Pardon the absence. I’ve been socially distancing myself from the blog because I’m afraid if I interact with too many of you, I’ll catch the coronavirus and die. I’ve learned from the bed-wetter media that we’re all at extremely high risk, so I figured I’d best stay inside, wear a mask (even in the house) and avoid living my actual life as much as possible.
Okay, that’s not exactly it. Truth is, I’ve been face-down in other projects. I’ve also been spending part of my evenings and weekends teaching Sara to drive, since she leaves for college next year and still doesn’t have a license.
I’ve been following the coronavirus story in the news, of course. I’d summarize the bed-wetter media’s coverage something like this:
OH MY GOD CASES ARE RISING AGAIN BECAUSE SOME STUPID STATES EASED THE LOCKDOWN RESTRICTIONS AND IT’S ALL HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE AND MOSTLY TRUMP’S FAULT AND WE HAVE TO LOCK DOWN AGAIN RIGHT NOW AND STAY LOCKED DOWN UNTIL IT’S SAFE!!
Every time I see another bed-wetter report on the news, I wonder why the #$%@ anyone is surprised the virus is still spreading. As a reminder, I wrote this on April 16th:
Adult knowledge says the coronavirus will spread … and the most social distancing can do is slow the spread. Adult knowledge says the virus will kill people – just like the flu kills people — whether we shut down the economy or not.
I wrote this on May 18th:
The medical system was successfully saved from being overwhelmed, but in the meantime, the bed-wetters moved the goalposts. They no longer talk about flattening the curve. Now they want us to stay locked down UNTIL IT’S SAFE!
Say what? Until it’s safe?! They apparently believe if we just stay inside long enough, the virus will disappear, and then we can all come out to play again. They haven’t the grasped the fact – and it is a fact – that the virus is here, it’s not going away, and it will spread. I’ll say that again for the slow-witted: the virus is going to spread. And one more time: THE VIRUS IS GOING TO SPREAD.
I wrote this (in comments) on June 6th:
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.
I wrote this (in comments) on July 4th:
We have to accept that the virus is here, it’s not going away, and staying in lockdown won’t prevent people from being exposed unless we stay in lockdown forever.
So … several states began easing restrictions, the number of cases began to rise (largely because of more testing, but we’ll come back to that), and people began tweeting comments along the lines of SEE?! Those lockdowns you irresponsible crazy people said weren’t necessary are ending, and now the number of COVID cases is spiking! SEE? SEE?!
Uh … you mean do I see that the virus is here, it isn’t going away, and it will spread throughout the population whether we end the lockdowns today or a year from now, exactly as I stated? Well, yes, I do see that. But what the bed-wetters apparently can’t see is that the death rate is continuing to plummet, and those “spiking” infections are being identified mostly among people who experience mild symptoms or no symptoms at all.
Here’s the “spike” the media and government bed-wetters keep harping about so we’ll submit to another round of lockdowns:
Wow, that looks bad, doesn’t it? Boy oh boy, that’s a spike if I’ve ever seen one.
But wait … take a look at this chart showing the number of tests per thousand people in several countries:
There’s the U.S. at the very tippy-top of the chart, testing more people more quickly than any other country … and darned if that spike in tests conducted doesn’t look a lot like the “spike” in cases.
But the bed-wetters never bother to point that out. Instead, they keep trying to scare the hell out of us. CNN, perhaps the most bed-wetting of all the bed-wetter media, reminds us every two minutes or so that THE UNITED STATES NOW HAS MORE CORONAVIRUS CASES THAN ANY OTHER COUNTRY!!
OH MY GOD THE UNITED STATES HAS MORE CASES THAN ANY OTHER COUNTRY IT’S ALL HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE AND MOSTLY TRUMP’S FAULT AND WE HAVE TO LOCK DOWN AGAIN RIGHT NOW AND STAY LOCKED DOWN UNTIL IT’S SAFE!!
Let’s pretend we’re rational, logical adults (and thus disqualified from working in most news organizations these days) and think this through: The United States is the third-most populous country in the world. The two countries with larger populations are China and India. Does anyone believe China and India have conducted anywhere close to as many tests as the U.S.?
So here in the third-most populous country in the world, we’re testing at the fastest rate of any country, and – DUH! – the result is that we now lead the world in identified cases of coronavirus infections. Somebody hand me an adult diaper; I’m afraid this shocking news may prompt me to wet the bed.
And keep in mind the number of cases is likely exaggerated. As several doctors have reported, they were pressured by hospitals to count cases where coronavirus was only suspected, not actually confirmed. Why would hospitals do that? As always, follow the money. Here’s what a doctor wrote about the financial incentive to overreport cases:
Why would someone want to inflate case counts, and what are the risks and benefits of doing so? As reported in Modern Healthcare, July 17, 2020, “HHS to send $10 billion in round two of relief grants to COVID-19 hot spots.” Modern Healthcare reports, “Hospitals that had more than 161 COVID-19 admissions between January 1 and June 10 will be paid $50,000 for each COVID-19 admission. HHS asked hospitals to start submitting COVID-19 admission data on June 8.”
Hospitals that use the new CDC definition stand to make millions of dollars. The first round of HHS grants was $12 billion and paid $76,975 per admission to hospitals that had more than 100 COVID-19 admissions from January 1 through April 1. Clearly, states hit early got tons of money- Illinois got $740 M, New York got $684 M, and Pennsylvania got $655 M alone. Additionally, Medicaid will pay out $15 billion in relief funds- hospitals must apply by August, so the more cases the better the return. The hospitals reporting the most cases get the most money.
