The First Annual Bed-Wetter Awards

The Bed-Wetter Awards!

Hollywood gives out Oscars every year to celebrate the most politically correc— uh, I mean the highest achievements in filmmaking. The music business gives out Grammys to celebrate achievements in songwriting and performing. The Tonys, the Pulitzers, the Emmys … heck, the list goes on and on.

Since COVID-19 has exerted a more profound effect on society this year than movies, music, theatre, television, etc., I believe we need an award similar to the Oscars and the Grammys. Therefore, I’m announcing the First Annual Bed-Wetter Awards, given to those who have demonstrated the highest achievements in whining, panic-spreading, and generally scaring the piss out people over the horrible (and imaginary) things will happen if we return to normal instead of hiding forever from a virus that’s about as deadly as the flu.

I’ll pick the nominees, and you can vote for the winner. Today’s category is best performance by a bed-wetter politician.

I was tempted to nominate Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York. This is the brilliant leader who decided old people who tested positive for COVID-19 should be returned to nursing homes, where they promptly infected the most vulnerable population. Meanwhile, Cuomo was determined to protect the group that least needs protecting – school-age kids. Here’s the distribution of coronavirus deaths by age:

Yup, kids below the age of 15 have accounted for one of every 10,000 coronavirus deaths. Seasonal flu has been deadlier for kids. In fact, kids are more likely to die being driven to school than from COVID-19. Toss in the 15-to-24 group – which would take us through the college years – and we’re still talking about 12 of every 10,000 deaths. Only an accomplished bed-wetter could look at those numbers and conclude that kids are at risk. So let’s enjoy the performance that nearly got Cuomo nominated for a Bed-Wetter award.

Impressive. But after thinking about it, I decided Cuomo doesn’t deserve a nomination. New York was the epicenter of COVID-19. Scaring the New York population under those circumstances simply wasn’t a difficult enough achievement to be honored with an award.

So our first actual nominee is Governor Gavin Newsome of California. Newsome runs a state with a population of more than 40 million people, but only saw 4,000 COVID-19 deaths. By contrast, New York has a population of 19 million, but saw 24,000 COVID deaths. In other words, the COVID death rate in California is less than one-tenth the death rate in New York. Most of the COVID deaths in California (as elsewhere) were among people who were old and sick. In fact, 42 percent of those deaths occurred in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

And yet Newsome ordered businesses to close all over the state, including rural counties that had no reported cases of COVID-19. He also closed the beaches, apparently believing they’d be swamped by 80-year-olds planning a mid-day plunge in the ocean. And when some youngsters defied the order and went to the beaches anyway, Newsome had some words for them. Let’s take a moment to admire his performance:

Stunning. Newsome talked about the need for herd immunity, then young chided people for going to the beaches where they might be exposed to the virus … which would help achieve herd immunity. Then Newsome talked about a glorious future when everyone has been vaccinated against the coronavirus … never mind that an effective vaccine may never be developed.

Newsome is also one of many governors planning to hire a brigade of “contact tracers” – because what would possibly go wrong with giving governments the power to track where you go and who you’re with?

Our second nominee is Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. Whitmer demonstrated real imagination by deciding liquor stores and dispensers of lottery tickets are “essential,” while banning the sale of garden seeds. Whitmer further demonstrated her bed-wetter chops by banning people from traveling to their own vacation homes … because as any scientist will tell you, leaving a crowded city to go live in a cabin in a secluded area is how you catch coronavirus.

Whitmer has finally lifted some restrictions on businesses, but is still very concerned that Michigan citizens may be traveling across the border to Ohio to get their hair and nails done. Since that means hair and nail salons are open in Ohio, a logical leader would check with Ohio officials to see if there’s been a sudden spike in deaths among Ohioans with coifed hair and shiny nails. But no, Whitmer instead warned that people in Michigan who travel to Ohio may be spreading death. Here’s part of her performance:

Our final nominee is the governor of my former home state, JB Pritzker of Illinois. Pritzker twice extended the lockdown in Illinois even after neighboring states opened up without any resulting spikes in COVID-19 deaths. A representative from downstate Illinois took the matter to court, and a judge ruled that Pritzker had exceed his authority by extending the lockdown.

