It’s true that “coronavirus” is a large class of viruses that mostly cause only mild respiratory infections in humans, which we would recognize as just a cold. So it’s been kind of unhelpful that COVID-19 has just been widely reported on as “coronavirus.”
That ain’t the kind of coronavirus we’re talking about here, though.
They’ve been doing it long before he appeared on the scene, but there’s no doubt that he established conservative hate radio as we now know it.
I don’t think there’s been anyone better at both reflecting and shaping the “conservative” movement in this country, much less for as long as he’s been doing it. Ever.
How does the corrupt mishandling of a virulent disease by an authoritarian regime that lies about the scale of their own incompetence make Trump look bad
oh
I suspect COVID-19 does not either. The case fatality rates widely reported in the media are based on deaths from COVID-19 ÷ confirmed cases of COVID-19. However, the number of actual cases of COVID-19 are likely much higher (the estimates I have seen are about 2× the number of confirmed cases), meaning that the actual case fatality rate is likely closer to 1%—about a pertussis or smallpox Variola minor-level threat, rather than a Spanish flu-level threat.
From what I’ve been reading, because of under-reporting of mild cases, the death rate is probably less than 2-3%, but this just makes Limbaugh’s statements even crazier. 2-3% was the death toll of the Spanish Flu, FFS, which was one of the great pandemics of recent times. It killed 50-100 million people.
One coronavirus coming up!
I’m not arguing with the main point of your post, but a quick google shows the mortality rate from smallpox (when it existed) as 30%. Am I misreading something?
Yeah, somewhere out there someone learned “The common cold is a coronavirus” and said, “Wait, the coronavirus is the common cold?”
Just like “A rabbit is an animal” and therefore if you know something is an animal you know it is a rabbit.
I recall it was originally reported as a “novel coronvirus” which was accurate (even if “new” would be a little simpler than “novel”) but I think reporters might have had a problem where either they didn’t understand the purpose of specifying it was new or they thought, “It’s been around a few weeks, it’s not new anymore, right?” Either way, hopefully COVID-19 catches on.
The stupid! It hurts!
One of those people who I personally don’t know but loathe beyond any logical explanation. And I know that when he dies (I am hoping this will be soon), I will soon forget that he ever existed. Ours is a strange, strange existence…
I cant wait until, like the Iranian minister, Rush catches it too.
This man is a dangerous pathological lying sack of snake shit, and I will not apologize for saying I hope his cancer just does the job quickly already.
Morons like this create other anti-vax morons
What is most worrisome about this is that the people more affected by this type of fake news are exactly the older ones, the ones that are dying on a higher proportion of the new coronavirus on the rest of the world. Fox news boomers will be dying like flies. In Brazil the alt-right grapevine is already spreading rumors that fennel tea can protect against it 🤦🏽
With that being said, Limbaugh is thoroughly fucked if he gets it, because there’s no money in this world that will protect him from the combination of cancer+coronavirus.
The thing about being excited for Rush’s (or any specific asshole’s) passing is that, the way things are, there will always be another dangerous idiot to fill his space, possibly two. How do we stop that? How do we get the fringe back to the fringe? I don’t know and that worries me.
Sadly, right wing nut jobs on the radio are not new.
" Charles Edward Coughlin (/ˈkɒɡlɪn/ KOG-lin ; October 25, 1891 – October 27, 1979) was a Canadian-American Roman Catholic priest based in the United States near Detroit. He was the founding priest of the National Shrine of the Little Flower church. Commonly known as Father Coughlin , he was one of the first political leaders to use radio to reach a mass audience: during the 1930s, an estimated 30 million listeners tuned to his weekly broadcasts. He was forced off the air in 1939 because of his pro-fascist and anti-Semitic rhetoric.
Don’t forget Joe McCarthy. He lacked Rush’s breadth of material but he had a flair for props.
OK. I was not unaware of McCarthy or Father Coughlin, perhaps I should have specified “recent reliance on making up facts.”