In addition to expanding the definition of a New COVID-19 case to include exposure to a COVID-19 positive patient and a self-reported fever, lowering admission thresholds, and requiring testing on every admission, the ability to code a hospital admission as “with-COVID” is easy and becomes a very lucrative business model. My OB-gyn colleague told me about her scheduled C-section patient who was asymptomatic but tested positive on the required admission COVID test, so she too became a hospitalization “with COVID.”
Clearly, hospitals are financially incentivized to code more COVID cases and deaths. Definitions matter. Another sad consequence is that we are losing freedoms and destroying our state and country based on the inflated numbers.
Watch this video of a doctor explaining that after he was put on a contact-tracing list (and we’ll just set aside the huge potential for government abuse of that practice), he learned that if he so much as had a runny nose, he’d be counted as positive for COVID. I recommend watching the entire video, but his explanation of how cases are counted starts at around 3:00:
Let’s continue thinking like rational, logical adults: if the disease is actually spreading like wildfire in the U.S. population (as opposed to merely being identified in more people), and if the disease is as deadly as the bed-wetter media wants us to believe, then the death rate must be shooting up like crazy, right?
Here’s a chart showing the bi-weekly number of deaths:
You might notice a little spike around June 26. What you might not be able to read is the explanation in tiny type. It reads June 26, July 1: probable/earlier deaths added. So even that little spike may not be a spike in current deaths.
Here are the deaths by age group:
The bed-wetters want us to panic over a disease for which the deaths peaked in April. Yes, it’s a shame so many old and vulnerable people died, but even Neil Ferguson, the professor in England whose original model predicted millions of deaths, has stated recently that up to two-thirds of those killed by COVID would have likely died this year from some other cause.
And just like with the counts of coronavirus cases, the death counts may be exaggerated. According to the bed-wetter media, it’s just a conspiracy theory that people who test positive for the virus and later die for some other reason are counted as COVID deaths. But we know it happened:
A man who died in a motorcycle crash was counted as a COVID-19 death in Florida, according to a new report from FOX 35 Orlando.
According to the report, Orange County Health Officer Dr. Raul Pino was asked whether two coronavirus victims in their 20s had any underlying medical conditions that could have potentially made them more susceptible to the virus.
Pino’s answer was that one of the two people who was listed as a COVID death actually died in a motorcycle crash. Despite health officials knowing the man died in a motorcycle crash, it is unclear whether or not his death was removed from the overall count in the state.
Dr. Pino tells FOX 35 that one “could actually argue that it could have been the COVID-19 that caused him to crash.”
Ah, I see. A guy in his 20s had the virus, and the virus might have somehow caused him to crash his motorcycle, so it’s a COVID death. Well, okey-dokey then.
Before Washington State changed its policy, there were suicides, homicides and drug overdoses being counted as COVID deaths simply because the dead people had previously tested positive for coronavirus. It’s nice that the state decided to clean up its data, but how many states and hospitals haven’t? And given what the doctor explained about hospitals receiving funds based on the number of COVID cases and deaths they report, why would they have any incentive whatsoever to re-classify deaths as non-COVID?
In the U.K., it’s apparently official policy to count anyone who ever tested positive for coronavirus as a COVID death, regardless of the actual cause of death:
[Public Health England] regularly looks for people on the NHS database who have ever tested positive, and simply checks to see if they are still alive or not. PHE does not appear to consider how long ago the COVID test result was, nor whether the person has been successfully treated in hospital and discharged to the community. Anyone who has tested COVID positive but subsequently died at a later date of any cause will be included on the PHE COVID death figures.
By this PHE definition, no one with COVID in England is allowed to ever recover from their illness. A patient who has tested positive, but successfully treated and discharged from hospital, will still be counted as a COVID death even if they had a heart attack or were run over by a bus three months later.
Even legitimate COVID deaths are being reported in a manner that seems designed to give the impression of a recent spike in deaths, when in fact many of those deaths occurred earlier:
On July 7, for instance, [Arizona] recorded 117 “new deaths” on its dashboard. Calling that number a “record,” CNN reported that Arizona that day reported “117 deaths from Covid-19 over the last 24 hours.” Business Insider reported that Arizona recorded “its highest number of newly reported coronavirus deaths” on that day. News Break said the state on that date “recorded its highest single-day death toll.”
Yet actual state data as of Saturday indicated that only 53 people are so far recorded as dying in the 24-hour period in question, 54% less than the “record” day touted in numerous headlines. Indeed, going by date of death, the most fatalities the state has ever recorded over 24 hours is 57, on June 30.
A similar problem was seen in Florida this week, when the state health department on Thursday announced 156 deaths in one 24-hour period. That number was touted as a frightening new record by media outlets such as CNN, the Miami Herald, NBC, the Orlando Sentinel, and numerous others.
Yet as of Saturday afternoon, the actual number of deaths confirmed for that 24-hour period, per the state’s dashboard, was just 58—roughly one-third the “record” that the state health department touted on its website.
Again, I wrote this back in April: Adult knowledge says the coronavirus will spread … and the most social distancing can do is slow the spread.
