It is interesting that I had a similar thing said to me this past Saturday (June 26th) as the first truncated call (from Monday, June 28th) — which is why I grabbed it. John Phillip’s is out and I include two separate days. The first fill in radio host is Randy Wang (zero to 1:26 mark | can you get it twice), the second is Larry O’Connor (1:27 mark to the end | herd immunity). The questions are being asked of *Dr. Kelly Victory
(I have been talking about the “cycle counts” for a long time, BTW. My latest being here.)
*Docs Bio
“I met her through a friend, and find her to be an amazing person,” Phillips said. “She has numerous degrees from elite universities. She is a trauma doctor. She is the world’s greatest cook, greatest gardener, runs marathons… She’s one of the rare individuals who excel at everything” — John Phillips
BS from Duke Univ. and MD from the U. of North Carolina
Board certified trauma and emergency specialist with over 15 years of clinical experience
CMO for large company — delivered on-site healthcare for the employees and their families of Fortune 500 companies
Expert in disaster preparedness and the medical management of mass casualties
Member of the Leadership Council at Harvard School of Public Health (Harvard School of Public Health and Kennedy School of Government) to train leaders on national disaster preparedness and response
Teacher of courses for first responders, community leaders, and organizations to limit casualties and enhance resiliency
STANFORD has released a new paper where they look at their own studies as well as “23 studies with a sample size of at least 500 have been published either in the peerreviewed literature or as preprints as of June 7, 2020.” In this they find confirmation to strongly say:
…In the paper, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, Ioannidis surveyed 23 different seroprevalence studies and found that “among people <70 years old, infection fatality rates ranged from… 0.00-0.23% with median of 0.04%.”
The median fatality rate of all cases, he writes, is 0.26%, significantly lower than some earlier estimates that suggested rates as high as over 3%.
In the paper, Ioannidis acknowledges that “while COVID-19 is a formidable threat,” the apparently low fatality rate compared to earlier estimates “is a welcome piece of evidence.”
“Decision-makers can use measures that will try to avert having the virus infect people and settings who are at high risk of severe outcomes,” he writes. “These measures may be possible to be far more precise and tailored to specific high- risk individuals and settings than blind lockdown of the entire society.”
Keep in mind in March I noted that the rates would be from 0.03% to 0.25% — not to brag or anything, but I am in the 23-studies lane-lines. I just couldn’t differentiate between age groups, but that was assumed as the average age of deaths.
And as states are going over death certificates, they are dropping by at least 25% in deaths by Covid-19. And some independent groups are helping “catch” the inflated number, like Pennsylvania’s “Wolf administration was caught this week adding up to 269 fake deaths to the state totals on Tuesday” (CITADELPOLITICS). Or this short example (PJ-MEDIA)
On Thursday, the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) confirmed a report by the Freedom Foundation that they have included those who tested positive for COVID-19 but died of other causes, including gunshot injuries, in their coronavirus death totals. This calls into serious question the state’s calculations of residents who have actually died of the CCP pandemic.
Last week, after it was reported that, like Washington, Colorado was counting deaths of all COVID-19 positive persons regardless of cause (which had resulted in the inclusion of deaths from alcohol poisoning), the Colorado Department of Health and Environment began to differentiate between deaths “among people with COVID-19” and “deaths due to COVID-19.”
Just one more of the many examples I could share is the New York Times getting 40% wrong of their “died from Covid-19 under 30-years old” front page news story. Mmmm, no, they didn’t die of Covid. As states figure this out, the inflated counts (like when Colorado did this — fell by 25%: lots more on this below).
CONTRACTED TWICE?
In a recent conversation two items came up that are worth updating for friends and family. The first deals with if a person can get the WuFlu twice. FORBES has a good article on this:
…Whenever I lecture on the Covid-19 outbreak, someone always asks me, “Can I get infected twice?” This is a natural concern. After all, if someone suffers through the prolonged fever, hacking cough, and profound weakness and misery caused by the virus, one small positive aspect might be not having to suffer through it a second time.
Such fears were ratcheted up after there were reports in Korea about people who had recovered from illness and tested negative, only to have a later test come up positive again. This prompted fear of new spread, even from recovered victims. Back in early March, a mayor in Texas, blasted the CDC for releasing a recovered patient from isolation, only to have that patient test positive again after release.
As a health care provider, the last thing you want to do is tell someone they are cured and release them back into the community, only to learn later that they started a whole new chain of virus transmission. Fortunately, a new study from the South Korean Center for Disease Control helps to answer part of the question. They studied patients who tested negative upon recovery, but in later tests became positive again. Could they spread the virus again?
It turns out, despite the positive test, they found that none of them were secreting live, infectious virus. It was a quirk of the rapid tests, which sample for low levels of genetic material, not whole virus. They concluded that the recovered patients had residual genetic fragments that still triggered the tests to turn positive. Those individuals were no longer contagious.
This was a relief. In other good news, a new draft paper reports that monkeys that were infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus developed antibodies and were protected from illness when exposed to the virus a second time. It’s a small study, but it offers a glimmer of hope that once infected, there is immunity to re-infection….
The second issue was regarding animals being able to contract the virus.
Q: Could I infect my pets with coronavirus, or vice versa? Can someone get infected by touching an animal’s fur? Should I get my pet tested for coronavirus?
Most of those infections came from contact with people who had coronavirus, like a zoo employee who was an asymptomatic carrier.
But according to the CDC, there is no evidence animals play a significant role in spreading the virus to humans. Therefore, at this time, routine testing of animals for Covid-19 is not recommended.
As always, it’s best to wash your hands after touching an animal’s fur and before touching your face. And if your pet appears to be sick, call your veterinarian.
More “known” examples from the CDC:
A small number of pet cats and dogs have been reported to be infected with the virus in several countries, including the United States. Most of these pets became sick after contact with people with COVID-19.
Several lions and tigersexternal icon at a New York zoo tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 after showing signs of respiratory illness. Public health officials believe these large cats became sick after being exposed to a zoo employee who was infected with SARS-CoV-2. All of these large cats have fully recovered.
SARS-CoV-2 was recently discovered in mink (which are closely related to ferrets) on multiple farms in the Netherlands. The mink showed respiratory and gastrointestinal signs; the farms also experienced an increase in mink deaths. Because some workers on these farms had symptoms of COVID-19, it is likely that infected farm workers were the source of the mink infections. Some farm cats on several mink farms also developed antibodies to this virus, suggesting they had been exposed to the virus at some point. Officials in the Netherlands are investigating the connections between the health of people and animals as well as the environment on these mink farms.
(The below is from June 19th)
COMPARED
MAROON numbers are death rate, and the BLUE numbers are hospitalization rates. Rated by placement as well. This is merely for comparison to decide if $1.1 trillion lost for every month of the economic shutdown and the long-term damage on the U.S. economy, shrinking it by $7.9 trillion over the next decade.
[1]The 1918-19 “Spanish Flu” Pandemic — 675,000 died in the United States, some victims died within mere hours or days of developing symptoms.
[2]The 1957-58 “Asian Flu” Pandemic — 116,000 deaths were in the US. Most of the cases affected young children.
[3]The 1968 “Hong Kong Flu” Pandemic—100,000 deaths occurred in the United States
[12](9) The 2009 H1N1 Pandemic— About 80% of those deaths are believed to have been people younger than 65 — which is unusual. During typical seasonal influenza epidemics, 70-90% of deaths occur in people over 65. 274,000 hospitalizations, and 12,469 deaths in the United States due to the virus.
[9](7)2010-2011 flu season— 290,000 influenza-related hospitalizations and 37,000 flu-associated deaths
[6](3)2012-2013 flu season — 56,000 deaths is the CDC estimate. 571,000 influenza-related hospitalizations
[8](6)2013-2014 flu season — 347,000 influenza-related hospitalizations, and 38,000 flu-associated deaths
[7](2)2014-2015 flu season— 591,000 influenza-related hospitalizations, and 51,000 flu-associated deaths
[11](8)2015-2016 flu season— 280,000 influenza-related hospitalizations, and 23,000 flu-associated deaths
[8](4)2016-2017 flu season— 500,000 influenza-related hospitalizations, and 38,000 influenza-associated deaths
[5](1)2017-2018 flu season — The CDC estimates that between 46,000 and 95,000 Americans died due to influenza during the 2017-18 flu season. This resulted in an estimated 959,000 hospitalizationsand a middle-ground of 61,099 deaths.
[10](5)2018-2019 flu season — 490,600 hospitalizations, and 34,200 deaths from influenza
[4](10)Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2) — With the adjusted numbers that I believe the flu (a bad influenza season assumed to be novel influenza on untested patients), I would bet we are at about 80,000 or less deaths from The WuFlu. US Coronavirus Hospitalizations is at a current level of 229,212.
Steven Crowder takes to the streets of Dallas to have real conversations with real people. In this installment, Steven discusses the COVID19 death count and the fake news surrounding it.
