This is something I saw pop up on my FB in slow traffic yesterday and I thought it worthy of a “quick” retort.

A couple things going on here. First, no one I listen to or have read (other than the kooky “Alex Jones fringe,” has said it’s “not dangerous.” For instance, I myself argue it is as dangerous as the 1957-1958 and the 1968-1969 outbreaks — when the numbers are tampered down with the CDC’s change to how death certificates are written:

SOME EXAMPLES TO SUPPORT THE CONTENTION

• Last month Alameda County, Calif., reduced its Covid death toll by 25% after state public-health officials insisted that deaths be attributed to Covid only if the virus was a direct or contributing factor. — Dr. Makary is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Bloomberg School of Public Health and Carey Business School. (Wall Street Journal)
• 1. Alameda County has changed the way it calculates deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in a 25% drop this weekend. The official total fell from 1,634 to 1,223 on Friday after the county changed its methodology to align with narrower guidelines used by California and U.S. health agencies. According to a news release from the Alameda County Health Care Services Agency, the new number includes only people who “died as a direct result of COVID-19, or had the virus as a contributing cause of death as well as people for whom COVID-19 could not be ruled out as a cause of death.” (San Francisco Chronicle)

(FLASHBACK VIA RPT) 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.

• This Sunday morning, The New York Times has devoted their front page to the nearly 100,000 U.S. victims of COVID-19. The text-only cover lists 1,000 names and excerpts from the obituaries of people who have succumbed to the dreaded virus. The only problem with this lovely memorial is that at least one of the victims did not appear to have died from the coronavirus and his was only the sixth name on the list. [….] But others were quick to point out that Haynes was only the sixth name on the list. One replied, “He was one out of 5 under 30 on the list. Another in that group had a condition that doctors told him he would not live to 18. Did not test positive for COVID but still ruled a COVID death. That’s 40% of the under 30 age bracket.” (Red State)

[….]

APRIL 8TH (2020):

APRIL 19 (2020):

So, I am saying as an example, that a good portion of the deaths being attributed to Covid are not in fact Covid deaths.

And this is what I [for example] have argued. Do these changes made in April of 2020 impact previous outbreaks? Would this change also increase the 1957-1958 and the1968-1969 outbreaks? I think so.

A couple more examples to support the contention

• The Montezuma County Coroner’s Office is disputing the state’s claim of a third fatal case of the coronavirus in Cortez, saying the person died of alcohol poisoning. County Coroner George Deavers said the person tested positive for COVID-19, but an investigation by him and the pathologist determined the cause of death was ethanol toxicity. The person’s blood-alcohol content was 0.55, or almost seven times the legal driving limit of 0.08 in Colorado, Deavers said. A BAC of 0.3 is considered lethal. (DURANGO HERALD)
• CBS 12 News examined medical examiner’s reports on COVID-19 deaths and found eight examples where a person was listed as a coronavirus death but had actually died from something else. This includes a 60-year-old man who died from a gunshot wound to the head, a 90-year-old who fell and broke a hip, and a 77-year-old who died of Parkinson’s disease. (CBS)
• A woman is left with “no peace” after her father’s death certificate stated he died of the coronavirus despite previously testing negative and an MRI test showing he suffered multiple strokes. Jay Smith died on July 12 in San Antonio, Texas, after an MRI showed brain damage from enduring multiple strokes. Kayla Smith, however, said last week that her father’s death certificate listed him as a coronavirus victim. “They put him as COVID. He didn’t have COVID. He had a stroke,” she said. “The MRI showed that he had multiple strokes in the brain, and also he had a blood clot. Those multiple strokes caused so much damage in his brain that it caused damage in his body.” Jay Smith was first taken to the hospital on July 6, where he tested negative for the coronavirus and was transferred to a non-COVID floor on July 7, according to local outlet KATU. (WASHINGTON EXAMINER)

I have argued from the very get-go [or pointed to] stuff like: that (a) the PCR “cycle test” was too high, (b) that deaths attributed to Covid shouldn’t have been (here as well) that (c) the numbers of unknown – asymptomatic – cases lower the infection percentages/rates, i.e., the Infection Fatality rate, Etc., Etc.

The other contention in the “meme” is that “no experts” agree with portions of the above. Just high-school dummies.

Here is an older post:

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List of “Dummies”

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Dennis Prager interviews the co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, Jay Bhattacharya. Dr. Bhattacharya is a professor of medicine at Stanford University and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He directs Stanford’s Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging. Bhattacharya’s research focuses on the health and well-being of populations, with a particular emphasis on the role of government programs, biomedical innovation, and economics. Most recently, Bhattacharya has focused his research on the epidemiology of COVID-19 and evaluation of the various policy responses to the epidemic. He is a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, a document proposing a relaxation of social controls that delay the spread of COVID-19.