Actually, I no longer believe social distancing had much of an effect in slowing the spread. If you haven’t seen the videos Ivor Cummins has been posting on the topic, this would be a good time to start. As you may already know, Ivor is a biochemical engineer. He cares rather deeply about stuff like data, evidence and logic. If you watch his longer videos and follow along with the data he and his guests present, you’ll learn that:
- The infection and death curves are virtually the same across countries whether they locked down or not. (The curves have a different shape in countries close to the equator.)
- The curves are the same as for flu outbreaks.
- Sweden has more deaths from flu during flu seasons than its neighbors, so comparing Sweden’s COVID deaths to Finland’s or Norway’s COVID deaths proves nothing about the effectiveness of lockdowns.
- The death rate in most countries was already dropping when lockdowns were mandated.
- Years in which flu and other infectious diseases kill fewer vulnerable people (“light” years) are followed by years with more deaths – and 2019 was a “light” year.
- In terms of total excess mortality, 2020 doesn’t even rank in top five of the past 25 years.
I’d urge you watch his longer videos, but here are a couple of shorter ones:
As Ivor often says in his videos, science and logic were tossed out the window once the lockdown mentality set in. If you didn’t actually watch the second video, it features an Irish professor insisting that without the hard lockdown, the death rate in Ireland would have been 11 times the death rate in Sweden, which didn’t enforce a lockdown.
Eleven times the death rate in Sweden?! Goodness, apparently if the Irish aren’t locked down, they wander down to the pub, throw back a few pints of Guinness, then express their affection by licking each other’s noses and eyes. My Irish relatives never mentioned this charming tradition.
If Ivor and the people he interviews can examine the data and see what it’s actually telling us, then so can the bed-wetters in government and media … which means the STAY IN LOCKDOWN mentality isn’t about saving lives. There are clearly other agendas at work here. As Obama’s former chief of staff once put it, You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. It provides the opportunity to do things that were not possible to do before.
And what might those other agendas be? One is pretty obvious. This is an election year, and it’s quite rare for a president seeking re-election to lose when the economy is booming. The satirical site The Babylon Bee put it perfectly:
If you don’t think the STAY IN LOCKDOWN nonsense is political, then explain the logic behind this: New York City mayor Bill de Blasio recently put the kibosh on all large public gatherings except -– wait for it — Black Lives Matter protests. Yes, my fellow Americans, if you gather together in public, you’ll spread this awful-horrible-deadly disease, so we can’t allow it … unless you’re protesting something and the mayor supports your cause.
In a similar fashion, the mayor of Houston recently told the state GOP they can’t proceed with their annual convention scheduled there becuz COVID. But Black Lives Matter protests? Yeah, he’s okay with that. No need to shut those down.
But to really see science and common sense tossed aside in favor of a political agenda, just look at the school districts refusing to open their classrooms UNTIL IT’S SAFE!
Safe? Excuse me? We’re supposed to believe it’s not safe for kids to go to school? As a reminder, here are the COVID deaths by age, at least as of halfway through June:
A grand total of 138 deaths among school-age kids and teens. By contrast, according to the CDC and other government sources, here’s how many kids and teens die in an average year from other causes:
Auto accidents – 4,000
Cancer – 1,800
Drowning – 995
Heart disease – 600
Burns – 340
Your kid is far, far more likely to die in an auto accident while being driven to school than from COVID. Your kid is more likely to die by drowning than from COVID. (Perhaps that’s real reason Governor Newsome closed the beaches.) Your kid is more likely to die in a house fire than from COVID. Keeping schools closed is insane. This disease just doesn’t kill kids, period, unless they have severe underlying conditions.
But … but … but kids will spread the disease in school, then go home and infect their families!
Sorry, but that’s bull#$%@. There’s simply no evidence that asymptotic kids can spread the disease, even if they’re carriers of the virus. Yes, CNN and other bed-wetter news organizations recently promoted a (ahem) “study” saying kids can spread the disease, but I took a look at it. The “study” was pure speculation – no data, no actual evidence — that symptomatic kids might be able to spread the disease. Funny how countries that didn’t close their schools fared just as well as those that did. And by the way, many schools — including those in our local district — have long had a policy that kids can’t come to school if they have a fever.
If you believe school systems are closing their doors to stop the spread of the virus, then I’d suggest you look at what the Los Angeles Teachers Union is demanding before they feel (ahem) “safe” to return to work:
- More federal funding for schools
- Increased taxes on the wealthy
- Defunding the police
- Medicare for all
- A moratorium on private and charter schools
Amazing … somehow only passing a left-wing wish-list of legislation will protect students and teachers against the awful, horrible, deadly virus. What a load of #$%@. This isn’t about protecting kids. It’s about holding them hostage for political purposes.
We’ve lost our minds over this, folks. In this article, the author quotes a psychiatrist who treats anxiety disorders. Here’s what he had to say about the panic over the coronavirus:
I’m a practicing psychiatrist who specializes in anxiety disorders, paranoid delusions, and irrational fear. I’ve been treating this in individuals as a specialist. It’s hard enough to contain these problems in normal times. What’s happening now is a spread of this serious medical condition to the whole population. It can happen with anything but here we see a primal fear of disease turning into mass panic. It seems almost deliberate. It is tragic. Once this starts, it could take years to repair the psychological damage.