Crowder is posted above as an UPDATE to support my contention below:
(The below is from May 24th, 2020)
Here are some updated numbers, from CONSERVATIVE REVIEW — and I will post a portion of an older post [recently updated] underneath this (also, if the graphics are not linked to ENLARGE, I will linkto the Twitter accounts associated with the graphics):
The CDC just came out with a report that should be earth-shattering to the narrative of the political class, yet it will go into the thick pile of vital data and information about the virus that is not getting out to the public. For the first time, the CDC has attempted to offer a real estimate of the overall death rate for COVID-19, and under its most likely scenario, the number is 0.26%. Officials estimate a 0.4% fatality rate among those who are symptomatic and project a 35% rate of asymptomatic cases among those infected*jump, which drops the overall infection fatality rate (IFR) to just 0.26% — almost exactly where Stanford researchers pegged it a month ago.
Until now, we have been ridiculed for thinking the death rate was that low, as opposed to the 3.4% estimate of the World Health Organization, which helped drive the panic and the lockdowns. Now the CDC is agreeing to the lower rate in plain ink.
Plus, ultimately we might find out that the IFR is even lower because numerous studies and hard counts of confined populations have shown a much higher percentage of asymptomatic cases. Simply adjusting for a 50% asymptomatic rate would drop their fatality rate to 0.2% – exactly the rate of fatality Dr. John Ionnidis of Stanford University projected.
More importantly, as I mentioned before, the overall death rate is meaningless because the numbers are so lopsided. Given that at least half of the deaths were in nursing homes, a back-of-the-envelope estimate would show that the infection fatality rate for non-nursing home residents would only be 0.1% or 1 in 1,000. And that includes people of all ages and all health statuses outside of nursing homes. Since nearly all of the deaths are those with comorbidities.
The CDC estimates the death rate from COVID-19 for those under 50 is 1 in 5,000 for those with symptoms, which would be 1 in 6,725 overall, but again, almost all those who die have specific comorbidities or underlying conditions. Those without them are more likely to die in a car accident. And schoolchildren, whose lives, mental health, and education we are destroying, are more likely to get struck by lightning.
[….]
To put this in perspective, one Twitter commentator juxtaposed the age-separated infection fatality rates in Spain to the average yearly probability of dying of anything for the same age groups, based on data from the Social Security Administration. He used Spain because we don’t have a detailed infection fatality rate estimate for each age group from any survey in the U.S. However, we know that Spain fared worse than almost every other country. This data is actually working with a top-line IFR of 1%, roughly four times what the CDC estimates for the U.S., so if anything, the corresponding numbers for the U.S. will be lower.
I wanted to expand the Twitter graphic and link above a bit, I spent some time going through the comments and many of the conversational offshoots. I figured this collection (ending with my comment) sums up the issue in a lot less time:
(Click once to get large graphic, click again to blow it up)
There is a fascinating “official” continuation of this convo with more detail (linked in below Twitter graphic):
…as well as all the Facebook discussions/debates between myself, friends, family, and complete strangers.
...AND,
…as I show below, this number will get lower upon investigation of common sense assumptions if never investigated.
REASON has their article discussing the issue of IFR and America compared to Europe (see also BLOOMBERG’S article):
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the current “best estimate” for the fatality rate among Americans with COVID-19 symptoms is 0.4 percent. The CDC also estimates that 35 percent of people infected by the COVID-19 virus never develop symptoms. Those numbers imply that the virus kills less than 0.3 percent of people infected by it—far lower than the infection fatality rates (IFRs) assumed by the alarming projections that drove the initial government response to the epidemic, including broad business closure and stay-at-home orders.
The CDC offers the new estimates in its “COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios,” which are meant to guide hospital administrators in “assessing resource needs” and help policy makers “evaluate the potential effects of different community mitigation strategies.” It says “the planning scenarios are being used by mathematical modelers throughout the Federal government.”
The CDC’s five scenarios include one based on “a current best estimate about viral transmission and disease severity in the United States.” That scenario assumes a “basic reproduction number” of 2.5, meaning the average carrier can be expected to infect that number of people in a population with no immunity. It assumes an overall symptomatic case fatality rate (CFR) of 0.4 percent, roughly four times the estimated CFR for the seasonal flu. The CDC estimates that the CFR for COVID-19 falls to 0.05 percent among people younger than 50 and rises to 1.3 percent among people 65 and older. For people in the middle (ages 50–64), the estimated CFR is 0.2 percent.
That “best estimate” scenario also assumes that 35 percent of infections are asymptomatic, meaning the total number of infections is more than 50 percent larger than the number of symptomatic cases. It therefore implies that the IFR is between 0.2 percent and 0.3 percent. By contrast, the projections that the CDC made in March, which predicted that as many as 1.7 million Americans could die from COVID-19 without intervention, assumed an IFR of 0.8 percent. Around the same time, researchers at Imperial College produced a worst-case scenario in which 2.2 million Americans died, based on an IFR of 0.9 percent.
Such projections had a profound impact on policy makers in the United States and around the world. At the end of March, President Donald Trump, who has alternated between minimizing and exaggerating the threat posed by COVID-19, warned that the United States could see “up to 2.2 million deaths and maybe even beyond that” without aggressive control measures, including lockdowns.
One glaring problem with those worst-case scenarios was the counterfactual assumption that people would carry on as usual in the face of the pandemic—that they would not take voluntary precautions such as avoiding crowds, minimizing social contact, working from home, wearing masks, and paying extra attention to hygiene. The Imperial College projection was based on “the (unlikely) absence of any control measures or spontaneous changes in individual behaviour.” Similarly, the projection of as many as 2.2 million deaths in the United States cited by the White House was based on “no intervention”—not just no lockdowns, but no response of any kind.
Another problem with those projections, assuming that the CDC’s current “best estimate” is in the right ballpark, was that the IFRs they assumed were far too high. The difference between an IFR of 0.8 to 0.9 percent and an IFR of 0.2 to 0.3 percent, even in the completely unrealistic worst-case scenarios, is the difference between millions and hundreds of thousands of deaths—still a grim outcome, but not nearly as bad as the horrifying projections cited by politicians to justify the sweeping restrictions they imposed.
“The parameter values in each scenario will be updated and augmented over time, as we learn more about the epidemiology of COVID-19,” the CDC cautions. “New data on COVID-19 is available daily; information about its biological and epidemiological characteristics remain[s] limited, and uncertainty remains around nearly all parameter values.” But the CDC’s current best estimates are surely better grounded than the numbers it was using two months ago.
A recent review of 13 studies that calculated IFRs in various countries found a wide range of estimates, from 0.05 percent in Iceland to 1.3 percent in Northern Italy and among the passengers and crew of the Diamond Princess cruise ship. This month Stanford epidemiologist John Ioannidis, who has long been skeptical of high IFR estimates for COVID-19, looked specifically at published studies that sought to estimate the prevalence of infection by testing people for antibodies to the virus that causes the disease. He found that the IFRs implied by 12 studies ranged from 0.02 percent to 0.4 percent. My colleague Ron Bailey last week noted several recent antibody studies that implied considerably higher IFRs, ranging from 0.6 percent in Norway to more than 1 percent in Spain.
Methodological issues, including sample bias and the accuracy of the antibody tests, probably explain some of this variation. But it is also likely that actual IFRs vary from one place to another, both internationally and within countries. “It should be appreciated that IFR is not a fixed physical constant,” Ioannidis writes, “and it can vary substantially across locations, depending on the population structure, the case-mix of infected and deceased individuals and other, local factors.”
[….]
If you focus on hard-hit areas such as New York and New Jersey, an IFR between 0.2 and 0.3 percent, as suggested by the CDC’s current best estimate, seems improbably low. “While most of these numbers are reasonable, the mortality rates shade far too low,” University of Washington biologist Carl Bergstrom told CNN. “Estimates of the numbers infected in places like NYC are way out of line with these estimates.”
But the CDC’s estimate looks more reasonable when compared to the results of antibody studies in Miami-Dade County, Santa Clara County, Los Angeles County, and Boise, Idaho—places that so far have had markedly different experiences with COVID-19. We need to consider the likelihood that these divergent results reflect not just methodological issues but actual differences in the epidemic’s impact—differences that can help inform the policies for dealing with it.
IMMUNITIES
Of course there is another twist in the whole story morning glory… even with the vaccine, the virus itself is disappearing naturally as more and more people are naturally getting immune to it through contact (most react with no or minor symptoms), the vaccine will be useless by the time it is produced. (Which is why they will in the end FORCE this on us, to vindicate the monies spent and a need to recoup costs.)
