Blog Post – Counting the COVID-19 Costs

Blog Post – Counting the COVID-19 Costs

Here we are three months and one week since the first COVID-19 case was reported in Pennsylvania.  What has happened in this commonwealth since then is tragic. 

• Businesses that were deemed ‘non-life sustaining’ by Governor Wolf and PA Health Secretary Dr. “Rachel” Levine have been shut down (and some remain shuttered under their orders).   Although, let’s remember that they deemed abortion clinics as “life-sustaining” and made no effort to close them. 
• Businesses could apply for a waiver, asking to remain open.  The waiver process is still unknown as Governor Wolf has failed to reveal the apparatus used to decide whether a business had to remain closed or not.  It should be noted here, that in some parts of the commonwealth some businesses were shuttered, but the same type business right down the street was allowed to remain open.  Why?  Who did the owners know?  What party did they donate to?  What connections did they have?
• About two million Pennsylvanians have applied for unemployment, yet Wolf will not allow the entire commonwealth to reopen.
• Governor Wolf has threatened financial repercussions for counties that want to reopen ahead of his color-coded scheme.
• PA business owners have been fined and lost business licenses because they opened “too soon” in order to pay their bills.
• No PA government officials missed even one paycheck during this entire shut down.  It also appears that Governor Wolf never missed a haircut or a trimming of his beard!
• Schools went from a two-week closure to being closed for the remaining school year.   Children lost the last two and a half months of their school year — only being able to meet via zoom, doing online lessons with parental help.  Many seniors had to graduate virtually.   A Harvard professor announced her concerns about parents’ homeschooling their own kids saying home education “violates children’s right to a ‘meaningful education’ and their right to be protected from potential child abuse,” and “may keep them from contributing positively to a democratic society.”  (Note:  Many parents have now expressed interest in pulling their kids out of public school and homeschooling them!  States are pushing back, knowing they will lose funding.)
• The first COVID-19 death in Pennsylvania was on March 18.  As of today, there have been 6,211 deaths, with 4,249 in nursing homes.    On March 19^th PA Health Secretary Levine issued guidance for nursing homes which read, “Nursing care facilities must continue to accept new admissions and receive readmissions for current residents who have been discharged from the hospital who are stable to alleviate the increasing burden in the acute care settings. This may include stable patients who have had the COVID-19 virus.” 
•   In Pennsylvania, it is estimated that 5% to 20% of residents, or 600,000 to 2.4 million people, get the flu each year and 120 to 2,000 die from flu-related complications.  Take away the COVID-19 deaths within the nursing homes and what do you get?  A very bad flu season.  In April PA stopped testing for season flu, but simply tested for COVID-19. 
• Surprise — continued testing shows more cases.  As of today there are 76,237 cases involving all 67 counties (with 2,225 probable cases).   There have been 496,589 negative test results.  Walmart parking lots are being used for COVID-19 testing.  Does seeing a “COVID-19 Testing” sign in your local Walmart parking lot lessen your fear of the disease or plant more seeds of fear and doubt?    Did you know that a recent military study shows military personnel evaluated who received the flu vaccine were at 36 percent increased risk for coronavirus!
• Healthy Pennsylvanians have allowed themselves to be placed under “house arrest” for months and continue to feel pressure from the governor and health secretary to wear a mask while out in public. Some stores still demand all customers wear a mask.  Back in February when asked about wearing a mask to prevent contracting COVID-19, Eric Toner, a scientist at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said “There’s little harm in it.  But it’s not likely to be very effective in preventing it.”   Then the CDC said the best precautions for the public are the standard, everyday ways to avoid all germs: wash your hands frequently, try not to touch your face, and avoid close contact with sick people.  No studies have been done to demonstrate that either a cloth mask or the N95 mask has any effect on transmission of the COVID-19 virus.
• We’ve been forced to follow the ever changing recommendations of health organizations such as the CDC and NIH — one day we are told the cornonavirus can live up to 17 hours on surfaces, the next we are told it can only live for a few minutes.  We are being told COVID-19 cannot be spread by asymptomatic people, the next we are told that’s not true.  In March US officials including Surgeon General Jerome Adams and Vice President Mike Pence urged people against buying and wearing masks to protect themselves from the new coronavirus.  Adams said wearing face masks could actually increase a person’s risk of contracting the coronavirus, now we are told if we leave the house without one we will die!  Until recently, the CDC did not recommend wearing a face mask or covering of any kind, unless a person was known to be infected. Also, no one is telling the frail elderly and those with lung diseases, such as COPD, emphysema or pulmonary fibrosis, of these dangers when wearing a facial mask of any kind—which can cause a severe worsening of lung function. This also includes lung cancer patients and people having had lung surgery, especially with partial resection or even the removal of a whole lung.
• The Navy’s two hospital ships, the USS Comfort and USS Mercy, were sent to help New York and Los Angeles, respectively, to relieve hospitals expected to be overrun by COVID-19 patients.  The 800 members of the USS Mercy’s Medical Treatment Facility treated 77 patients!  The USS Comfort’s 500 bed capacity saw 182 patients!  The regional predictions of hospitals being overrun with COVID-19 patients never materialized, yet NY Governor Cuomo refused to allow nursing home residents diagnosed with COVID-19 to go to the ship.
• The first part of May frontline COVID-19 doctors went public saying they feel pressured to show COVID-19 as cause-of-death on certificates of patients suspected of having the virus when they also have had underlying medical conditions.  Several PA county coroners have called for the resignation of Health Secretary Levine over the way COVID deaths have been counted, resulting in an increased number.  Levine was forced to remove around 200 names from the COVID death list.  One must ask whether there may not be a concerted effort to increase the number od COVID deaths in order to keep PA shutdown??  Remember over two-thirds of PA deaths are in nursing homes, which have been locked down the longest and remain locked down.  It should also be pointed out that Dr. Levine removed his 95-year-old mother from a York Count nursing home at the start of the pandemic!
• One of PA’s largest health care systems, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) began testing all of its patients for coronavirus in April.  Less than 1 percent of the 8,000 asymptomatic patients were positive.  On April 21^st UPMC’s chair of emergency medicine said the predicted surge of COVID-19 patients had not arrived and cases are on the decline in central and western PA.  UPMC has treated and released 500 people for coronavirus through its entire hospital system.  We have to remember that for most people COVID-19 symptoms are similar to those of a cold and can be treated at home and the survival rate is over 95 percent! 
• More and more we are hearing that we cannot open until there is a vaccine for COVID-19. Normally, it takes years to develop a safe vaccine, yet the big push is to have one within a few short months.  Even today, some illnesses do not have vaccines.  First let’s note that the top five pharmaceutical companies working on a COVID vaccine are using aborted baby cell lines in their research and all of them are funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation –  you know the guy who wants to reduce the world population by 15 percent! 
• Take a look at the money trail:  