That prompted Pritzker to put on the performance that won him a nomination:

A fine performance, but you can’t appreciate just how fine it was unless you also know this: while ordering people in Illinois to stay home – to keep everyone safe, ya know – Pritzker and his family traveled to their vacation horse farm in Wisconsin. His wife and daughter also traveled to a vacation home in Florida. But Pritzker’s real claim to being a bed-wetter is this:

Illinois construction workers traveling to Wisconsin to work on Pritzker’s farm amid stay-at-home order

FOX 32 News watched Thursday as construction workers from Illinois crossed the border to work on the governor’s farm. Pritzker, though, says there is no double standard because construction workers are exempt.

FOX 32 wandered over the Wisconsin border into Kenosha County and found more than 20 construction workers — nearly all from Illinois — helping build a massive new home and several outbuildings on Pritzker’s horse farm.

Pritzker decided it was “essential” for construction workers to travel across state lines to build a new home on his Wisconsin property … but if you ventured out for a haircut, he wanted you arrested. You could spread the virus, doncha know.

Those are my nominees. Cast your votes.


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65 thoughts on “The First Annual Bed-Wetter Awards

  1. Jana

    I live in California. It’s got to be our governor. Sunshine is very effective against germs and activating vitamin D. Why can’t we go outside? Why must we live in caves? How do we get herd immunity if we can’t interact with others? We’ve had a flu vaccine since the 1940s. I don’t recall it being very effective at stopping the flu, only at lessening symptoms once you get the flu. I also recall swimming in salt water being a good preventative for illness. Our beaches aren’t the warmest but some of them are very swimmable.

  2. Less Antman

    I have to go with Newsom. Not only have Michigan & Illinois had 4 times the rate of COVID deaths than California, but evidence has been around now for at least a month that California may have been infected well before other states due to our strong travel ties to China, with unexplained flu-like systems reported by many California doctors in December, thus suggesting it had been floating around for 3 months with minimal impact before the lockdown.

    And I’m still trying to find an epidemiologist or virologist willing to attach his or her name to the claim that outdoor transmission in warm weather is a meaningful risk, or that the order accompanying the reopening of beaches that required people keep moving had a shred of science behind it. Wouldn’t a person sitting or lying down be sending LESS material into the air than someone walking? We had a 93-year-old couple ordered to get out of their lawn chairs in Oxnard, people cited for SITTING IN THEIR CARS watching the sunset in Encinitas, and I personally witnessed the worst atrocity in my hometown of Carlsbad, where cops were ticketing young women for lying in the sun in bikinis. We should be celebrating the civic-minded civil disobedience of these girls & declaring such citations a Crime Against Manity.

    1. Tom Naughton Post author

      Let’s hope these politicians pay for their behavior when they run for re-election.

    2. Firebird7479

      I was in Costa Mesa for two weeks in December. I picked up a cold while was there. The locals told me it had to do with the Santa Ana winds shifting. The cold was mild, little more than a scratchy throat. I traveled by Amtrak. The first morning on the train a woman with a cold was seated next to me for breakfast. She sneezed and coughed all over the table. Nothing to guard it. No sneezing into her elbow. Nothing. That mild cold I had quickly accelerated and took me three weeks to shake. On top of that, the scratchy feeling in my nose and throat would come back through April. I used a number of natural remedied to fight it with pretty good success.

      I haven’t been tested. Wouldn’t be surprised if I picked up Covid-19 while I was out there.

  3. Firebird7479

    That’s tough and so many more could be added.

    Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania who called protesting business owners “cowards” for wanting to go back to work, just marched in protests yesterday with hundreds of people violating his orders.

    Pat Murphy of NJ just allowed sports teams in the state to return to practice, including use of their fitness centers — but continues to tangle with the owner of the gym I train at by arresting members who trained there, had the Health Department cite them for violations without ever entering the building (The town sewer dept. backed up their drains) and had the locks on their doors change. Oh, forgot to mention, Murphy and his wife own a professional woman’s soccer team.

    I was in Costa Mesa for 2 weeks back in December and road my bike along the board walk in Huntington and Newport Beaches. Who knew that 5 months later there’d be protests and rioting — BUT THAT’S OKAY because it is for a cause.

    I’m going to go with Whitmer. Just the fact alone that she could send cops to the home of a 77 year old barber and have them haul him out in handcuffs for wanting to do his job instead of take a handout (welfare) is revolting enough.

    Ron Paul calls her and others like her “Power Freaks”.

    1. Tom Naughton Post author

      Here’s one of the many reasons I voted for our governor (Bill Lee) and will again: when Tennessee instituted a lockdown, he made it clear that he was REQUESTING citizens and businesses comply, not demanding we comply. I haven’t heard of anyone in Tennessee being arrested for not observing social distancing.

