Tucker: Experts can't predict when coronavirus pandemic will end
A close look at the data suggests the peak of the epidemic in New York may have already passed.
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Tucker Carlson examined the coronavirus pandemic Tuesday, asking why the models of the pandemic appear to overestimated the scale of the outbreak and when Americans will be "allowed" to discuss when they can move forward with their lives.
"Whatever is happening, this epidemic appears to be doing less damage than anticipated and it's receding more quickly. Not so long ago, some of our leaders seemed on the verge of panic. On March 24, for example, Governor [Andrew] Cuomo of New York descended into a state of frenzy during his daily press conference," the "Tucker Carlson Tonight" host said. "Cuomo dismissed the federal assistance New York had received as grossly inefficient. Tens of thousands of innocent New Yorkers were going to die, he said. They will choke to death while doctors do nothing to help them."
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"It was effective theater, but it was awful," Carlson said. "That's how badly New York needed them, except it didn't need them. As it turned out, New York has many more beds and ventilators than it needs."
Carlson noted that the scale pandemic has so far failed to match the expectations set by modelers whose expertise is relied on by public officials.
"Fewer hospitalizations are a godsend for this country," he said. "And as awful as this epidemic has been and will be, at least so far, it hasn't been the disaster that we feared.
"Our health care system hasn't collapsed. That was the key concern, except in a handful of places," Carlson added. "Really, it hasn't come very close. Patients are not dying alone in the hallways of emergency rooms, with physicians too overwhelmed to treat them. That was the concern. It happens in other countries. It's not happening here. Thank God for that."
The host then said that "if the virus is doing less ... damage to our system than expected" then we should be able to begin discussing how and when return American life to as close to normal as possible. However, Carlson said, many are pushing back against even having a conversation about that idea.
"This is what happens when public debate, healthy public debate is replaced by memes and mindless partisans on social media define the terms of allowable conversation as they have," Carlson said. "And so we plod forward as if the flawed models weren't flawed at all, as if the reality of what is actually happening in our hospitals should play no role at all in the decisions we make going forward."
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Carlson believes it is fair to question the modelers closely and respectfully about their work that has played such a role in ask those whose models and predictions have played a role in the coronavirus reaction should answer some questions.
"Before we go ahead and alter our lives and our country forever, it is fair to ask about the numbers," Carlson said. "Their numbers, the ones we acted on the first time that turned out to be completely wrong. How do they screw that up so thoroughly? That is a fair question."
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