I couldn’t agree more. The panic over coronavirus is causing far more damage than the virus itself. We need to regain our sanity and accept that viruses that kill vulnerable people are part of life – and then get back to living. As every immunologist and virologist willing to risk the wrath of the bed-wetters in government has pointed out, we’re not going to stop the coronavirus from spreading, period. Perhaps there will be an effective vaccine someday, but that could take years. And frankly, if a vaccine is rushed through the FDA’s testing and approval process, I’m sure as hell not geting it. The FDA has a bad enough record with drugs that went through usual years-long process.
The virus will cease being a threat when we reach herd immunity. (We might even be close to herd immunity already.) And how do we get to herd immunity? By opening schools. By opening businesses. By allowing people to gather in public even if they’re not engaged in protests approved by left-leaning politicians.
This crazy #$%@ needs to stop … and the bed-wetter media need to take off their diapers, put on their big-boy pants, and stop trying to scare the hell out of us.
If you enjoy my posts, please consider a small donation to the Fat Head Kids GoFundMe campaign.
King Murphy of New Jersey had the owners of my gym arrested this morning (Again). I was there as the county sheriff’s dept. blocked entrance to the parking lot while the front doors were boarded shut.
https://savejersey.com/2020/07/update-atilis-gym-found-in-contempt-authorities-permitted-to-bar-entry-to-the-facility/
Time to pull out the Hogan’s Heroes DVDs and learn how to dig tunnels from the adjacent cemetery.
It’s really ridiculous here. The Philadelphia Flyers hockey team practices 10 minutes away and have access to all the amenities of their facility. Players post photos of everyone hanging out without masks. No social distancing.
I can drive across the bridge to Philly and be training at a gym in the city in 10-15 minutes. Ridiculous. I swear, the only dumbbell Murphy has ever seen is the one looking at him in the mirror.
So I guess that means people will be dropping like flies in Philly.
If they do, it will be from the wretched heat and humidity we have here, unless they probably have Covid.
Rotflmao! Internet comment of the day!
My favorite Murphyism was his answer to a question of whether the federal or state constitutions give him the authority to impose his onerous lockdown. His reply, and I quote: “. . .that’s above my pay grade.”
How little does New Jersey pay its governor?
We pay him too much! He should be a mail man because he is mailing it in.
Just spent 2 weeks working (and vacationing) in Missouri. The county our cabin is in (Camden) has had a total of 4 deaths as a result of Covid. And that’s in spite of all the ‘unsafe’ partying at Lake of the Ozarks that started on Memorial day. 4. and the media there is making it seem like its ‘out of control’. The focus now in media seems to be on positive test results and away from actual deaths.
My mom passed away on March 16, the day before governor Fat Boy shut down our state. And quite possibly she had Covid, or had had it prior, as she had a strange respiratory issue a month before that necessitated hospitalization (the first hospitalization in over 5 years of more serious incidents where we begged to have her admitted, but were turned away). I’m so glad that her death was not classified as Covid-related (although quite possibly someone somewhere has classified it so in spite of the death certificate).
Thanks Tom for posting a rational explanation of all this hysteria. Even logical thinkers like myself get beaten down over time by not getting enough ‘real’ news and opinion.
And BTW Tom, Sara is getting ready to go to college next year? Holy #$%@, where has the time gone?
Sorry to hear about your mom. As you know, mine died in April.
Yeah, Sara won’t turn 17 until November, but she’s off to college in a year. I’ve been spending more time with her, just hanging out and watching TV series we both like, etc., because I know how much I’m going to miss her when she’s gone.
If I were looking for a new home, South Dakota would be high on my list of places to move to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAooiOOfdhU
Agreed, Lori. I know who I am voting for in 2024.
Bravo, Tom. The insanity is mind-boggling, as well as the scale of it. Doesn’t it seem like the REAL pandemic is a weak, submissive state of mind in which people depend on credentialed authorities to do all their critical thinking for them? Gee, I wonder what kind of problems could occur under such a paradigm…
It is so tragic to be witnessing modern day slavery in real time. People are locked in an invisible prison that they don’t even know exists, and in fact they fight to deny it exists. Plato’s cave allegory in living color.
A few points I’ll add:
The “spike” in hospitalizations coincided with reopening elective procedures. When anyone comes near a clinic or hospital, they get tested to comply with the panic order, and poof—-as you described, there’s another COVID stat. In the absence of tests, their symptoms can be assessed to determine a “probable” COVID case (even though those same symptoms are shared by flu, pneumonia, & common cold), and then of course anyone they came in contact with is also counted as a “probable case” — there’s another 5-figure disbursement. All this at a time when clinics’ & hospitals’ revenue has been decimated by the shutdowns, and you have the perfect storm of incentives for unimaginably widespread fraud.
That is why the Trump administration shut down the CDC’s control of the data, plus the confusion of correlation & causation. It is the obesity epidemic scandal all over again, by the SAME AGENCY. [facepalm]
A couple of comprehensive articles written by professionals that do a great job parsing out all the problems with the VirusBogeyman narrative, including the obvious election year agenda:
Coronavirus: Why everyone was wrong by Beda M. Stadler (Medium.com)
The COVID Coup by Angelo Codevilla (AmericanMind.org)
Thanks for the links. Off to read …
So many things to discuss. But I am limited in time.
You argue the virus is here and there is no way to control it and so people just need to act like everything is normal and go out and get exposed.
Except New Zealand and Australia managed to control it. And look at our neighbor Canada, which is about 8 times smaller (population) than the United States. Canada has 8910 deaths, while the U.S. has 151,770 deaths. That is a 17-fold difference.