      1. Firebird7479

        The shame of that is this: Bristol, TN and Bristol, Va. are right across the street from each other. The main road is the state line. The businesses on the TN side are bustling. Restaurants and bars are thriving in TN. Across the street in Va., one pizzeria owner said he was making $90/day because all he could do was delivery and curbside service.

        Meanwhile in NJ, Murphy has reopened malls but with curbside service. How do you buy a pair of sneakers or try on new clothes in the parking lot?

        1. Tom Naughton Post author

          If we hear about a spike in deaths in eastern Tennessee, we’ll know what happened.

        2. Lisa

          Malls are not on the list to reopen in NJ. Restaurants are allowed outside seating, but must be approved for that area if they want to serve liquor, at a cost of $75! Hair salons can open on the 22nd but have no guidelines yet from the gov on how to do it “safely”. He has openly stated that he does not care about small businesses. Looting and rioting are approved.

          1. Firebird7479

            I live in New Jersey … malls can open for curbside service. And he’s under investigation to find out just who he’s getting his “scientific” recommendations from because he doesn’t share that.

  4. Miriam

    I’m going to have to vote for Pritzker. “My stay-at-home order saved tens of thousands of lives…History will remember those who put politics aside to keep people safe except for when they super-needed a horse barn.”

    1. Firebird7479

      Wolf in PA said the same thing as he moved PA into the “Yellow Phase” of ending the lockdown.

      Pritzker is also heavily involved in vaccine research. His company is looking for a vaccine for Covid-19. They’ve never been able to find a successful vaccine for any coronavirus.

  5. Lori Miller

    The nominees must have spent all their panic on coronavirus, because they don’t seem to have any left for the rioting and looting going on.

  6. V. Dominique

    You didn’t give Whitmer enough credit for her performance. When people protested against the lockdown, Gauleiter… er, Governor Whitmer punished them by extending it, first to the end of May, and then to June 12. She went after a 77 year old barber because he reopened his business so he could earn a living but allowed a private gay club… complete with “glory holes”… to stay open. To top it off, when her husband was caught traveling to their vacation home, she claimed he went there to rake leaves. Then, when people called her on her bs she played the victim card. Let that sink in for a momen. Whitmer destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people but we’re supposed to believe she’s the victim.

    Guess you know who gets my vote.

  7. Red

    The vacation home and playing the victim gives my vote to Whitmer.

    It is dangerous to have professional victims in positions of power.

  8. Kathy from Maine

    I just heard on the news this morning that Minnesota is moving forward on de-funding and dismantling the police and replacing it with “a transformative new model for public safety.” According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Lisa Bender (president of the City Council) “sees the city’s potentially revamped public safety force as potentially sending social workers or other civilian personnel into situations that are traditionally handled by police.”

    So, don’t call the police when someone breaks into your house, goes 100 mph down residential streets where kids are playing, sells drugs on the streets of your neighborhood, or if you’re mugged, raped, or witness a murder. Instead, you’re to call a Social Worker. What could go wrong?

    Tom, you better have a lot of those awards in your garage, because there are so many deserving individuals out there.

    1. Lori Miller

      I’ve been wondering who’s going to write insurance policies for houses in a city with no police and a government that refuses to stop rioters. Seriously. Are people going to be able to get a mortgage on a house in Minneapolis since a mortgage requires homeowner’s insurance? Or will the premiums just go through the roof?

      OTOH, NEETS (neither employed nor in education or training) can soon find work using the skills acquired in first shooter video games: they can form gangs and patrol the neighborhood for protection money like they do in Chicago.

      1. Tom Naughton Post author

        I kinda hope one of the loony-left cities does dispense with its police department. Then these morons will see the consequences of what they were demanding. (I’m excluding Portland because based on their previous response to violent riots, nobody would notice if the police department disbanded.)

  9. Robert

    I nominate all of them. Not because one is worse or better, but because we can’t give awards and trophies to just the winners anymore, according to their own logic. They all get a participation trophy because they all suck.