A worthwhile interview.

Here are some of the signatories of Great Barrington Declaration:

• Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University, a biostatistician, and epidemiologist with expertise in detecting and monitoring infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety evaluations.
• Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University, an epidemiologist with expertise in immunology, vaccine development, and mathematical modeling of infectious diseases.
• Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School, a physician, epidemiologist, health economist, and public health policy expert focusing on infectious diseases and vulnerable populations.
• Alexander Walker, principal at World Health Information Science Consultants, former Chair of Epidemiology, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, USA
• Andrius Kavaliunas, epidemiologist and assistant professor at Karolinska Institute, Sweden
• Angus Dalgleish, oncologist, infectious disease expert and professor, St. George’s Hospital Medical School, University of London, England
• Anthony J Brookes, professor of genetics, University of Leicester, England
• Annie Janvier, professor of pediatrics and clinical ethics, Université de Montréal and Sainte-Justine University Medical Centre, Canada
• Ariel Munitz, professor of clinical microbiology and immunology, Tel Aviv University, Israel
• Boris Kotchoubey, Institute for Medical Psychology, University of Tübingen, Germany
• Cody Meissner, professor of pediatrics, expert on vaccine development, efficacy, and safety. Tufts University School of Medicine, USA
• David Katz, physician and president, True Health Initiative, and founder of the Yale University Prevention Research Center, USA
• David Livermore, microbiologist, infectious disease epidemiologist and professor, University of East Anglia, England
• Eitan Friedman, professor of medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Israel
• Ellen Townsend, professor of psychology, head of the Self-Harm Research Group, University of Nottingham, England
• Eyal Shahar, physician, epidemiologist and professor (emeritus) of public health, University of Arizona, USA
• Florian Limbourg, physician and hypertension researcher, professor at Hannover Medical School, Germany
• Gabriela Gomes, mathematician studying infectious disease epidemiology, professor, University of Strathclyde, Scotland
• Gerhard Krönke, physician and professor of translational immunology, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany
• Gesine Weckmann, professor of health education and prevention, Europäische Fachhochschule, Rostock, Germany
• Günter Kampf, associate professor, Institute for Hygiene and Environmental Medicine, Greifswald University, Germany
• Helen Colhoun, professor of medical informatics and epidemiology, and public health physician, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
• Jonas Ludvigsson, pediatrician, epidemiologist and professor at Karolinska Institute and senior physician at Örebro University Hospital, Sweden
• Karol Sikora, physician, oncologist, and professor of medicine at the University of Buckingham, England
• Laura Lazzeroni, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and of biomedical data science, Stanford University Medical School, USA
• Lisa White, professor of modelling and epidemiology, Oxford University, England
• Mario Recker, malaria researcher and associate professor, University of Exeter, England
• Matthew Ratcliffe, professor of philosophy, specializing in philosophy of mental health, University of York, England
• Matthew Strauss, critical care physician and assistant professor of medicine, Queen’s University, Canada
• Michael Jackson, research fellow, School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
• Michael Levitt, biophysicist and professor of structural biology, Stanford University, USA.
• Recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• Mike Hulme, professor of human geography, University of Cambridge, England
• Motti Gerlic, professor of clinical microbiology and immunology, Tel Aviv University, Israel
• Partha P. Majumder, professor and founder of the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, Kalyani, India
• Paul McKeigue, physician, disease modeler and professor of epidemiology and public health, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
• Rajiv Bhatia, physician, epidemiologist and public policy expert at the Veterans Administration, USA
• Rodney Sturdivant, infectious disease scientist and associate professor of biostatistics, Baylor University, USA
• Salmaan Keshavjee, professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, USA
• Simon Thornley, epidemiologist and biostatistician, University of Auckland, New Zealand
• Simon Wood, biostatistician and professor, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
• Stephen Bremner,professor of medical statistics, University of Sussex, England
• Sylvia Fogel, autism provider and psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and instructor at Harvard Medical School, USA
• Tom Nicholson, Associate in Research, Duke Center for International Development, Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, USA
• Udi Qimron, professor of clinical microbiology and immunology, Tel Aviv University, Israel
• Ulrike Kämmerer, professor and expert in virology, immunology and cell biology, University of Würzburg, Germany
• Uri Gavish, biomedical consultant, Israel
• Yaz Gulnur Muradoglu, professor of finance, director of the Behavioural Finance Working Group, Queen Mary University of London, England