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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJared Kushner embraced 'econometric model' of coronavirus predicting 'far fewer fatalities':
Published 2 mins ago on May 2, 2020
By Bob Brigham
Senior advisor Jared Kushner embraced the findings of an internal White House coronavirus model that was conducted by an economist, according to an in-depth new Washington Post expose on the administrations response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The epidemiological models under review in the White House Situation Room in late March were bracing. In a best-case scenario, they showed the novel coronavirus was likely to kill between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans. President Trump was apprehensive about so much carnage on his watch, yet also impatient to reopen the economy and he wanted data to justify doing so, the newspaper reported.
So the White House considered its own analysis. A small team led by Kevin Hassett a former chairman of Trumps Council of Economic Advisers with no background in infectious diseases quietly built an econometric model to guide response operations, the newspaper explained. Many White House aides interpreted the analysis as predicting that the daily death count would peak in mid-April before dropping off substantially, and that there would be far fewer fatalities than initially foreseen, according to six people briefed on it.
Although Hassett denied that he ever projected the number of dead, other senior administration officials said his presentations characterized the count as lower than commonly forecast and that it was embraced inside the West Wing by the presidents son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and other powerful aides helping to oversee the governments pandemic response, the newspaper reported. For Trump whose decision-making has been guided largely by his reelection prospects the analysis, coupled with Hassetts grim predictions of economic calamity, provided justification to pivot to where he preferred to be: cheering an economic revival rather than managing a catastrophic health crisis.
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/jared-kushner-embraced-econometric-model-of-coronavirus-predicting-far-fewer-fatalities-report/
So these psychopathic jerks were sitting in room, taking a look at the "data"..............thinking that the people in this country are EXPENDABLE, and they just wanted to open the country up to the libertarian slum lord mentality......what's 100.,000 here or 240,000 there.............. no big deal ..........JFC.............
It'S only fucking May 2020..................185 days to go.......
https://www.270towin.com/2020-countdown-clock/
JenniferJuniper
(4,495 posts)I'm a little dyslexic.
But it still works.
Beartracks
(12,761 posts)... just finding a way to justify those deaths on paper. And wouldn't you know, the justification is built on dollar signs.
"We didn't act to prevent or mitigate this pandemic disaster so that we could show the world how good we can handle such a catastrophe! So... how much death... I mean, what 'collateral damage' can we afford?"
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SoonerPride
(12,286 posts)no_hypocrisy
(45,771 posts)Loki Liesmith
(4,602 posts)All too often they cant even model economics.
Prof. P.E. Name
(50 posts)The most dysfunctional Presidential administration ever (sorry that I made this sound just like the orange tinted occupant of the White House) engaged a RW Economist to do worst case Health and pandemic forecast? How insulting to Professional Economists everywhere and to the human race.
Kevin Hasset when Head of the WH Council of Economic Advisors gave TV interviews about dire economic events with that manure-eating smile/smirk on his face just like Dr. Strangelove did while forecasting the end of civilization. Considering the human circumstances, the thought of his doing this for the fool and his son-in-law in this critical juncture in our Nation is unbearable.
Mr. Hasset and an accomplice gleefully wrote a book a few years ago about the Dow at 36,000, which seems like a far off dream nowadays.