Coronavirus ‘disappearing’ so fast Oxford vaccine has ‘only 50% chance of working’ https://t.co/xui1D4MpPL
This is because the HERD IMMUNITY rate may be much lower that some have been saying:
Why Herd Immunity To Covid-19 Is Reached Much Earlier Than Thought (JUDITH CURRY)
… In my view, the true herd immunity threshold probably lies somewhere between the 7% and 24% implied by the cases illustrated in Figures 4 and 5. If it were around 17%, which evidence from Stockholm County suggests the resulting fatalities from infections prior to the HIT being reached should be a very low proportion of the population. The Stockholm infection fatality rate appears to be approximately 0.4%,[20] considerably lower than per the Verity et al.[21] estimates used in Ferguson20, with a fatality rate of under 0.1% from infections until the HIT was reached. The fatality rate to reach the HIT in less densely populated areas should be lower, because R0 is positively related to population density.[22] Accordingly, total fatalities should be well under 0.1% of the population by the time herd immunity is achieved. Although there would be subsequent further fatalities, as the epidemic shrinks it should be increasingly practicable to hasten its end by using testing and contact tracing to prevent infections spreading, and thus substantially reduce the number of further fatalities below those projected by the SEIR model in a totally unmitigated scenario.
Herd Immunity May Only Need 10-20 Per Cent Of People To Be Infected (SPECTATOR UK)
…The usual health warnings apply. Gomes’ work is theoretical modelling and, in common with a lot of material on Covid-19 that is being pre-published at the moment (including Ferguson’s paper of 16 March), it has not been peer-reviewed. But it is interesting that it gives an estimate for herd immunity of between 10 and 20 per cent, because that echoes real-life experience. The closest we have to a controlled experiment on the spread of Covid-19 was the cruise ship Diamond Princess, where the disease was able to spread uncontrolled in January, and almost all were later tested for the disease. Out of the 3,711 passengers and crew, 712 – or 19 per cent – were infected.
If herd immunity really is achieved at between 10 to 20 per cent it could mean that many parts of the world are approaching it – or are there already. A study of 1,000 residents in the North West German town of Gangelt in early April suggested that 14 per cent had already been infected (many without even knowing it). A study of 1,300 New Yorkers in late April suggested that 21 per cent have been infected.
* I also believe the CDC to be waay off in their assessment of the asymptomatic expressions of this virus. They say it is 35%, I say this is way too low. I would posit the lowest is 50%, whereas the highest is between 80% and 86%. My guess is closer to 80%. Here are some examples to support my statements:
[/color-box]
When an outbreak of coronavirus in a Boston homeless shelter prompted officials to do more testing, the results caught them off guard. Of the 146 people who tested positive, all of them were considered asymptomatic.
“These are larger numbers than we ever anticipated,” said Dr. Jim O’Connell, president of the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program. “Asymptomatic spread is something we’ve underestimated overall, and it’s going to make a big difference.”…
…Dr. Michael Para with OSU said the mass testing was a critical step.
“A large number were positive, but what is amazing is how many people were positive and had no symptoms at all. They were feeling fine,” he said. Mass testing at the Marion Correctional Institution, for example, revealed that approximately 96 percent of inmates who tested positive for COVID-19 were asymptomatic, Chambers-Smith added.
Para said clinicians looked at what they had found and they are now testing the people who were negative to see if they have turned positive.
“Going forward we are going to test specific individuals who are showing symptoms, who are being released, etc.,” he said. “By testing inmates on release, we can notify local health departments whether or not a person is COVID-19 positive.”…
Here, the NEW YORK POST (March 17, 2020) notes the journal article by saying:
“Stealth” coronavirus cases are fueling the pandemic, with a staggering 86% of people infected walking around undetected, a new study says.
Six of every seven cases – 86% — were not reported in China before travel restrictions were implemented, driving the spread of the virus, according to a study Monday in the journal Science.
“It’s the undocumented infections which are driving the spread of the outbreak,” said co-author Jeffrey Shaman of Columbia University Mailman School, according to GeekWire.
Using computer modeling, researchers tracked infections before and after the Chinese city of Wuhan’s travel ban.
The findings indicated that these undocumented infections with no or mild symptoms — known as “stealth” cases — were behind two-thirds of the reported patients.
“The majority of these infections are mild, with few symptoms at all,” Shaman said, Mercury News reported. “People may not recognize it. Or they think they have a cold.”…
This information likewise calls into question the “official numbers of deaths” being attributed to the CDC as well as supporting the idea that many more persons have the WU FLU, making the death rate percentages even smaller than being discussed above. I am repeating the below because I think it is crucially important!
Enjoy:
other PERTINENT information
MAY I ALSO NOTE that I believe the deaths from The Rona are a bit overstated, while Dr. Birx noted that the CDC may be inflating the death toll by 25%, I provide a couple other examples to support my claim.
UPDATED INFO – Real Quick
On Thursday, the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) confirmed a report by the Freedom Foundation that they have included those who tested positive for COVID-19 but died of other causes, including gunshot injuries, in their coronavirus death totals. This calls into serious question the state’s calculations of residents who have actually died of the CCP pandemic.
First up, Dr. Birx setting the stage for this with how deaths are coded:
Another example comes from Dr. Ngozi, Director of public health Illinois. She explains how ALL deaths are counted as Covid-19 even if the patient was diagnosed to have die from another disease:
Adapted from the above video description is important (via 4 TIMES A YEAR)
“Should “COVID-19” be reported on the death certificate only with a confirmed test? COVID-19 should be reported on the death certificate for all decedents where the disease caused or is assumed to have caused or contributed to death.” (CDC): “Deborah Birx, a physician who’s leading the White House’s coronavirus task force, said Alabama’s strategy conflicts with CDC’s approach to tallying Covid-19-realted deaths. “[W]e’ve taken a very liberal approach to mortality,” she said. “[I]f someone dies with Covid-19, we are counting that as a Covid-19 death.” (ADVISORY)
As many have pointed out, there is a big difference between dying WITH the virus and FROM the virus.
Note Dr. Birx’s similar wording to what Italy was doing:
“‘We’ve taken a very liberal approach to mortality….” “The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus.”
Italy, unlike the CDC, corrected its error:
“The age of our patients in hospitals is substantially older – the median is 67, while in China it was 46,” Prof Ricciardi says. “So essentially the age distribution of our patients is squeezed to an older age and this is substantial in increasing the lethality.”
A study in JAMA this week found that almost 40 per cent of infections and 87 per cent of deaths in the country have been in patients over 70 years old.
[….]
But Prof Ricciardi added that Italy’s death rate may also appear high because of how doctors record fatalities.
“The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus.
“On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity – many had two or three,” he says.
[….]
If further testing finds more asymptomatic cases spreading undetected, the mortality rate will drop.
1) The shocking inflation of COVID-19 death numbers: From day one, we were warned that states are ascribing every single death of anyone who happens to test positive for the coronavirus — even if they are asymptomatic — to the virus rather than the clear cause of death. Now, thanks to a lawsuit in Colorado, the state was forced to revise its death count down by 23 % over the weekend — from 1,150 to 878. The state is now publishing numbers of deaths “with” COVID-19 separate from deaths “from” COVID-19. As I reported on Thursday, county officials started accusing the state’s department of health of reclassifying deaths of those who tested positive for the virus but died of things like alcohol poisoning as COVID-19 deaths just to insidiously inflate the numbers. This revision in Colorado is a bombshell story that, of course, will remain unknown to most Americans. Every state needs to do this, and if they did, we would find an across-the-board drop in numbers by at least 25%, the same %age by which Dr. Birx reportedly believes the count is being inflated, according to the Washington Post. For example, in Minnesota, state officials are now admitting that every single person who dies in a nursing home after testing positive is now deemed to have died from the virus, never mind the fact that 25% of all natural deaths in a given week occur in nursing homes and that most cases of COVID-19 are asymptomatic, which means more often than not, they died exclusively of other causes.
TO WIT… Dennis Prager’s guest is Dr. Joel Hay, who is a professor in the department of Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy at the University of Southern California. Both give examples of cancer deaths being coded Covid:
And my third evidence to support my contention a nurse is filmed commenting on the percentages of deaths at NYC hospital. In my posts point #2 (the video still up amazingly) notes that every death cert in NYC-hospital is coded as Rona. In fact, 99% of deaths from that hospital were coded Rona during a period — AN IMPOSSIBLE statistic (https://tinyurl.com/y9awsuor — my site)
….In New York City, around 12,000 people have supposedly died from COVID-19 at the time of this writing. That’s 22% of all alleged U.S. deaths.
Around 7,000 of the NYC deaths attributed to COVID-19 have been thoroughly investigated to determine if there was another serious life-threatening illness present
Take a deep breath if doing so hasn’t been outlawed where you live.
99.2% of those 7,000 New Yorkers who supposedly died from the virus had another antecedent life-threatening illness. For all intents and purposes, that’s all of them.
How is it even remotely possible that 7,000 NYC deaths attributed to COVID-19 were investigated and virtually every single one of them found to have involved at least one other life-threatening illness if the virus is in and of itself deadly?
Most strains of coronavirus that affect humans are common cold viruses.
In light of the apparent almost universal prevalence of at least one other deadly disease among the alleged NYC deceased…
And in light of all the factors massively inflating the bogus death tally we’re being fed every day…
What reason do we have to believe COVID-19 is actually killing anyone?