  10. Chad Wallace (an alias)

    Hey Tom,
    I’m still stuck in our hometown, within Sangamon County IL. And as a State employee, Governor Fat Boy is technically my boss (I’m only working for the insurance). Our state is totally locked up like a drum. Contrast to Missouri, where I’m sitting right now. Bars are open, and if you saw the national news over Memorial day, several sponsored huge pool parties sans masks to celebrate getting back to reality. And guess what – total new covid cases as a result of that are.. 0.
    Sangamon county, which has a population of 200k, had, when I left town last weekend, 29 deaths. and 23 of those were in one nursing home. 6 out of 200k, pretty low percentage.
    Like most, I cannot wait to get to a more ‘moderate’ state. Give Fat Boy the prize.

    1. Firebird7479

      But…but…but…the media is reporting that 10,000 new cases of Covid19 popped up overnight due to the protests and rioting. Imagine that! 🙄

  11. G. Pyrka

    I submit a write-in nomination for our cry baby bed-wetter-in-chief. I think most governors made hard decisions to try to protect their constituents in the face of total incompetence at the federal level.
    A partial list:
    -Dismantling the Pandemic Response Team, so correct or up to date information was not available to governors.
    -Refusing to assist states in obtaining PPE resulting in deaths of health care workers – hey libertarians, where were their rights?
    -Threating to withhold funding from blue states — only some Americans were worth protecting?
    -When it comes to protestors, neo-nazis who had no problem running down a peaceful protestor with a car, were considered “fine people”; people who stormed state capitols with automatic weapons were encouraged (incited to insurrection); but peaceful protesters were fired on with rubber bullets and chemical deterrents, called thugs, and threatened with much longer prison sentences than his convicted criminal cronies(and with no possibility of getting a pardon).

    Libertarians, your rights end at the noses of every other person in this country. Did governors make mistakes?
    Of course, they are human but were at a severe disadvantage due to lack of information and support. I don’t see you enumerating the mistakes of our cry baby bed-wetter-in-chief. You sound no better than the social justice warriors that your ridicule.

    1. Tom Naughton Post author

      You are repeating nonsense from the lamestream media. Go do some actual research. Here, I’ll help get you started: This article includes a full transcript of the press conference that included that “very fine people” remark.

      https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/apr/26/context-trumps-very-fine-people-both-sides-remarks/

      If you can read that and still conclude that he called neo-nazis who ran down a protester “very fine people,” go take a remedial course in reading comprehension.

      1. Don

        Nice smackdown! His comments are the rule, not the exception on most sites. You have an educated readership.

    2. Firebird7479

      -Threating to withhold funding from blue states — only some Americans were worth protecting?

      Apparently not. They allowed looting, rioting and protesting in mass. The rest of us still can’t go to the gym, the beach or a ball game.

      1. Tom Naughton Post author

        You can’t spread the disease if you’re protesting. Your virtue-signaling protects you and everyone around you.

  12. wayne gage

    Thought I’d share this with you…you must have a great governor.
    ” Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration has been minding my own business. Government shouldn’t play a part in everyday life. Jefferson said that the people should be left to manage their own affairs. His opposition will bear careful analysis, and the country could stand a good deal more of its application. The trouble with us is we talk about Jefferson, but we do not follow him. In this theory that the people should manage their government, and not be managed by it, he was everlastingly right.” Calvin Coolidge

    1. Tom Naughton Post author

      Cool Cal.

      Soon after we left the People’s Republic of California and landed here, a member of the city council here in Franklin proposed banning chain-link fences because they’re “unsightly.” The mayor replied that he’d immediately veto any such measure because while he agreed the fences aren’t attractive, it’s not a proper role of government to tell people what kind of fences they’re allowed to put on their own property. I pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming and thought, “Oh. My. God. A politician who understands government is supposed to be the people’s servant instead of the people’s master? I’ve found a home.”

    2. Firebird7479

      To rephrase a line from the theme to “All in the Family”: 🎶 Mister we could use a man like Calvin Coolidge again.

  13. Lori Miller

    My vote goes to Whitmer because of her micromanagement.

    The mayor and governor here have looked like deer in the headlights over the past few months. But they haven’t handled the pandemic or protests too badly compared to other officials.

  14. Eric

    I don’t see much difference between these governors and some other Republican governors, such as the excellent leadership by DeWine of Ohio. And the results won’t be in for months. My hunch is that the states which re-opened too soon and too loosely will discover an alarming increase which will result in economic pain. It’s like the difference between Sweden and its neighbors. Of course, it’s too early to tell which strategy is best; that won’t be known for many months.

