze’ and ‘zir’, used by some as alternatives to ‘she’ or ‘he’.

In his opposition, he set off a political and cultural firestorm that shows no signs of abating.

At a free speech rally mid-October, he was drowned out by a white noise machine. Pushing and shoving broke out in the crowd…

At the same time, the University of Toronto said it had received complaints of threats against trans people on campus.

His employers have warned that, while they support his right to academic freedom and free speech, he could run afoul of the Ontario Human Rights code and his faculty responsibilities should he refuse to use alternative pronouns when requested.

They also said they have received complaints from students and faculty that his comments are “unacceptable, emotionally disturbing and painful” and have urged him to stop repeating them.

And that was hardly the first sign. The slogan “silence is violence,” with its threatening implications, is not new in 2020. I found some sporadic uses of it earlier, for example in music lyrics as early as 2005, but more importantly in campus demonstrations (against alleged racism) such as this one from 2015.

As the Black Lives Matter movement picked up steam, so did the slogan “Silence is Violence.” BLM officially began after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin shooting, in July of 2013, but the movement became more well-known and popular after the Michael Brown case in 2014 (both cases hyped, distorted, and lied about by a combination of leftist activists, lawyers such as Ben Crump, and an army of MSM journalists). After that, we see the increasing use of the slogan in demonstrations such as the one I already linked to, or articles such as this one or this. Clearly, the slogan was already in use in the context of racial grievance groups. It also has often been paired with the word “white” as in “white silence is violence.”

By now “Silence is Violence” is mainstream, regarded as almost banal – although there is nothing banal about it. You can buy your “silence is violence” products on Etsy: T-shirts and COVID masks, for example, many of them with the added word “white” for emphasis (over 2 1/2 thousand results, here). Maybe some day the insignia will become a required national uniform.

And then there’s Serbia and Kosovo

The New Neo Posted on by

More news from the White House:

Today, I am pleased to announce yet another historic commitment. Serbia and Kosovo have each committed to economic normalization. After a violent and tragic history and years of failed negotiations, my Administration proposed a new way of bridging the divide. By focusing on job creation and economic growth, the two countries were able to reach a real breakthrough on economic cooperation across a broad range of issues.

We have also made additional progress on reaching peace in the Middle East. Kosovo and Israel have agreed to normalization of ties and the establishment of diplomatic relations. Serbia has committed to opening a commercial office in Jerusalem this month and to move its embassy to Jerusalem by July.

Let’s give Trump at least two Nobel peace prizes.

Black unlike me: the strange case of Jessica Krug

The New Neo Posted on by

This is one of the strangest stories I’ve ever read. I had never heard of Jessica Krug before; I doubt many people have. She seems to be somewhat typical of the sort of leftist professor focusing on racial studies so prevalent in colleges and universities today.

But in one way she’s very atypical – she’s been “passing” as black for her entire adult life, although she’s white.

A photo can be found here.

Krug’s photo points out the difficulty of racial classification by phenotype, because it turns out that Jessica is Jewish by birth (certainly not by practice; leftism seems to be her religion). I can see how she could pass for mixed race or Hispanic (she claimed to be of Caribbean origin), and this is true of a lot of basically white people.

It’s been true of me, too, although it never occurred to me to even try.

Krug remains an unrepentant and deeply committed leftist, and as such is also a person who has bought every single bit of the “anti-racism” anti-white line of the left. For all I know, she’s anti-Semitic too; it wouldn’t surprise me in the least, although she doesn’t say anything about that. But she’s what one might call a “self-hating white” – and my guess (and it’s only a guess) is that her hatred of herself as a white person caused her to flee into blackness, even more than the history of early personal trauma to which she refers, or even a desire to advance her career (which was probably also operating, although she doesn’t mention it).

Krug also obviously wants attention at this point, and she got it. Even from me.