Do You Know the American Death Toll from Coronavirus?
Mar 12, 2020
RUSH: Now, there are other things still related to this that we didn’t get into in the first hour. And, you know, Trump’s banning travel from Europe. Democrats not happy about this, folks. They do not like losing their precious travel from their precious European Union even for a day. Some people have asked, “What did you think of president’s speech last night? You didn’t say.†I thought he gave the right speech at the right time.
Look, I know some people get frustrated. “My gosh, couldn’t they do something with the sound? You could hear the president breathing.†You can hear him breathing whenever he speaks! He’s got… It’s part of his speech pattern. I’ve grown accustomed to it. Maybe some sound people could do something to limit it by turning down the compression. But… (sigh) Look, he did what he had to do.
He was purposely dour because that’s what the media and the Democrats are demanding. He read from the prompter. That’s what they think is presidential. I’ve had a lot of people say, “That’s not Trump’s best format! He should just launch, he should…†Right. But understand what this was last night. This wasn’t a Trump rally. This was a presidential address from the Oval Office.
Of course, these lamebrains on the left have this idea of what is presidential and what isn’t, and reading a teleprompter — which takes hardly any skill whatsoever — is considered presidential. So he read the teleprompter, he stuck to the script, he was dour, he was serious. As far as these people are concerned, that’s how you define presidential in their stupid, boring world.
So he did what he had to do. Politically, it was wise. I mean, folks, I cannot tell you how much the left in this country hates the idea of shutting travel from their beloved European Union. But because Trump did it, now they’re gonna have to go on record either opposing the travel ban or supporting it — and if they oppose the travel ban, it’s gonna be lethal for them.
They may as well come out and proclaim that they’re for open borders, which we all know that they are. In any case, these shutdowns may clamp down the virus and the hysteria because I guarantee you… I asked you before the break, “Can anybody tell me the number of coronavirus deaths in the United States?†(interruption) You looked it up, did you? You had to look it up because you didn’t know off the top of your head.
The one thing missing in all of this panic-driven coronavirus news is what? The number of deaths in the United States! Why, we get stories, “My God, a player in the NBA actually touched a microphone of a media person. The NBA’s canceling the season!†“Oh, my God! Tom Hanks and his wife are in Australia filming an Elvis movie, and they’ve got the coronavirus. Are we gonna have to stop going to movies?
“Can it spread from the screen to the audience? Oh, my God! Is it that bad?†In all of this panicked reporting, what’s the one thing missing? The death toll. You don’t hear about the death toll, do you? Do you know what the total is? I’m not gonna tell you. I’ll tell you this. About 60% of the death toll has happened in one place, and I don’t mean one city. I mean in one place in one city.
Now, you would think with a panic of this kind, with this magnitude, that the central reporting figure would be the number of people dying, and yet? Well, that’s not part of the reporting at all. Yet go back. The swine flu: 18,000 people dead, 60 million infected, 300,000 hospitalized in 2009-2010. You know another reason why that didn’t make any big news? It’s because that’s when Obama was selling Obamacare!
Of course, the swine flu helped push the notion for government-run health care. So the swine flu coming along when it did in 2009-2010, the media glommed right onto it and used that to promote Obamacare. There was no way Obama was gonna be ripped or criticized for presiding over a runaway, mad period of swine flu infectious and death. No way. (interruption) You still don’t know the death toll? You can’t find it. Folks, you’re gonna have a tough time finding it. (interruption)
How long did it take you to find the death toll, Snerdley, and where did you find it? Less than a minute, okay, but what…? (interruption) Okay. Did you go to a specific website, or did you just…? (interruption) Did you do a Google search “coronavirus death toll� (interruption) And what site did it take you to? You even forgot what the website was already? All right.
Okay. I’ll tell you what number he found in his site search. (interruption) Thirty-nine, did you say? Do you know that 26 of those deaths have occurred in a nursing home in Seattle, Washington state? You take the 26 deaths out of the equation from the nursing home in Washington state and how many deaths are we talking about? And yet we are reacting this way? We’re wrecking the United States economy!
We are literally destroying the stock market. We’re telling people not to go to work! We’re telling people not to congregate with people. We’re shutting down the freaking NBA season (which, big deal). But now Major League Baseball’s getting ready to kick off. Oh, what are they gonna do about March Madness, Mr. Snerdley?
What are they gonna do about the NCAA and what are they gonna do with — upcoming — the first major of the PGA season? That would be the Masters. Can you imagine the Masters without the patrons? Can you imagine the Masters without the gallery? Would they do it? In fact, I would think golfers might actually like it with no fans in there, no noise, no distraction. But I could be wrong about that.
And in the midst of all this you get to turn on TV and listen to how incompetent the president is and how incapable he is at dealing with such complex situations. What are we talking about? Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes for Health has been all over television telling anybody who would listen the most important thing that happened here was Trump limiting and banning travel from China in January. Fauci is saying if that hadn’t happened it’d be much worse in America than it is.
Are they ignoring him? Yes. They’re focusing on other things Fauci is saying, but they’re ignoring that. Anyway, Trump doing all of the stuff that these little Chihuahuas were ankle-biting him to do, they now either have to oppose it as unnecessary or say that travel bans were too late, which they can’t do given their open borders creed.
So Trump’s kind of playing it, I think, brilliantly on the political front. You might not have liked the way he sounded. You might not have liked the way he looked. But what he did and what he said in that Oval Orifice address last night has presented several dilemmas for the Democrats. He stayed on script. He was dour, which means they can’t find much to smear him with because he stayed on script and he was presidential.
I don’t like all these shutdowns. I think this is so overblown. But remember, this is political. Everybody’s, “No, Rush, it’s not political. It’s a health issue.†Yeah, I wish it were. If it were being treated as a health issue strictly, it’d be one thing. But it is political. And so in that context, it was the wise thing to do. And maybe in three to four weeks it’ll stop the new case increases that are fueling the panic, ’cause it’s not the death toll that’s fueling the panic. It’s something else.
Isn’t that amazing, by the way, folks? The death toll is not part of any of the reporting. Is that fascinating to you, or is that something that only fascinates me?
https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2020/03/12/do-you-know-the-american-death-toll-from-coronavirus/