No one knows how many Americans have really died of COVID-19….
However, we are starting to find out that “pure” deaths caused by Covid-19 exclusivelt is low (DAILY WIRE):
On Tuesday, San Diego county Supervisor Jim Desmond said after digging into the data that he believes only six of the county’s 194 coronavirus-identified deaths are “pure” coronavirus deaths, meaning they died from the virus, not merely with the virus.
Desmond was seemingly ruling out deaths from individuals with preexisting conditions.
“We’ve unfortunately had six pure, solely coronavirus deaths — six out of 3.3 million people,” Desmond said on a podcast, Armstrong & Getty Extra Large Interviews, according to San Diego Tribune. “I mean, what number are we trying to get to with those odds. I mean, it’s incredible. We want to be safe, and we can do it, but unfortunately, it’s more about control than getting the economy going again and keeping people safe.”
Public Health Officer Dr. Wilma Wooten suggested Wednesday during a press briefing that Desmond was being callous, noting that their liberal identification of COVID-19 deaths is uniform with coding nationwide.
“Their life is no less valuable than someone’s life who does not have underlying medical conditions,” Wooten said. “This is not just San Diego. This is how this is done throughout the entire nation in terms of identifying who has died of COVID-19.”…
Also note that all the anti-body tests are showing a larger infected population than previously considered. REASON.COM previously noted the Stanford study that between “48,000 and 81,000 residents of Santa Clara County, California are likely to have already been infected by the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.” Stanford University has revised the numbers to better fit the assumption (via MERCURY NEWS):
…In a revised analysis of a startling study published last month, they now estimate that 2.8% of Santa Clara residents were previously infected by the virus but didn’t know it.
That implies that the county had up to 54,000 infections — many more than the 1,000 confirmed cases in the county at the time.
“This suggests that the large majority of the population does not have antibodies and may be susceptible to the virus,” concludes the research paper, published in the online report medRxiv….
MY COMMENTS FROM MY FACEBOOK ABOUT THE ABOVE
So, Stanford settled on a number in early April… when there were 1,000 CONFIRMED cases were known in Santa Clara, there were 54,000 infected. To REALLY understand the percentages you would have to follow those 1,000 KNOWN cases from that time and compare the 55,000 cases to those deaths. (BTW, Stanford took the lower path on stats; so there could be a larger number.) Here is part of the article… but know that with the flu shot, there are more deaths by the flu than The Rona, without a “Rona shot.”
UPDATE (trying to figure out deaths per infections): Okay, let us apply the 98% survive who are known to have it and are hospitalized stat I have heard for some time. So 2% of the 1,000 is 20. 20 deaths from that early April figure of 55,000. Right? Gives you… 0.036%
UPDATES!
A friend on FACEBOOK has been a light in the war-torn field of The Rona (Wu Flu) battle of infection rates. Here are two posts of his [combined with a response to a friendly comment from one of his peeps] followed by some recent articles (links to papers will be in graphics):
Here’s a new meta-study from Stanford of all of the antibody testing that’s happened.
This puts the Wu Flu anywhere between 7x LESS deadly than the flu and 2.8x MORE deadly than the flu (making it a little worse than a bad flu season like 2018). And that’s assuming that this doesn’t follow SARS 1 and just disappear.
The data behind this is really solid, and the author is well-respected. Unlike those stupid models we were using, this is really real data.
We don’t do contact tracing, social distancing, mask-wearing, or lockdowns for the seasonal flu, and this looks like a watered down seasonal flu that got 100000000x more media attention and governors sending sick people to nursing homes to boost up the death rate.
The original post (OP) on this second strain was a graphic. I will link to the Kent County (Michigan site through it. Here is my FB description of the following: “A person named B.M. wrote on a friends Facebook wall the following regarding “contact tracing.” (The original post had to do with hiring government employees to trace citizens with Covid.)”
[A reader of JP’snoted] Actually, contact tracing sounds like a legitimate work of government. Rather than quarantining the healthy, quarantine the sick and monitor those exposed to the disease.
JP responded:
Sorry in advance for the novel! Heh, I started thinking of other interesting things to add and just decided to run with it.
Contact tracing might work for illnesses that don’t spread very easily (it probably would have exterminated HIV, according to what I’ve read; I’m no expert but it seems reasonable), but for upper respiratory stuff like colds and flus (and the Wu Flu), it’s pretty much doomed, especially with up to 10% of the whole country already having the it.
The original point of the lockdowns (which don’t seem to have worked; lockdown and non-lockdown countries and states have almost identical statistics) was to slow the spread to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. It wasn’t to stop spread, since even the CDC admits that after about 1% of people are infected with a contagious disease, you can’t really close the door on it anymore. Contact tracing is a relatively invasive way of closing the door on a virus, so I don’t think it will work here**.
The data points to a much less lethal bug, though. Stanford’s meta analysis of all of the large-scale antibody testing shows an IFR (Infection Fatality Rate) between 7 times less than the seasonal flu and 2.8 times more. It’s probably in the middle, making it slightly less lethal than regular seasonal flus. And since we know it has been in the US at least since January (probably since December or earlier), the R? (Basic Reproduction Number or Rate) is also much lower than people originally thought. So it spreads like the flu and is as deadly as the flu.
The main difference seems to be the 24/7 media terrorizing of citizens, the complete ignorance most of us (that’s me, too) had in the real pneumonia/influenza deaths each year, and the downright evil policy of many Democrat governors of sending the sick to recover (while contagious) at nursing homes, boosting the deaths by up to 50%.
Sorry for the novel!! Reading every little bit about this thing has become an unfortunate hobby of mine. I’m of the mind now that the best strategy is to fight the fear instead of the virus and to get back to normal in virtually every way. If this is anything like it’s older brother SARS, it will die out in the next couple of months. But if not, keeping everyone from immunity just means extending the risk.
**I think contact tracing may -appear- to work because I think we are naturally bottoming out cases. Same, in my mind, for other measures.
One final bit: I’ve followed lots of different predictions to see who might get things most accurately to see what they did differently. This guy’s been right on (it’s been almost scary) using SARS as a comparison instead of the Spanish Flu (since this bug is SARS 2). This is a really good visual of the whole thing:
(Click to enlarge)
ALSO, a short bit from Bruce Carrol:
“If you are waiting for a “cure” for COVID-19, you’ll never leave your home again.
Even the flu vaccine (not vaccine, flu shot. There is a vaccine for the Polio, not HIV or SARS) results in 60-80,000 deaths every season.
We have to stop the fearmongering and start learning to live with a new virus in a string of new viruses that have emerged for tens of thousands of years.
Boomers and Millennials aren’t that special of a species.”
— Bruce Carroll (Co-founder of the gay Republican group GOProu, and founder of GAYPATRIOT)
One of the great unknowns of the COVID-19 crisis is just how deadly the disease is. Much of the panic dates from the moment, in early March, when the World Health Organization (WHO) published a mortality rate of 3.2 percent — which turned out to be a crude ‘case fatality rate’ dividing the number of deaths by the number of recorded cases, ignoring the large number of cases which are asymptomatic or otherwise go unrecorded.
The Imperial College modeling, which has been so influential on the UK government, assumed an infection fatality rate (IFR) of 0.9 percent. This was used to compute the infamous prediction that 250,000 Britons would die unless the government abandoned its mitigation strategy and adopted instead a policy of suppressing the virus through lockdown. Imperial later revised its estimate of the IFR down to 0.66 percent — although the March 16 paper which predicted 250,000 deaths was not updated.
In the past few weeks, a slew of serological studies estimating the prevalence of infection in the general population has become available. This has allowed Prof John Ioannidis of Stanford University to work out the IFR in 12 different locations.
They range between 0.02 percent and 0.5 percent — although Ioannidis has corrected those raw figures to take account of demographic balance and come up with estimates between 0.02 percent and 0.4 percent. The lowest estimates came from Kobe, Japan, found to have an IFR of 0.02 percent and Oise in northern France, with an IFR of 0.04 percent. The highest were in Geneva (a raw figure of 0.5 percent) and Gangelt in Germany (0.28 percent).
The usual caveats apply: most studies to detect the prevalence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the general population remain unpublished, and have not yet been peer-reviewed. Some are likely to be unrepresentative of the general population. The Oise study, in particular, was based on students, teachers and parents in a single high school which was known to be a hotspot on COVID-19 infection. At the other end of the table, Geneva has a relatively high age profile, which is likely to skew its death rate upwards.
But it is noticeable how all these estimates for IFR are markedly lower than the figures thrown about a couple of months ago, when it was widely asserted that COVID-19 was a whole magnitude worse than flu. Seasonal influenza is often quoted as having an IFR of 0.1 to 0.2 percent. The Stanford study suggests that COVID-19 might not, after all, be more deadly than flu — although, as Ioannidis notes, the profile is very different: seasonal flu has a higher IFR in developing countries, where vaccination is rare, while COVID-19 has a higher death rate in the developed world, thanks in part of more elderly populations.