Moderna – has received at least $20 million from the Gates Foundation in addition to research assistance from Dr. Anthony Fauci’s NIAID.

Oxford University/AstraZeneca – AstraZeneca just signed a $750 million agreement with two Gates Foundation-backed organizations.

Inovio Pharmaceuticals – On March 14, at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, the Gates Foundation poured several more millions into Inovio’s COVID research.

Johnson & Johnson – this Planned Parenthood funder is also using aborted baby cell lines, and they have been a recipient of Gates Foundation dollars.

A court battle has been set up to determine whether the General Assembly has any authority in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or can Governor Wolf act as a dictator without any oversight?  The GOP and a handful of Democrats have been trying to safely reopen PA businesses for weeks, but Governor Wolf has vetoed every effort.  This week, after Governor Wolf extended his COVID-19 emergency declaration for another 90 days, the General Assembly passed HR 836 which rescinds that order.  The General Assembly says the Constitution gives them that authority, while Governor Wolf says it gives him the sole ability to determine when his emergency declaration ends.  The GOP has sued Governor Wolf and it’s now in the hands of the PA Supreme Court’s 6-3 Democrat majority. 

Let’s pray that the balance of power will be restored and Pennsylvanians can regain the freedom to make their own choices in social distancing, wearing a mask, opening their business or not.