Here is the argument for lockdowns: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1287524301499965441.html
But that’s not going to happen because about 30% of Americans refuse to comply to safe practices.
You say we just need to grit through it. But scientists think there’s a good chance there will be a vaccine by next summer. Not guaranteed, of course, but a good chance. See http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/why-the-coronavirus-nightmare-may-soon-be-over/
You get upset about the number of tests. Here is an explanation:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1288179530264272897.html
You argue that case counts are too high. I have no idea . . . they may be, they may be too low. The epidemiologists that I read seem to think that confirmed cases are one fourth to one eighth of actual cases. (I don’t have a reference for that.)
Although I don’t trust case counts. I do trust overall mortality numbers. I ran the numbers on my county, which were much higher than baseline. You can run the numbers on your nearest major metropolitan area county. The numbers are available here: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
You say, ‘the death rate must be shooting up like crazy, right?’. And then you point to numbers that they are not. Of course they are not: most people are wearing masks and practicing physical distancing. The epidemiologists say that IFR is around 0.6%. See https://twitter.com/_stah/status/1286717985063927811
Doing some back-of-the-envelope numbers : 320 million Americans, 60% need to get infected to get to herd immunity, 0.6% die. That’s an unpleasant number. Yet you are gung-ho to send everybody out to get infected.
You say, ‘There’s simply no evidence that asymptotic kids can spread the disease, even if they’re carriers of the virus.’ Somebody forgot to tell Israel. See
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/06/03/868507524/israel-orders-schools-to-close-when-covid-19-cases-are-discovered
And let’s not forget the long-haulers, the people who got sick and are taking a long time to recover. Here are several links:
https://twitter.com/ahandvanish/status/1287525539859910657
https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/07/28/nisreen-a-alwan-what-exactly-is-mild-covid-19
My overall take is that you have been Ancel Keys’ing to find data to fit your theory.
If you want to rush out to get infected, enjoy your choir practice and your nights at the bar. Many Americans will say, no thanks, we will continue to wear masks and practice physical distancing in the hope a vaccine will arrive.
1. I read an article in which officials in New Zealand predicted (and they’re almost certainly correct) that the virus will return because it can’t be stopped.
2. There’s little to no evidence those “safe practices” Americans aren’t complying with do much of anything at all … if they did, Peru (which had a hard lockdown that started in March) wouldn’t have higher death rate than Brazil (which refused to do a lockdown).
3. I’m not taking any vaccine rushed through the process.
4. I’m not at all upset about the number of tests the U.S. is conducting. I’m upset that the bed-wetter media don’t explain that the rapid testing rate is why we have a “spike” in confirmed cases.
5. You linked to an article showing the drop in REPORTED deaths in countries like Germany and New Zealand. Great … now go look at the chart showing the rate of testing. Nowhere close to the rate in the U.S., so of course their REPORTED cases are lower than ours.
https://tinyurl.com/yykeolu2
6. Again, if the infection rate in the U.S. is really and truly far higher than those countries, and if this virus is really and truly deadly, deaths would spiking in the U.S. They’re not. Deaths are plummeting.
7. Take New York out of the equation (were deaths were extremely high because the genius governor sent infected old people back to nursing homes), and the U.S. death rate is on a par with other countries, and in fact lower than many. In my state of Tennessee, for example, we’ve had less than 1/10th as many deaths per capita as in New York.
8. The death rate was already plummeting before social distancing and wearing masks were enforced, which means they’re not the reason deaths are plummeting. The infection and death rates are following the same Gompertz curve that the flu does, and the deaths are plummeting at the same rate in countries with hard lockdowns and no lockdowns. And by the way, in the half-dozen U.S. states that never mandated social distancing or lockdowns, the death rate is lower than in most states that mandated social distancing, so good luck explaining how social distancing caused that one.
9. No, we don’t need anywhere close 60% to become infected to reach herd immunity, because it turns out many people quickly fight off the infection and show no symptoms and produce no antibodies. One of Ivor’s guests said de facto herd immunity would likely be when 10%-15% of the population shows serum antibodies. (You didn’t watch his videos, did you? If you did, I invite you to document exactly which data he presented incorrectly.)
10. The article about Israel simply states that 244 students and employees have tested positive for the virus, so the government is closing schools as a precaution. It doesn’t in any way, shape or form prove that asymptotic kids are spreading the disease to their families or teachers. In fact, the article states in clear and unambiguous language that officials are still investigating. The article also includes this quote: “The education minister, Yoav Gallant, argued that the overall number of virus cases in Israeli schools remains low and closing them all would not be justified.” No kidding. Israel has roughly the same population as New York City, but has had fewer than 300 deaths, compared to New York City’s 23,000. This is hardly a crisis.
11. Ancel Keys? Seriously? No, I’m looking at all the data, including the data you linked, which doesn’t disprove anything I wrote, for the reasons I stated above. If anyone here is making the data fit the desired theory, it’s you.
12. Yes, I will happily go to restaurants and bars. I’m not afraid of a virus that is less deadly than the flu for all but the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions. I’m not a bed-wetter. Americans who choose to continue their mass hysteria and hunker down in place and wear masks should be free to do so … and those of us wanting to get back to normal — even if it means taking a risk that is much smaller than the risk we take driving on a highway — should be free to do so as well.