The Stanford study, however, does not include the largest antibody study to date: that involving a randomized sample of 70,000 Spanish residents, whose preliminary results were published by the Carlos III Institute of Health two weeks ago. That suggested that five percent of the Spanish population had been infected with the virus. With 27,000 deaths in the country, that would convert to an IFR of 1.1 percent.
This backs up of course some excellent article by Daniel Horowitz:
A CLEARER PICTURE has a great post about this as well, I suggest if you like what you see you check out that blog weekly.
…For one thing, Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx have both explicitly stated that anyone dying WITH the virus is counted as dying FROM it. Since 4/5 of COVID-19 infections are mild and 1/2 appear to show no symptoms at all, the official U.S. death tally is bound to include many in which it played little or no role.
The CDC has made matters much worse by insisting that doctors list COVID-19 on death certificates without a positive test confirming its presence and even absent any medical justification at all. A willingness to “assume” it was a factor is all that’s officially required. And hospitals now reap enormous financial rewards for making the assumption.
(Click To Enlarge)
Those in charge couldn’t have possibly shown less interest in determining the real number of Americans who would still be alive if not for having contracted COVID-19. It’s unlikely that ours is the only country in which the data has been turned into garbage by a perfect storm of inflating factors. As hard as it may be to accept, the odds are pretty much nil that we’ll ever know how deadly the virus we were made to spend months obsessively fearing really was.
Even on the inflated numbers we’re getting, however, it isn’t anywhere near 10 times deadlier than the flu; as Dr. Fauci claimed on March 11, while ginning up support for his novel public health strategy of extinguishing our rights and wrecking the economy. But, of course, a few weeks later, we learned that even Fauci didn’t believe a word of the lie he so effectively used to terrorize a nation of over 300 million people into suicidal obedience.
Though perhaps you haven’t heard. You see, on March 26, Dr. Fauci shared his true opinion with his peers in the pages of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine:
The overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%).
Dr. Anthony Fauci, March 26, 2020 New England Journal of Medicine
In case you’re wondering, the parenthetical remark is his, not mine. Moreover, when Sharyl Attkisson contacted the journal about the strange discrepancy between what Fauci was scaring the public with and the substantially less alarming take his learned colleagues heard, she discovered his article had been submitted “many weeks ago.”….
… arriving December 1968 and peaking a year later. It ultimately killed 100,000 people in the U.S., mostly over the age of 65, and one million worldwide ….
[….]
“In 1968,” says Nathaniel L. Moir in National Interest, “the H3N2 pandemic killed more individuals in the U.S. than the combined total number of American fatalities during both the Vietnam and Korean Wars.”
And this happened in the lifetimes of every American over 52 years of age.
I was 5 years old and have no memory of this at all. My mother vaguely remembers being careful and washing surfaces, and encouraging her mom and dad to be careful. Otherwise, it’s mostly forgotten today. Why is that?
Nothing closed. Schools stayed open. All businesses did too. You could go to the movies. You could go to bars and restaurants. John Fund has a friend who reports having attended a Grateful Dead concert. In fact, people have no memory or awareness that the famous Woodstock concert of August 1969 – planned in January during the worse period of death – actually occurred during a deadly American flu pandemic that only peaked globally six months later. There was no thought given to the virus which, like ours today, was dangerous mainly for a non-concert-going demographic.
Stock markets didn’t crash. Congress passed no legislation. The Federal Reserve did nothing. Not a single governor acted to enforce social distancing, curve flattening (even though hundreds of thousands of people were hospitalized), or banning of crowds. No mothers were arrested for taking their kids to other homes. No surfers were arrested. No daycares were shut even though there were more infant deaths with this virus than the one we are experiencing now. There were no suicides, no unemployment, no drug overdoses.
Media covered the pandemic but it never became a big issue.
As Bojan Pancevski in the Wall Street Journal points out, “In 1968-70, news outlets devoted cursory attention to the virus while training their lenses on other events such as the moon landing and the Vietnam War, and the cultural upheaval of the civil-rights movements, student protests and the sexual revolution.”
The only actions governments took was to collect data, watch and wait, encourage testing and vaccines, and so on. The medical community took the primary responsibility for disease mitigation, as one might expect. It was widely assumed that diseases require medical not political responses.
It’s not as if we had governments unwilling to intervene in other matters. We had the Vietnam War, social welfare, public housing, urban renewal, and the rise of Medicare and Medicaid. We had a president swearing to cure all poverty, illiteracy, and disease. Government was as intrusive as it had ever been in history. But for some reason, there was no thought given to shutdowns.
Which raises the question: why was this different? We will be trying to figure this one out for decades.
Was the difference that we have mass media invading our lives with endless notifications blowing up in our pockets? Was there some change in philosophy such that we now think politics is responsible for all existing aspects of life? Was there a political element here in that the media blew this wildly out of proportion as revenge against Trump and his deplorables? Or did our excessive adoration of predictive modelling get out of control to the point that we let a physicist with ridiculous models frighten the world’s governments into violating the human rights of billions of people?
Maybe all of these were factors. Or maybe there is something darker and nefarious at work, as the conspiracy theorists would have it.
Regardless, they all have some explaining to do.
By way of personal recollection, my own mother and father were part of a generation that believed they had developed sophisticated views of viruses. They understood that less vulnerable people getting them not only strengthened immune systems but contributed to disease mitigation by reaching “herd immunity.” They had a whole protocol to make a child feel better about being sick. I got a “sick toy,” unlimited ice cream, Vicks rub on my chest, a humidifier in my room, and so on.
They would constantly congratulate me on building immunity. They did their very best to be happy about my viruses, while doing their best to get me through them.
If we used government lockdowns then like we use them now, Woodstock (which changed music forever and still resonates today) would never have occurred. How much prosperity, culture, tech, etc. are losing in this calamity?….
Here is a marrying of some information that is a mix of May 1st info from the:
As of now there are almost 38,000 deaths attributed to The Rona, with almost 124,000 hospitalizations. Two years ago (2017-2018) the flu hospitalized 810,000 people, and 61,000 deaths (CDC). Adding this seasons flu and Rona stats, we are up to 90,000 deaths and a little above 600,000 hospitalizations. We are still under the articles totals above and under the the 2017-to-1018 totals. The only thing I note different is there is an ORANGE man in office. (Or, like the article states loosely, it could be a “perfect storm” of reasons, political opportunity being in the mix.) Trump even declared a state of emergency at the 49-death total count, Obama waited to the 1,000th death. I also imagine the combined totals of death from flu and The Rona will be smaller as there is crossover. The total death from each may never be fully realized in separating the two, but you get the point.
I noticed some of the viral videos by Drs. Daniel Erickson and Artin Massihi are being removed from YouTube. As it turns out, YouTube apparently are using the World Health Organizations proclamations as their guiding light to censor people free speech/thought. Here Laura Ingraham notes the issue:
Basically the Doctors in their original video (can be seen HERE, HERE, Channel 23 Bakersfield has it HERE, see also HERE) were basically saying it is time to open up California. The video has been removed from YouTube — hard to find. 23ABC BAKERSFIELD has the FULL video on their Facebook still:
Similarly, another doctor in the heart of the battle in New York says it is time to open back up, via the NEW YORK POST:
I’m an emergency physician at St. Barnabas Hospital in The Bronx. I have been in the ER every day these last few weeks, either supervising or providing direct care. I contracted a COVID-19 infection very early in the outbreak, as did two of my daughters, one of whom is a nurse. We are all well, thank God.
COVID-19 has been the worst health care disaster of my 30-year career, because of its intensity, duration and potential for lasting impact. The lasting impact is what worries me the most. And it’s why I now believe we should end the lockdown and rapidly get back to work.
[….]
It is precisely what I have witnessed that now tells me that it’s time to ease the lockdown. Here’s why.
First, the wave has crested. At 1 p.m. April 7, the COVID-19 arrivals slowed down. It was a discrete, noticeable event. Stretchers became available by 5 p.m., and the number of arriving COVID-19 patients dropped below the number discharged, transferred or deceased.
This was striking, because the community I serve is poor. Some are homeless. Most work in “essential,” low-paying jobs, where distancing isn’t easy. Nevertheless, the wave passed over us, peaked and subsided. The way this transpired tells me the ebb and flow had more to do with the natural course of the outbreak than it did with the lockdown.
Second, I worry about non-coronavirus care. While the inpatient units remain busy with sick COVID-19 patients, our ER has been quiet for more than a week. We usually average 240 patients a day. For the last week, we averaged fewer than 100. That means our patients in this diverse, low-income community are afraid to come to the ER for non-COVID care.
Gotham-wide, the number of 911 ambulance runs declined to 3,320 on April 18, down from a peak of 6,527 on March 30, according to New York Fire Department data. The current nadir is significantly below the average.