    Rather than snark about governors of the wrong political persuasion, I am more interested in your personal experiences. Perhaps a blog post on them? For example, a friend of mine attended a funeral for an uncle who died of cancer. The funeral was in a small south-Missouri rural town located far from large metro areas. The only people at the funeral who were wearing masks were the elderly, which, as he commented, is not the point of masks. And everybody at the funeral was shaking hands and hugging. Is that the the norm in your part of rural living? Do people wear masks at grocery stores and restaurants, or is there another lifestyle? I observe several of my neighbors (in my large metro) who think this thing is overblown; they tend to sorta-physically-distance. They stand 3 feet from each other, whereas before they might have stood 2 feet apart, and they speak in a quiet tone rather than their normal speaking voice. One guy works at a Lowes where he refuses to wear a mask. Quasi-distancing is what I call it.

    And you and your family? Are you out and about socializing? Going to sit-down restaurants without any concern for 6-foot-distancing? Are you insisting that your employer allow you to come back into the office?

    As for me and my wife, we self-quarantine in our house in a large metro area (about 400 miles from yours). We have become big fans of Walmart grocery shopping. Their online system is excellent; groceries arrive at the car within 10 minutes of parking, and the quality of the food is much better than when I had checked them out five years ago. As my wife and I sit in the car watching shoppers go into Walmart, we notice that most shoppers wear masks.

    1. Tom Naughton Post author

      I’m not familiar with what DeWine in Ohio did, but since Whitmer is worried that people from Michigan are crossing the border into Ohio to get their hair and nails done, I assume Ohio lifted restrictions earlier.

      The norm here in my area is that people observed social distancing when it was required and went out again when it wasn’t. As for my family, we went back to the gym as soon as it opened. We started going to restaurants as soon as they opened. We went to our local Mexican place last night, and the cashier told me they were swamped about an hour before we came in. My employer plans to start bringing us back into the office at the end of June. I prefer working at home (and do work at home three days per week), but no, I don’t feel I’ll be in any danger when I start going into the office two days per week.

      I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it: THE VIRUS ISN’T GOING AWAY, AND THE ONLY PURPOSE OF SOCIAL DISTANCING WAS TO PREVENT HOSPITALS FROM BEING OVERWHELMED — PERIOD. Social distancing was never intended to stop the spread of the virus, because it can’t be stopped. The intention was to slow the pace of the initial spread.

      Will there be some spikes in infections as areas open up? Probably … and that will happen whether they open up now or a year from now — because THE VIRUS ISN’T GOING AWAY. There isn’t going to be a magic vaccine any time soon (probably never), so the idea that we have to stay locked down UNTIL IT’S SAFE! is ridiculous.

      1. Don

        The left sure didn’t let this “crisis” go to waste. The initial uncertainty led to fear, which was used for a naked power grab. And now those who cried that Trump would destroy the country are literally destroying the country! Can I vote for the entire left, who have a vested interest in pushing fear and bed-wetting?
        Seeing all these governors accusing normal people of murder reminded me of Remy and his rap for Reason mag. Have you seen this? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko

        1. Tom Naughton Post author

          Perfect. If Remy re-did that video now, I suspect there would be a verse about how those who oppose ongoing lockdowns want people to die.

      2. Firebird7479

        We’re learning from the riots and protests that people gathering in masses is now okay. If the governors can allow that without fear of the virus spreading then open up pro sports again. Belarus never shut down, kept their pro soccer leagues going to capacity crowds and the survived the virus just fine.

  15. MrQuick42

    My vote goes to Pritzker’s ASL translator. He seems to be exaggerating things to an extreme level in the first 15 seconds of that video. I’m surprised deaf people didn’t drop dead en masse from panic-induced heart attacks watching that press conference….or maybe they did and were just chalked up as COVID-19 deaths.

  16. Lori_K

    My brother and his wife life in Illinois. They took a week’s vacation in May and drove down to Texas and fully enjoyed themselves before having to travel back to “Prick-ster’s Prison” as they called it.

    We aren’t much better off in NM. Our wunnerful governor decided that liquor stores were non-essential for about two months, but I believe the medical marijuana dispensaries were still open. So, “stay home and get high” was the takeaway I got from that. 🙁

    1. Tom Naughton Post author

      The inconsistency is a big part of what makes these edicts so maddening.

  17. Jason Bucata

    Michigander here. I need to clarify one thing you missed the boat on.

    “… because as any scientist will tell you, leaving a crowded city to go live in a cabin in a secluded area is how you catch coronavirus.”

