Objectively speaking, the worst is past us.

President Donald Trump blasted the news coverage of the virus in a tweet on July 6, saying, “New China Virus Cases up (because of massive testing), deaths are down, ‘low and steady’. The Fake News Media should report this and also, that new job numbers are setting records!”

President Trump is right. Anyone saying there’s a “record” number of daily new cases right now is lying. The peak was at the end of March. We know that.

The trends are still relatively on their way down, and IHME does not project they will rise again until September and October when the cold and flu season begins anew as should be expected.

One caveat on those projections has to do with whether masks are worn universally or not. IHME says that if masks are worn universally, by November, right before the election, there would be 32,000 new cases a day. If there are no masks, new cases would approach 240,000 a day.

The truth will be somewhere in between, and so the current project says 167,000 new cases a day by November.

But even in the baseline scenario, IHME only projects about 800 new deaths a day by November, undoubtedly owing to innovative treatments and cures that are significantly lowering the mortality rate for the virus across the board. In the UK, the mortality rate for those hospitalized has dropped from 6 percent to 1.5 percent, according to the University of Oxford.

In the meantime, hospitals are fully stocked and are prepared for the next cold and flu season like they were not last time.

Obviously, any vaccine would be a game changer between now and then in terms of the outlook.

So, where we stand right now might be about as well as can be expected. After months of lockdown, states and peoples are gradually reducing restrictions. Where there have been upticks in the number of cases, like in California, Texas, Florida and Arizona in the south, states have reinstated some restrictions.

To that end, the White house convened a summit on safely reopening schools yesterday and is more than welcome. The lessons being learned now will undoubtedly advise how states proceed with their plans in schools and other facilities this fall while we wait for the vaccine.

When they do reopen, states will monitor the number of cases very closely, and make course corrections along the way in the event of major outbreaks. We’re not out of the woods yet but the good news is that the mortality rate for the virus is steadily dropping.

Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.

To view online: http://dailytorch.com/2020/07/covid-19-deaths-continue-to-fall-even-as-confirmed-cases-temporarily-increase/

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ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured oped in the New York Post, the Claremont Institute’s Tom Klingenstein warns Republicans to defend the American way of life or we might lose it:

Republicans need to unite in defense of the American way of life

By Tom Klingenstein

Today’s Republican Party is lost. There is no clear mission driving the GOP. Some Republicans may describe their mission as “freedom” or “limited government.” But this is only a means to a mission. These maxims don’t provide guidance as to what the government should be doing at any particular time.

A better mission is this: to “preserve the American way of life.” This is a shorthand for securing the conditions necessary to pursue a worthy life — what the Founders meant by “happiness” in the Declaration of Independence.

America used to see ourselves as one people with a single culture, directed by the Declaration, supported by the Judeo-Christian ethos and shaped by our history. Of course, there were sub-cultures, but we understood them as all sharing the fundamental attributes of a single culture. We insisted that immigrants be assimilated. Colorblindness was our ideal.

We believed ourselves to be the least class-conscious, most self-reliant, most religious people in the world. We valued work, no matter how humble. Dependency was thought to be shameful. We believed that happiness required doing good in this world, and we prized civic participation. Many Americans still hold this understanding of our way of life, and it is this that Republicans should preserve.

But today, our society is ruled by another regime — an ideology that calls itself multiculturalism but seeks ultimately to destroy and replace our colorblind, Declaration-inspired heritage. Instead of a community of rights-bearing individuals with a shared understanding of a national good, this ideology prizes a collection of cultural identity groups, ranked by victimhood. Political correctness is its enforcement arm. Its end is a society where there are no outcome disparities among identity groups.

We see this movement on vivid display. Through projects such as The New York Times’ 1619 Project, multiculturalists are working actively to rewrite US history, reinvent education, destroy the family and the beliefs and values that are intrinsic to the American way of life.

In a society, there will always be differences among different groups. But multiculturalists demand the destruction of natural differences — the expansion of state power and countless social restrictions, including stringent political correctness.

Many Republicans don’t seem to think defending the American way of life is terribly important. Rather, they focus on low taxes, gun rights, strong defense and the rest of the traditional GOP agenda. Worse, some Republicans, particularly those of a libertarian bent, say to the multiculturalists, “You can live the way you wish, just let us live the way we wish.” What they don’t understand is they are fighting an enemy with totalitarian instincts. Multiculturalists practice “do it our way — or else.” This is a culture war of their making.

How can Republicans fight this war?

We must strengthen the foundations of the American way of life — family, religion, education, and community. But more important, Republicans must build public sentiment in favor of the American way of life. This is critical right now, because Americans don’t fully understand the extent of the multicultural threat. In fact, broad swaths are uninformed, because the multiculturalists control the opinion-forming institutions.

Republicans must take to the political arena to make well-developed arguments and call out multiculturalism when it manifests itself. They must create an overarching narrative that ­allows us to see the monster of multiculturalism in its entirety. Yes, this is a challenge. But if we don’t do this, those citizens who don’t bow to the altar of multiculturalism will assume they are alone — and acquiesce to what they perceive as an irresistible new orthodoxy.

It isn’t enough for Republicans to make just any arguments, however. They must make the right arguments from justice. Multiculturalists understand this well, and it makes them appear to have the high moral ground. They have (social) justice; Republicans have “it costs less,” “reduce the size of government” or “states’ rights.” Republicans will not win that fight. Rather, justice arguments must be met with other, better justice arguments.

None of these arguments will work however if we can’t speak about who we are. Thus, to preserve the American way of life, we must also confront the tyranny of political correctness. While exquisitely sensitive to its demands, Republicans don’t publicly identify political correctness as a problem, let alone the problem. Indeed, no Republican — other than President Trump — is campaigning against political correctness. This must change, lest we lose the American Dream. Forever.

To view online: https://nypost.com/2020/07/05/republicans-need-to-unite-in-defense-of-americas-culture/

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