A large share of those staying home surely have emergency medical and surgical conditions not related to the novel coronavirus. The growing numbers dying at home during this crisis must include fatal myocardial infarctions, asthma exacerbations, bacterial infections and strokes.
Meanwhile, our pediatric volume in the ER has practically disappeared. Visits to primary-care pediatricians are also down, with vaccine schedules falling behind. Everyone seems to be avoiding the health system — an important and unfortunate consequence of the stay-at-home strategy.
Third, inordinate fear misguides the public response. While COVID-19 is serious, fear of it is being over-amplified. The public needs to understand that the vast majority of infected people do quite well.
Finally, COVID-19 is more prevalent than we think. Many New Yorkers already have the COVID-19 infection, whether they are aware of it or not. As of today, over 43 percent of those tested are positive in The Bronx. We are developing a significant degree of natural herd immunity. Distancing works, but I am skeptical that it is playing as predominant a role as many think.
More testing will better establish the numbers among those with mild illnesses and no symptoms. My professional experience tells me the number of infected people will be high. Testing is important work, but it should happen in parallel to the immediate resuscitation of the economy and getting people back to work.
At present, the testing is imperfect. We can’t wait months. We must protect the vulnerable and mitigate without destroying the economy…..
All of these doctors are in agreement that Covid-19 is serious. But they are also in agreement on two things, that is:
California is not New York;
The economy is an important monetary and healthy factor.
To Wit…
Armstrong & Getty discuss Brett Stephens New York Times article where it seems the rest of America is being asked to respond to The Rona just like New York City is. In an excellent article Brett notes:
As of Friday, there have been more Covid-19 fatalities on Long Island’s Nassau County (population 1.4 million) than in all of California (population 40 million). There have been more fatalities in Westchester County (989) than in Texas (611). The number of Covid deaths per 100,000 residents in New York City (132) is more than 16 times what is in America’s next largest city, Los Angeles (8). If New York City proper were a state, it would have suffered more fatalities than 41 other states combined… (NEW YORK TIMES)
THE FEDERALIST likewise uses Brett’s article as a launch pad, noting:
The claim that New York is not responsible for the severe lockdowns we see across the country is the kind of revisionist history that we will all be drowned in over the coming weeks. Through late March and early April, Drs. Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci made clear time and again that their recommendations were based mostly on data from New York, where the most cases and testing existed.
Now there is a debunking of sorts making the rounds…
FACEBOOK CONVOS
…the first I was made aware of it was by a friend in the health industry. He sent me a link to this statement by the The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM):
The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) jointly and emphatically condemn the recent opinions released by Dr. Daniel Erickson and Dr. Artin Massihi. These reckless and untested musings do not speak for medical societies and are inconsistent with current science and epidemiology regarding COVID-19. As owners of local urgent care clinics, it appears these two individuals are releasing biased, non-peer reviewed data to advance their personal financial interests without regard for the public’s health.
COVID-19 misinformation is widespread and dangerous. Members of ACEP and AAEM are first-hand witnesses to the human toll that COVID-19 is taking on our communities. ACEP and AAEM strongly advise against using any statements of Drs. Erickson and Massihi as a basis for policy and decision making.
Then a couple other friends who disagree with a video by Drs. Daniel Erickson and Artin Massihi or just Dr. Erickson, noted both the above, and one was kind enough to post an article that specifically noted where the doctors “got it wrong.” And please do not get me wrong, I love friends that disagree with me. Why? Because it hones my knowledge of a topic. For instance, a friend posted this article from CALMATTERS “debunking” Dr. Erickson’s first video. But he wasn’t aware of another video that already responds to the charges he makes! I will post my shorter version of IT following the dialogue:
JIM G. In a rare statement late today, the American College of Emergency Physicians and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine declared they “emphatically condemn the recent opinions released by Dr. Daniel Erickson and Dr. Artin Messihi. These reckless and untested musings do not speak for medical societies and are inconsistent with current science and epidemiology regarding COVID-19. As owners of local urgent care clinics, it appears these two individuals are releasing biased, non-peer reviewed data to advance their personal financial interests without regard for the public’s health.” [then he linked the CALMATTERS article]
After I noted my post on my site… JIM G. said:
the article points out the very basic methodological flaw. It’s flaw in their study is so elementary, it’s ridiculous.
Since I like to get people to commit to a premise they want to defend, I simply asked: “what flaw Jim”
JIM G. simple lack of random sampling and suggesting that their findings can be extrapolated to a larger population.
//… But public health experts were quick to debunk the doctors’ findings as misguided and riddled with statistical errors — and an example of the kind of misleading information they are forced to waste precious time disputing.
The doctors should never have assumed that the patients they tested — who came for walk-in COVID-19 tests or who sought urgent care for symptoms they experienced in the middle of a pandemic — are representative of the general population, said Dr. Carl Bergstrom, a University of Washington biologist who specializes in infectious disease modeling. He likened their extrapolations to “estimating the average height of Americans from the players on an NBA court.” And most credible studies of COVID-19 death rates in reality are far higher than the ones the doctors presented.//
ME JIM G. in this video he said it cannot be extrapolated to another population? (YOUTUBE), and they started to test everyone who asked?
This has to be the worst example of flaws since the Dr. refuted them even before he was rebuked? The only flaws I see have been the gargantuan numbers thrown around by the modelers themselves. California is no where near the deaths near the flu.
VIDEO ISOLATED
Likewise, another friend focused on the same issue. What was different however is that he posted under the previous video my other friend was not aware of. And may I say, I doubt this friend, JEREMY J, watched the video he commented under — just assuming it was the original video. Likewise though, the above video is great for his response as well:
JEREMY J. I recently posted this elsewhere.
For those of you who have watched the video of Bakersfield California doctors Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi, owners of Accelerated Urgent Care with multiple office locations including Kern County, you should know that their core message “Millions of cases, small amount of death” is based on very bad data analytics.
For most of the presentation, Dr. Erickson does most of the talking. When I use “they” or “their” please understand that I am usually referring to Dr. Erickson.
They took the number of tests they had done in their own clinics (5213) and the number of positive results they had from those tests (340, or 6.5%), and “extrapolated” (their words) that data to the entire state. That is how they arrived at 4.4 million Californians already infected.
But in order to extrapolate, you must be comparing similar groups. The group of people who have been tested is unlikely to have the same rate of infection as the general population, and there is no evidence offered that they do. The doctors simply assume that Californians as a whole would have positive tests at the same rate as symptomatic people who come in for testing. This is a basic failing on their part and by itself makes the claim “Millions of cases, small amount of death” invalid.
They then cite the California statewide numbers (280,900 tests, 33,865, or 12%). Based on these numbers, Dr. Erickson then says “so the more you test, the more positives you get, the prevalence number goes up, and the death rate stays the same, so it gets smaller and smaller and smaller.”
This is such confused thinking that it’s hard to know where to start, especially for an audience unversed in statistical and epidemiological terminology. OF COURSE you will get more positive results if you test more people, but that isn’t what he is trying to say. Dr. Erickson appears to be saying that if more tests are done, the *percent* of positive results goes up. That is magical thinking. It certainly isn’t science. More likely, the difference between their local numbers and the statewide numbers is a manifestation of either different testing criteria, or Kern County simply has fewer cases than California as a whole (infection rates would not be expected to be uniform across the state).
Far from being based on facts, data, and science, their core message that there are “Millions of cases, small amount of death” is based on assumption, conjecture, speculation, and magical thinking.
I’ve watched the entire hour long news conference. It is obvious to me that they do not understand some basic things about microbiology and immunology. They use “incidence” and “prevalence” interchangeably, even though they are very different concepts. They misunderstand the concept of “herd immunity”. And they tout their real world, on the ground experience as more valid than that of an academician, even though they haven’t worked in a hospital setting for several years and haven’t cared for seriously ill COVID-19 patients. Wise physicians understand that both perspectives are valid.
To be sure, they make some good points, and I think they are generally well intentioned. But their overall message is fundamentally weakened by some seriously sloppy data analysis as well as sloppy use of terms.
Note he makes it clear their intentions are good. That is nice, but these are my responses:
ME No, he says in the video you cannot extrapolate his work to the state. He says that specifically. But then notes another California study. And as they test this way (random testing), other states are finding the same issue.
Just as one example, at a homeless shelter in Boston, out of the nearly 400 guests tested, 146 tested positive for Covid-19… all were asymptomatic.
…the other study mentioned by Dr. Erickson was this one mentioned in theREASON.COMarticle. These studies are all proving my early work (mid to late March), which I speak about here:RPT
In a humorous short discussion via email with A CLEARER PICTURE, a neat play on the word Fascism was noted by him that I wish to highlight here. It is a simple joining of two words:
Dr. Fauci + fascism = Faucism
Here is his short prose using the term:
[That] Statement you sent me from College of Physicians is unbelievable. This is getting serious. Fauscism is as contemptuous of our rights to share information and make up our own minds as they are of our rights to earn a living and freely assemble.”
