I was checking Rush’s site today to see if he mentioned the Coronavirus. He’s still downplaying the seriousness of it, but quoted someone who backs him - Admiral Brett Groir.
Yesterday in Washington, on Capitol Hill, the assistant secretary of Health and Human Services, Admiral Brett Giroir spoke to reporters about the coronavirus, and listen to what he said here.
GIROIR: The typical mortality rate for seasonal flu is about 0.1% or 0.15%. The best estimates now of the overall mortality rate for COVID-19 is somewhere between 0.1% and 1%, okay? That’s lower than you’ve heard probably in many reports. Why is this? Number one, it’s because many people don’t get sick and don’t get tested. So probably for every case, there are at least two or three cases that are not in the denominator. It certainly could be higher than normal flu, it probably is, but it’s not likely in the range of 2 to 3%. You have a denominator problem, and I want you to understand that. That only the people who are really sick or have symptoms come in and get tested.
I looked up Giroir, to see his Navy service. Turns out he’s an officer in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps - and they receive military ranks. Prior to that he’d been in academia, in particular in Texas. From Wikipedia:
Giroir served as the deputy director, and then a director, of DARPA’s Defense Science Office from 2004 to 2008, vice chancellor for the Texas A&M University System from 2008 to 2013, and as the chief executive officer of the Texas A&M Health Science Center from 2013 to 2015. He is widely known for leading novel biomedical initiatives within Texas culminating in the 2012 announcement of a public private partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service Biomedical Research and Development Authority to accelerate development and manufacturing of vaccines and therapeutics for pandemic influenza and emerging infectious diseases. This partnership had a $3 billion contract value over 25 years, with an estimated $41 billion in economic impact to Texas.
The above is interesting, but I have to admit that I didn’t realize that these people in the Public Health Service were civilians with military titles…