‘One of Ivor’s guests said de facto herd immunity would likely be when 10%-15% of the population shows serum antibodies. ‘ And yet a month ago New York City had a tested infection rate of 20%, many people are still wearing masks andwere social distancing, and yet people keep getting sick and dying. The data proves Ivor’s theories wrong. Read the tweet stream at https://twitter.com/florian_krammer/status/1277678263679225856, at least until he writes on Jun 29, ‘It tells you that 1:5 New Yorkers likely already had SARS-CoV-2 and that the infection fatality rate in the city is about 0.7%. ‘. For NYC COVID-19 data, https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page.
You claim asymptomatic kids don’t spread the virus. Check out https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/covid-19-spread-fastest-by-teens-and-tweens-korea-study-finds/ar-BB16V7xm . (There is probably a better article at the NYTimes but I don’t have a login.)
My perception is that you want to bully those who fear this virus by calling them nasty names like ‘bed-wetters’ . It’s not going to work. People are making their own personal risk assessments and many are practicing physical distancing. On the other hand, those who think like you can find a way to get together in groups and shout loudly at each other. Here is an example of when that happens: https://twitter.com/SecMandyCohen/status/1282718455146246144
One of Ivor’s guests said de facto herd immunity would likely be when 10%-15% of the population shows serum antibodies. ‘ And yet a month ago New York City had a tested infection rate of 20%, many people are still wearing masks and were social distancing, and yet people keep getting sick and dying.
There’s no logic whatsoever to what you wrote there. Herd immunity doesn’t mean vulnerable people don’t die if they’re infected. It means we’ve reached the point where the virus stops finding so many vulnerable people to kill and the death rate plummets because most of the people in the herd are now immune to the effects. The study you linked proves my point, not yours. It says 19.3% tested positive by the week ending April 19. Yup. Now go to this page and scroll down to the graph showing deaths in New York City.
https://projects.thecity.nyc/2020_03_covid-19-tracker/
See how the deaths spike in early April, then begin plummeting like crazy halfway through the month? That’s herd immunity setting in. And before you jump in here to claim that by gosh, the deaths went down because of NYC’s lockdown, the curve (known as the Gompertz curve) is the virtually the same in all northern regions around the world, whether they locked down or not. And kindly notice how the death curve flattened in July, despite NYC being the scene of many protests that had people crowding together in the streets, many of whom weren’t wearing masks. Herd immunity is here or nearly here already.
The tweet from the government bed-wetter is just plain funny, and you’d recognize that if you weren’t so determined to swallow the government Kool-Aid. So people attended a family gathering, and afterwards OH MY GOD A BUNCH OF THEM TESTED POSITIVE!! Um … does it state anywhere that they tested negative before the family gathering? No, it doesn’t. It could simply be that several family members who were already positive but had no symptoms (as is increasingly the case these days) were finally tested after the family gathering.
The fact that 41 people their social circle also tested positive tells us precisely nothing, unless the bed-wetter officials can provide tests showing that those people were negative before this wildly irresponsible family gathering, then became positive after coming into contact with those who attended the gathering. And even if that’s the case, we can’t rule out those in the social circle picked up the virus somewhere else.
Also, supposing for the sake of argument that by gosh, those awful irresponsible people who had a family gathering WITHOUT MASKS!!! actually did infect each other. So what? Where are the reports of their hospitalizations and deaths? I’ll bet you dollars to donuts they had no symptoms or mild symptoms, which is what we’re finding more and more these days.
You managed to completely miss the point of the Korean study. Researchers did contact tracing and testing for 5,706 COVID patients — i.e., those who are known to be infected — and found 11.8% of their family members tested positive. So let’s compare that result to the bed-wetter government official’s claim that a mere family gathering had caused a wild spread of the disease, shall we? According to the bed-wetter, 24 people attended a family gathering, and then most of them (14 of 24) showed up positive later, then 41 people in their social circle came up positive. Wow. One gathering caused darned near everyone to become infected, then it spread like wildfire to co-workers. Yup, boy oh boy, that’s what happened, according to the bed-wetter.
If that’s what you believe, then frankly you’re displaying some serious lack of logical thinking by linking to that Korean study. That study showed that of all the people LIVING WITH people known to be infected, only 11.8% tested positive. Did you catch that part? Do see how that figure suggests this virus isn’t as easily spread as you want to believe? Or did your “I need to believe this spreads like wildfire and kills people like crazy” brain just skip over that fact? Would you care to explain how one family gathering infected darned near everyone who attended, while in the Korean study, barely one in 10 people LIVING WITH an infected person came up positive? Go ahead, try to rationalize this one. Explain to me how only 11.8% of people who were LIVING IN THE SAME HOUSE as an infected person ended up catching the virus, but one family gathering infected almost everyone who attended. I’ll wait.
You also missed the point about children between 10 and 19. Yes, they had the highest rate of testing positive (but again, we’re talking less than one in five among those LIVING WITH a patient who tested positive). Adults and children had a lower rate. And what does that tell us? It tells us the school-age kids aren’t passing the virus along to their parents. If they were, the parents wouldn’t have a lower rate. If kids between 10 and 19 are being exposed to the virus, that’s good … almost nobody in that age group has died from the virus, and having people who aren’t harmed by the virus becoming exposed is how we get to herd immunity.
Look, I get it: you desperately want to believe the virus is raging and raging out there and it’s just killing people like crazy and we have all stay inside and wear masks until that magic vaccine comes along, even if it means sending the economy into a major depression. (When you finally lose your job, we’ll see how quickly you change your mind on that.) Sorry, but sometimes you just have to accept the good news. And the good news is that most of the vulnerable people have already been picked off (many if not most of whom were going to die this year anyway), and what we’re seeing now is the spread of a virus that for most people is the equivalent of a cold.