On my Facebook, a friend said this: “I posted this as well. These [doctors] absolutely nail it. I’m tellin’ y’all, I’m feelin’ the ‘1984’ thing right now!” What this will do and is doing is the false modeling and the covering up of tracks by saying on the death certificate’s of people told they have a month to live because of cancer… and then this breakout appears on the scene, and while they are in the hospital dying, they catch The Rona. Their death cert doesn’t say “died of cancer, it says “died of Covid-19.”
After reading A CLEARER PICTURE’S latest post about the censorship, I remembered it was Tuesday, and boogied on over toTOWNHALL.COMto see Prager’s latest column. Here is a large excerpt from it:
…“Police state” does not mean totalitarian state. America is not a totalitarian state; we still have many freedoms. In a totalitarian state, this article could not be legally published, and if it were illegally published, I would be imprisoned and/or executed. But we are presently living with all four of the key hallmarks of a police state:
No. 1: Draconian laws depriving citizens of elementary civil rights.
The federal, state, county and city governments are now restricting almost every freedom except those of travel and speech. Americans have been banned from going to work (and thereby earning a living), meeting in groups (both indoors and outdoors), meeting in their cars in church parking lots to pray and entering state-owned properties such as beaches and parks — among many other prohibitions.
No. 2: A mass media supportive of the state’s messaging and deprivation of rights.
The New York Times, CNN and every other mainstream mass medium — except Fox News, The Wall Street Journal (editorial and opinion pages only) and talk radio — have served the cause of state control over individual Americans’ lives just as Pravda served the Soviet government. In fact, there is almost no more dissent in The New York Times than there was in Pravda. And the Big Tech platforms are removing posts about the virus and potential treatments they deem “misinformation.”
No. 3: Use of police.
Police departments throughout America have agreed to enforce these laws and edicts with what can only be described as frightening alacrity. After hearing me describe police giving summonses to, or even arresting, people for playing baseball with their children on a beach, jogging alone without a mask, or worshipping on Easter while sitting isolated in their cars in a church parking lot, a police officer called my show. He explained that the police have no choice. They must respond to every dispatch they receive.
“And why are they dispatched to a person jogging on a beach or sitting alone in a park?” I asked.
Because the department was informed about these lawbreakers.
“And who told the police about these lawbreakers?” I asked.
His answer brings us to the fourth characteristic of a police state:
No. 4: Snitches.
How do the police dispatchers learn of lawbreakers such as families playing softball in a public park, lone joggers without face masks, etc.? From their fellow citizens snitching on them. The mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, set up a “snitch line,” whereby New Yorkers were told to send authorities photos of fellow New Yorkers violating any of the quarantine laws. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti similarly encouraged snitching, unabashedly using the term.
It is said that about 1 in every 100 East German citizens were informers for the Stasi, the East German secret police, as superbly portrayed in the film “The Lives of Others.” It would be interesting, and, I think, important, to know what percentage of New Yorkers informed on their fellow citizens. Now, again, you may think such a comparison is not morally valid, that de Blasio’s call to New Yorkers to serve a Stasi-like role was morally justified given the coronavirus pandemic. But you cannot deny it is Stasi-like or that, other than identifying spies during World War II, this is unprecedented in American history at anywhere near this level…..
This coincides with my post on a friends Facebook last night, where I said after mentioning the removal of Drs. Daniel Erickson and Artin Massihi video:
Certain books and videos removed from Amazon for not being politically-correct. Posts removed from Facebook for not marching in step. YouTube removing or “doxing” videos that they say do not meet their guidelines (just think of Prager U’s fight). Twitter, etc.
You know, many years ago I wrote the Koch Brothers and tried to get a letter to them (being big libertarians) about starting a server for people to compete with YouTube and other blog hosting sites. Because I know at some point hosting sites will limit my speech to fit the prevailing PC winds.
The owner of the blog “A Clearer Picture” mentioned to me the following after seeing the above statement: “[That] Statement you sent me from College of Physicians is unbelievable. This is getting serious. Fauscism is as contemptuous of our rights to share information and make up our own minds as they are of our rights to earn a living and freely assemble.”
“Fauscism” what a great “medical” play on words. (Based on Dr. Fauci)
And yes, giving up our rights to modelers and to the World Health Organization (scientism) is a form of FAUCISM. Speaking to one of the models that led to what should have been a two or three week shut down was this one noted at TOWNHALL.COM (on April 5th):
While the reporting data from some states are lagging, others have provided information that calls into question the validity of the whole model, and with it, all the actions taken by government.
On April 4th, for example, the IHME model predicted there would be between 120,963 and 203,436 Americans requiring hospitalization, with the average of that range being 164,745. In reality, there were 18,998…..
Sick, and because of the hatred for Trump from the Left and #NeverTrumpers… this is only the beginning of the emboldening of what they think they can do to us. As CNN and other’s say this is a trial run for:
The World Is Coming Together To Fight Coronavirus. It Can Do The Same For The Climate Crisis (CNN)
Coronavirus And Climate Change: The Pandemic Is A Fire Drill For Our Planet’S Future (NBC NEWS – BIG THINK)
(A quick note, I am not saying we should have done nothing, please do not infer that from what is below. However, I am saying that pushing the shutting down of our infrastructure for anything past two or three weeks ~ is ~ dubious at best.)
As An Aside, this is one of the most important article I believe regarding this whole “pandemic” issue we are dealing with. While it focuses on New York City, this is multiplied ad infinitum around our nation and globe. I would highly recommend this article at CITY JOURNAL:
My computer is down, and its a brand new build (something I did surely found out it is a bad motherboard). But my phone is allowing me opportunity to expand on some thinking. In a conversation about reopening Minnesota I had the other morning. I will include the conversations end below the raw numbers and pics. Take note I start with my old numbers of THE RONA’S estimated infection rates, with newer studies, as well as some HERD IMMUNITY stats/commentary. Enjoy number crunchers. I will add some other Faceboook posts as well.
INFECTION RATES
This portion was the earliest idea to how widespread the virus was. People would continuously mention the KNOWN infection rate of Covid-19 to the KNOWN death rate from Covid. And then in the same breath compare those stats to the ESTIMATED flu infection rate to the SOMEWHAT KNOWN flu death rate. And then they would say “see, Covid-19 is more deadly.” But I wanted to compare the same stats… so this was my way of referenced “estimations” to the infection rate of Covid-19. These were the two referenced numbers:
There are probably 25 to 50 people who have the virus for every one person who is confirmed. (Dr. Makary BIO|YAHOO)
Now, as the testing for antibodies is getting under way, we are finding confirmation for the above numbers. Here are some articles to make the point (as well as some media) HERE ARE SOME IMPORTANT THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND regarding the Santa Clara County information….
Closer to the publishing date of the information garnered from the 3,300 volunteers getting the antibody test in Santa Clara County, there were 32-deaths attributed to the Coronavirus, or, THE RONA. So what we can assume is that as the death toll rises over a time-line, so does the infection rate. Here is what the REASON.COM ARTICLE notes closer to the studies publishing date:
Between 48,000 and 81,000 residents of Santa Clara County, California are likely to have already been infected by the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, suggests a new study by researchers associated with Stanford University Medical School. The researchers tested a sample of 3,330 residents of the county using blood tests to detect antibodies to determine whether or not they had been exposed to the coronavirus. If the researchers’ calculations are correct, that’s really good news. Why? Because that data will help public health officials to get a better handle on just how lethal the coronavirus is, and if researchers are right it’s a lot less lethal than many have feared it to be.
Currently, the U.S. case fatality rate, that is, the percent of people with confirmed diagnoses of COVID-19 who die, is running at 5.2 percent. But epidemiologists have known that a significant proportion of people who are infected are going undetected by the medical system because either they don’t feel sick enough to seek help or are asymptomatic. For example, recent research in Iceland suggests that about 50 percent of people infected with the virus have no symptoms.
In the new study, the researchers sought residents through Facebook to whom they could administer the antibody tests. The results were an unadjusted prevalence of coronavirus antibodies of 1.5 percent. After making various statistical and demographic adjustments, researchers calculated the likely prevalence ranged from 2.49 to 4.16 percent. At the time that these tests were administered, there were about 1,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 32* deaths from the disease in Santa Clara County. The upshot is that “these prevalence estimates represent a range between 48,000 and 81,000 people infected in Santa Clara County by early April, 50- 85-fold more than the number of confirmed cases.”
Using these data, the researchers calculated the infection fatality rate, that is, the percent of people infected with the disease who die: “A hundred deaths out of 48,000-81,000 infections corresponds to an infection fatality rate of 0.12-0.2%,” they report.* That’s about the same infection fatality rate the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates for seasonal influenza…..