    That was never the point: Gov. Whitmer didn’t want asymptomatic people to drive up from the urban areas and spread the disease up north where there were few cases. She explicitly said as much in her press conference. She didn’t want the mess in metro Detroit to spread northward where things were under control. (All this was before it became clearer that asymptomatic spread is much lower than anticipated, of course.)

    Meanwhile I hadn’t heard about the “leaf-raking” incident… if that’s true, well, I strongly with her/her husband for doing that. ;p

    A few weeks ago now, she eased the lockdown in the U.P. and the northern mitten counties. Restaurants opened for indoor seated service, with capacity restrictions, in particular. In the press conference she explicitly told urbanites to (rough quote) “think long and hard before going up north for a visit”. I had 2-4 hours to think about it on the freeway…

    I noticed an interesting shift: I went from being one of the last non-wearers in the south (for mudane non-ideological reasons) to one of the few mask-wearers up north. Since I wasn’t there at all before the easings started, I can’t prove this was the case, but I get the sense that people looked at me oddly for wearing a mask there, more than people had eventually started to look at me oddly for *not* wearing one in the south.

    At the first restaurant I ate at, I was close to the front door and saw a couple turned away for not wearing a mask (only required when not seated at your booth). They argued some and seemed rather miffed–I wondered if that was the only place that had turned them away for that. The staff seemed to want to comply with the governor’s orders–no indication if they thought the orders were stupid. But I got the sense that >50% of the people up north weren’t all that bothered about the orders.

    Gov. Whitmer did later backtrack on the vacation home ban. It might have been at the same time as loosening the restrictions “up north”, but I thought it was a week or so before. (I do wonder, as you might, if Leafgate had anything to do with that decision…)

  18. Rae

    Metro schools now say they’ll announce next month if school reconvenes in August or not. What a disaster. As you point out, kids are the least vulnerable to this virus. Maybe some kids have grandparents or high risk family at home and we can think about workarounds for those families. But cancelling school for everyone?! I’ll lose my job (that I loved) because I’ll have to stay home and be a homeschool teacher (the reason I didn’t become a teacher is because I am NOT a teacher!). We are among the lucky- not every family can afford for one parent to be a homeschooler. This is potential chaos for families. To avoid such minuscule risk!

  19. PATTIE MCKELLIP-FOWLER

    The damn panic…I only wonder how long this level of crazy can sustain before we all die of exhaustion.

  20. Geoff

    Looks like this will need to be expanded to how well “leadership” has handled riots and not enforcing social distancing on those crowds.

  21. tony grenier

    “honey….they canceled the fireworks also”….so, no Riverfest, no baseball, no pools or beaches, no concerts in the parks….”i’ll be downstairs breathing in the radon, if you need me”…

  22. Gerard

    Hey, those studies looked good. Except there is no numerator. I mean, it doesn’t compare actual “infected people with symptoms”, or “people who tested positive” vs say “15% of those infected”. For example 15% of the population infected with 15% all in critical respiratory distress would be bad. But 15% of the population infected and one person in respiratory distress isn’t so bad at all.

    I actually found this one from our colourful swear word loving friend Mr Nikoley which does have numerator and denominator https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v2.full.pdf this had a very high error margin but a skim through the abstract – (TL;DR 1000 positive test cases corresponded to 54000 real infections with a large margin of error – its a pilot study I guess)

    This is the bit –

    After weighting for population demographics of Santa Clara County, the prevalence was 2.8% (95CI 1.3-4.7%), using bootstrap to estimate confidence bounds. These prevalence point estimates imply that 54,000 (95CI 25,000 to 91,000 using weighted prevalence; 23,000 with 95CI 14,000-35,000 using unweighted prevalence) people were infected in Santa Clara County by early April, many more than the approximately 1,000 confirmed cases at the time of the survey.”

    In your cited studies – do you know the numerator? Maybe I missed it?

    1. Tom Naughton Post author

      If you’re referring to the Santa Clara study, the aim was to determine what percent of the population has COVID antibodies.

  23. Jovan

    Great post, but the idea of COVID-19 being as deadly as the regular flu seems so off to me.

    My grandma died of COVID and my father was seriously ill and very very sick, with a serious pneumonia and spent 2 weeks in the hospital.
    They have both had the flu many times and it never ever got as serious as this.

    Thx for reading.

    1. Tom Naughton Post author

      Sorry to hear about the losses in your family. Statistically, COVID is deadlier than the flu for those over 70, but about the same as or less deadly than the flu for those under 70.

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