You calling me a bully is perhaps the finest example of projection I’ve seen in days. I’m not telling you to do anything. I’m not telling you how to live your life. I’m making no demands on you whatsoever. I’m not threatening to have you arrested if you don’t comply with my preference on how to deal the virus. But the bed-wetters want to mandate where we can go, how many of us can be there, which businesses can open, and when we have to wear masks — even in our homes, according to a county in Florida — and they want people who don’t comply to be arrested. Sorry, pal, but I’m not the bully here. You are.
Calling someone a bed wetter > screaming in the faces of a family at a grocery store for not wearing masks and telling them they hope they get Covid and die.
Or using pepper-spray on one someone because he’s not wearing a mask OUTDOORS IN THE OPEN AIR.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/woman-accused-pepper-spraying-couple-san-diego-park-not-wearing-n1235001
This is the mass hysteria setting in. As Ivor said in his latest podcast, the irrational fear over COVID is turning people into little tyrants.
Cut ‘em loose Tom, there’s no curing stupid
This does, in fact, remind me of arguing with a vegan. The religious belief comes first, then all studies and articles are cherry-picked to support the belief, even if the articles and studies being cherry-picked contradict each other in significant ways.
Didn’t I see news about NYC’s covid death rate approaching zero?
Scroll down just a bit at the following link to Daily Counts. Cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, have all collapsed to near zero.
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page
Very similar situation with Sweden, which did not implement lockdowns.
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/F907/production/_113615736_covid19chartsweden.png
This virus is going to spread & run its course, and it’ll either occur now or later (fortunately already has in some places). The hospitals are not being overwhelmed, contrary to what fear-mongering enemiesofthepeople news media keep suggesting. The lockdowns accomplished virtually nothing except to ruin small business owners and rack up several trillion dollars more in national debt, which the lowest skilled workers will painfully repay via the erosion of their income’s purchasing power when the (virtual) printing presses further debase the currency as a result.
This whole lockdown debacle has been an exercise in mass brainwashing & panic stoking by the globalists, whose tentacles are in every industry (medical/pharma, news media, etc), with heavy political motivations in an election year.
Italy’s death rate is zero or approaching zero as well. They suffered terribly early on, apparently due to their larger than average elderly population. But now it seems it has run its course there?
Lockdown proponents need to explain how infection rates decreased after lockdowns ended: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8351649/Lockdown-waste-time-kill-saved-claims-Nobel-laureate.html
In fairness, some states have dashboards that are hard to read. Indiana’s dashboard, however, lets you see daily deaths and a seven-day average. Deaths peaked at the end of April–right before the state started reopening.
Graphs here: https://www.coronavirus.in.gov
Reopening timeline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Indiana
The Anointed have gotten their tentacles into Facebook, YouTube, etc. Dr Stella Immanuel was doing an event called Frontline Doctors, in which she described her success with using hydroxychloroquine in treating the ‘rona. This video got 20,000,000 views before it was taken down by YouTube. And of course Constipated News Network is trashing her because hydroxychloroquine is “dangerous.” Again I call BS. Hydroxychloroquine has been around for 65 years and is used as an anti-malaria drug, an anti-virus drug. It’s so safe it’s even available over the counter in some countries. And yet we’ve put all our eggs in one basket hoping for a vaccine we may never get. Dr Immanuel even called out Fauci, the talking heads on CNN, and members of Congress, thinking they were secretly taking hydroxychloroquine and were lying about it and should submit a urine sample. In other words, put their money where their mouths are. Long story short, YouTube, Twitter, and others canceled her for daring to challenge the Anointed’s official narrative on the ‘rona. “The Anointed assume that no good, intelligent person could possibly oppose the Grand Plan because the Grand Plan is the good. So anyone who opposes it is not opposing a plan, but good itself. So the Anointed have no problems trying to silence or destroy people who disagree with them.”
Yup, they never change.
New rule of thumb for controversial videos:
Find a link on BitChute.com. They do not censor the way YouTube, Fb, & Twitter do.
Here is the Frontline press conference:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/K77tHRJB9bCq/
“As a reminder, here are the COVID deaths by age, at least as of halfway through June”
Even adding the numbers from then until now doesn’t change much.
COVID-19 Deaths from 2/1-7/11
Group Deaths % of Total
< 1 Year Old 11 0.008%
Ages 1-4 9 0.007%
Ages 5-14 16 0.012%
Ages 15-24 190 0.146%
Ages 25-34 935 0.718%
Ages 35-44 2411 1.851%
Ages 45-54 6566 5.041%
Ages 55-64 15880 12.192%
Ages 65-74 27167 20.858%
Ages 75-84 34399 26.410%
Ages 85+ 42666 32.757%
All Ages 130250 100%
data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Death-Counts-by-Sex-Age-and-S/9bhg-hcku/data
Sadly, many state officials ignore data like this when making policy, including Gov. Newsance here in CA. About two weeks ago, he declared in an official report that “health data will determine when a school can be physically open”. Yet, schools in over 1/2 of CA counties will be blocked from in-person instruction. I wonder what data he's looking at? I agree that it makes no sense to keep kids out of school. And don't even get me started on the added expense of distance education ($5.3B approved already!).