COVID-19 Lethality Not Much Different Than Flu, Says New Study: Possible really good news from a population screening antibody test study in Santa Clara County, California (REASON | ABC NEWS)
Why A Study Showing That Covid-19 Is Everywhere Is Good News: If millions of people were infected weeks ago without dying, the virus must be less deadly than official data suggest (ECONOMIST)
Medical Experts Appear on ‘Life, Liberty, and Levin’ to Urge Leaders to Reopen America (PJ-MEDIA)
LA Study: Virus May Be More Widespread, Less Deadly Than Thought (NEWSMAX)
TWITTER: Andrew Bostom
@AlexBerenson “We find strong evidence that COVID-19 is widespread (>28 million) in the US but don’t panic.”
Yes. Reduces case-fatality ratio to ~0.1% https://t.co/DgmM1wDdqx
I mention to people that with all the precautions many states are forcing on its population they are retarding the rate of HERD IMMUNITY… which is important.
HERD IMMUNITY
Important because Dr. Fauci mentioned during one of his briefings that this is coming back in the winter season. But because we have chosen as a nation to not allow for normal contact that nature demands of us, we will be dealing with this at a higher rate than say Sweden.
Our governor, Gavin Newsom, thinks he “sounds” scientific — but has no idea [apparently] what or how to achieve “herd immunity.” Here is a MERCURY NEWS article discussing the issue statements by our “fearless” governor:
“The prospect of mass gatherings is negligible at best until we get to herd immunity and we get to a vaccine,” Newsom said. “So large-scale events that bring in hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of strangers altogether across every conceivable difference, health and otherwise, is not in the cards based upon our current guidelines and current expectations.”
The article mentions no large gatherings until Thanksgiving… but then the flu and Covid-19 season starts again. Are we shutting down our economy (bars, restaurants, small businesses, etc) and flights, beaches, etc., in the 2020-2021 season? (THANKFULLY “Attorney General William Barr warned that states could find themselves in hot water from the Justice Department if their coronavirus lockdowns go ‘too far’.” | BREITBART)
Why Simply Waiting For Herd Immunity To Covid-19 Isn’t An Option: Waiting for enough people to catch the coronavirus could take a very long time (MIT TECH REVIEW)
Sweden Resisted A Lockdown, And Its Capital Stockholm Is Expected To Reach ‘Herd Immunity’ In Weeks (CNBC)
Sweden has allowed nature to provide a natural defense to future Covid-19 outbreaks. By doing so, the next time this comes around (2020-2021) Sweden will be the most prepared out of the Western Nations. Bravo Sweden, and they took the idea that destroying their economy was not the wisest of choices.
JOHN STOSSEL
UNCOMMON KNOWLEDGE BONUS
March 27th
April 17th
Steve and I agree on a lot, I do not wish to put Steve here in a bad light… he is a guy that I would probably enjoy conversation with over a beer or two (or three):
EXCERPT FROM FACEBOOK CONVO
(ME)
Steve W — you do know Steve that the same amount of death from and infection due to Covid-19 exists under the trend line of doing nothing and the most strict quarentine rules…. right? In other words, we are not saving lives. And, in fact, we have made it worse for our economy next fall/winter because it is coming back as it makes its rounds around the world.
(STEVE W)
Sean Giordano I have heard that said but not seen it from a credible source. So I think that is false.
(ME)
Steve W what is false?
(STEVE W)
Sean Giordano “the same amount of death from and infection due to Covid-19 exists under the trend line of doing nothing”
(ME)
Steve Wallace now you are saying don’t listen to Dr. Fauci?
Many bemoan Trump for not listening to him (even though he has), and some I meet do not support Fauci in the idea that this was to elongate the process as to not put any undue stress on our health care system. Even though he clearly announced multiple times this was the reason to do so
WORLD ECONOMIC FORUMmentions the following, and all the graphs of the United States shown by Doctors Fauci and Birx have all used this idea as well (graph below from CDC and WEF)
CHRIS WALLACE: All right. You talk about slowing the virus down. You talk a lot, and I’ve very used to this now, you can either have a bump like this of cases or you could make it maybe the same total cases, but it’s a much more gradual and slower and longer curve. I want to put up some numbers. We have in this country about 950,000 hospital beds, and about 45,000 beds in Intensive Care Unit. How worried are you that this virus is going to overwhelm hospitals, not just beds, but ventilators? We only have 160,000 ventilators. And could we be in a situation where you have to ration who gets the bed, who gets the ventilator?
DR. FAUCI: OK. So let me put it in a way that it doesn’t get taken out of context. When people talk about modeling where outbreaks are going, the modeling is only as good as the assumptions you put into the model. And what they do, they have a worst-case scenario, a best-case scenario, and likely where it’s going to be. If we have a worst-case scenario, we’ve got to admit it, we could be overwhelmed. Are we going to have a worst-case scenario? I don’t think so. I hope not.
What are we doing to not have that worst-case scenario? That’s when you get into the things that we’re doing. We’re preventing infections from going in with some rather stringent travel restrictions. And we’re doing containment and mitigation from within. So, at a worst-case scenario, anywhere in the world, no matter what country you are, you won’t be prepared. So our job is to not let that worst-case scenario happen.
(…. STILL ME….)
STEVE W for you not to understand the goal of all this, and then get on here sharing insights is itself insightful. I am not blaming you STEVE… I just see this fundamental misunderstanding of the underlying factors and goals of this whole endeavor of bending the curve as applicable to MANY A PERSON in these discussions here and elsewhere on social media. I am giving you, in fact, the most respectful benefit of a doubt, but am merely in conversation with you at this moment. This conversation is just multiplied (others are having) across social media many fold. Blessings to you and yours friend. Yet, this foundational view is not known well by others… that is, the reason behind flattening the curve as well as the data underneath the trend line.
(CLICK TO ENLARGE)
Here I wish to switch gears a bit and start to discuss another “info graphic” post from MY SITES FACEBOOK I shared with my readers. And since the entire idea behind “flattening the curve” was to keep the health and hospital system working well by not getting inundated all at once, this should have lasted two or three weeks. Not as long as it has — our economy is important too! Damnit!
CAPACITY OF THE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM
The following was compiled after a conversation I had on Facebook. It touches on some of the issues above. Enjoy
I note the bell curve because many are under the false impression we are doing this to “save lives.” This was never the case.
The quarantine was to lessen the apex of the bell curve as to not put pressure on the hospital/health system. The same amount of people in the elongated “quarantine bell curve” (the trend-line) would die and get sick. In other words, the same statistics exist below the line (POWERLINE). Here is a site cataloging the hospitalizations for the rona that POWERLINE used – US CORONAVIRUS HOSPITALIZATIONS …they used both the CDC site and this one, but the CDC site has lower hospitalizations, so they opted for the most updated numbers. WHICH AS OF APRIL 21ST STAND AT 84,292 HOSPITALIZATIONS FROM JANUARY TILL NOW. This is important, because, the flu season of 2017-2018 we saw 810,000 hospitalization, and our health system didn’t collapse. Nor did the Swine Flu of 2009-to-2010, which saw 60-million American infected and 300,000 hospitalizations.
This then may explain why all the field hospital’s the ARMY CORE OF ENGINEERS built are being dismantled without a single bed being used.
The panic and fear among the people who cannot be bothered to read the actual statistics about this pandemic is what should concern most preppers. In fact, this virus has been so overhyped that the Army’s field hospital in Seattle, an “epicenter” of the pandemic has closed after three days without seeing one single COVID-19 patient. According to a report by Military.com, the hastily built field hospital set up by the Army in Seattle’s pro football stadium is shutting down without ever seeing a patient. [….] The decision to close the Seattle field hospital comes amid early signs that the number of new cases could be hitting a plateau in New York, the epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic in the U.S., and other states. At a news conference Friday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said, “Overall, New York is flattening the curve.” — ZERO HEDGE (see: MILITARY TIMES | DAILY CALLER)
Unlike the Mercy, the Comfort is treating COVID-19 patients on board as well as patients who do not have the virus. The ship has treated more than 120 people since it arrived March 30, and about 50 of those have been discharged, said Lt. Mary Catherine Walsh. The ship removed half of its 1,000 beds so it could isolate and treat coronavirus patients. [The Mercy has seen 48 patients, all non-Covid related] (THE STAR)
And literally handfulls of patients on the Comfort (New York City) and the Comfort (Los Angeles) — *see comment below. There was never a shortage of respirators (NATIONAL REVIEW), and we may surpass the 2018-to-2019 flu death rate, but come nowhere close to the 2017-to-2018 flu death rate:
(CLICK TO ENLARGE)
And it seems that we are reaching a plateau with The Rona, so there is good news in this regard (POWERLINE).
* Here is a comment from the Military Times article from a few days ago:
So, why did we spend all that Taxpayer’s money to move the Comfort to NYC and all the added Military medical personnel to staff the Javitt’s Center? Because Cuomo was crying WOLF.
“So far, the thousands of beds provided by a converted convention center and a hospital ship have not been needed, but the extra personnel are coming in handy for the city’s civilian hospitals.
About 200 doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists and others are working in New York’s medical centers, where bed space has not been overwhelmed, but where hospital-acquired coronavirus cases have sidelined civilian staff.”
