To say the media has been slightly unhinged over President Trump’s Covid diagnosis is a fair assessment. But with so much hysteria going on Vice President Mike Pence surely was avoiding getting caught up in the crossfire. Well, not any longer.
With the vice presidential debate set for this week CNN fixture and member of The Bulwark team of TDS sailors, Amanda Carpenter, feels like she has the knockout blow at the ready for Kamala Harris or the moderator Susan Page, of USA Today, to deliver right out of the gate of the Q & A session.
First question to Pence in the VP debate on Wednesday: “As head of the COVID task force, would you like to apologize to the nation for the White House’s gross mishandling and spread of the virus?”
— Amanda Carpenter (@amandacarpenter) October 5, 2020
First question for Amanda to answer would be this — How is it considered a ”gross mishandling” when we are experiencing far fewer deaths from the Coronavirus than the medical practitioners were telling us was going to take place?
This probably will sound like a wild speculation, given all the media and the knee-jerk Trump opponents have been saying about the fumbled approach to the crises and the administration’s alleged sloth at the start of the outbreak. Except, while the press loves to blare out the 200,000 deaths total and the ever rising infection rate (all due to people who recover not being removed from the tabulation) what they would never do is admit something: That ”alarming” death total is actually about 10% of what the medical experts had told us could become the death count.
As was tabulated at Townhall recently, there was not a solitary voice but many top-flight medical doctors who declared that 1 million people were assured to die from the Covid pandemic in America, and there was a likelihood of 2 million. Here are just a few of the vaunted names who gave us these promises.
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION – This is the controversial body that the White House has disputed, but the press has adored. WHO stated the mortality rate would be 3-4%, with estimates that 10% of the population becoming infected, that is bringing in a figure near, or over 1 million deaths.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI – He stated how 1.7 million deaths was possible, but stated that the efforts made by the administration could stem the worst case scenario.
DR. BRIAN MONHAN – The Congressional medical expert agreed with Fauci on mortality rates, and declared that up to one third of the country could become infected. We have not come anywhere close to that, with current infections at the 7.5 million level.
DR. NEIL M. FERGUSON – The New York Times cited this world renown epidemiologist stating that if everything were handled perfectly the US would only see about 1.1 million deaths, with 2 million a possibility. The press at the time accused Trump of fostering the 2 million deaths, despite it being only a projection.
ANDREW SLAVITT – The former Obama administration expert did not offer his estimates — he gave the figures arrived at by teams of noted medical experts. These panels of national medical experts talked of higher infection rates, in the 40-70% range. Pegging the spread to over 200 million citizens, this would deliver deaths in the 2-2.5 million range.
Two things need to be reiterated here: These are the very experts the press not only said we had to listen to but who they touted with headlines, and in these examples the very best they could tell us was that ”only” around 1 million people would die. We have instead reached the downturn of infections, and a steady drop in deaths as we are barely at one fifth of the promised mortality figures.
What Amanda Carpenter has declared to be a ”gross mishandling and spread” of the virus is in truth only 20% of the assured number the proclaimed experts promised we would see. If the gross mishandling Carpenter alleges took place the deaths would be at 2 million, so we now see only 10% has taken place. We have only experienced a fraction of their promised infection rates, promises the press was already scorching the administration about long before they have been proven hysterically inaccurate.
If Mike Pence has anything to apologize to Amanda over this Wednesday night would be, ”I am sorry that we even listened to what the media was screeching about in the early months of the pandemic outbreak.”