Anyway, welcome back and thank you for continuing to fight the good fight for rationality in these trying times.
-Mark
This is clearly not about the health data, since it’s obvious to anyone with half a brain that children and teachers are more likely to be killed traveling to and form school than from COVID. It’s about power.
Speaking of the highway death pandemic, one silver lining to this mess is endless opportunity for satire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxznGIj8Ja0
He’s brilliant!
Wow Monster great. And that video with the guy with the long red hair. BWAHAAAAAALMFAO. 😂🤣
“Excessive drinking is responsible for more than 4,300 deaths among underage youth each year”.
https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/underage-drinking.htm
Shhh! The bed-wetters will want to reinstate Prohibition.
No, we should stay inside until there are no more alcohol-related deaths. Isnt that how it works?
I was thirsty. I drank water. I quenched my thirst. I got banned on Twitter for saying this because it’s only anecdotal with no double blind, RCT studies to back up my claims.
(I’m kidding, of course, but you get the idea about how ludicrous this has all become.
Very good post, Tom. So glad to have you back. Let’s get back to *normal* life. God bless you.
We will die, not with a bang, but of starvation while whimpering in the cold and dark for the simple lack of resolve to go outside and gather food and fuel.
You should update your chart from “Our World in Data”.
You stopped at July 15, one of the lowest points, since then deaths are increasing again.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/biweekly-covid-deaths?tab=chart&country=~USA
Given what we know about how these deaths are counted, there may be a little spike, or the reports of earlier deaths may becoming in, as I described in the post.
Local radio show had a caller whose wife went to the hospital, suspected of having Covid. She tested negative BUT she did test positive for Legionnaire’s Disease — from using the same mask over and over.
My sister, 62, just Dx’d with pneumonia. Smoker w/COPD, works in a doctor’s office. Negative for Covid. Is it the mask?
“The first casualty of war is truth.” Government as a source of information (and main stream media) should be met with skepticism. Thirty years ago out of interest in viruses I read some books with a total of over 1000 pages. This virus is not as bad as many we have had in the past and there really is no way to control the virus. The perfect virus is the one that does not kill the host.
I have noticed over the years (and I am far from the only one), that our society has become increasingly obsessed with safety, and at the same time, increasingly authoritarian with a “government as parent” mentality. It came as no surprise that this panic has happened. It is a consequence of the society we have become, where safety is valued more than freedom.
In response to Eric. Australia has not “controlled” the virus. There is currently a massive spike in Victoria (and only Victoria, curiously enough).
NSW never had a serious lockdown. Pubs and clubs were closed, but supermarkets, retail outlets and workplaces remained open. You’re supposed to stay home unless you had a good reason to leave, but it was never enforced (no shopping bag inspectors here). Although the Prime Minister appears on TV and talks about how social distancing has worked, it is not really being practiced. The media has run articles complaining about people not distancing, and I personally have never seen it. I like to think that people are bravely defying the government, but I’m more inclined to chalk it up to laziness.
But the government here in NSW has now been pushing the panic button for weeks, and I reckon its only a matter of days before masks become mandatory (if not already). They are worried about infection spreading from Vic, but I’m figuring the reason the curve here is remaining flat is because the virus has already achieved saturation.
One thing that I thought, but have not seen touched on much. The main thrust of the COVID propaganda is that everybody is now responsible for everybody else’s safety. I’m thinking “what kind of society makes everybody responsible for everybody else?” A collectivist one! This nightmare represents a major victory for collectivism, so its no wonder collectivist journalists, collectivist polititions and collectivist doctors are all in favour of all this.
Yup. Jonathan Haidt wrote about the “safety culture” in his excellent book “The Coddling of the American Mind.” We’ve become so obsessed with being safe all the time, we’ve forgotten that most of what makes life worth living involves some kind of risk. Worse, we’re raising generations of kids who expect to be protected from all things all the time, including speech they find offensive … thus the snowflakes.
As usual very interesting post with a lot of good links. Thank you for all your posts. I have been reading them for many years. During this crazy time, they are a window to sanity.
Children are more likely to die from the regular ‘ol seasonal flu…speaking of which New York was planning to keep the schools closed, but open all day care centers so the parents can go to work (if there is even work left to go to).
Heh-heh … so it’s not safe for kids to be together in school, but it’s safe in they’re together in a daycare center. That’s how crazy this has become.
My son was supposed to start Kindergarten this year, but it’s going to be virtual at first/indefinitely. What’s the point of virtual Kindergarten? The whole thing makes me wish we could afford private school (since many are opening for real), which we probably could, if my job hadn’t been affected by covid craziness. Imagine if all this energy had been put into truly protecting our most vulnerable (elderly, high risk, etc, including teachers who fit the bill) until we have herd immunity/effective treatments, rather than blanket lockdowns/restrictions. Has anyone even given any thought to how this kind of isolation and loneliness will affect children? We will find out with time, and it won’t be good.
No, it won’t be good. As I tell anyone who will listen, someday we’ll look back on all this as a huge, hysterical mistake. Or we’ll be laughing at the lockdown/masks protocols like we laugh at the “get under your desk” protocols we had for a nuclear attack when I was in grade school.
“There’s simply no evidence that asymptotic kids can spread the disease, even if they’re carriers of the virus”.
😎 😎 😎 😎
Tom I luv your posts. They are exactly how I feel and know. I started talking about this in March and at first my kids and friends said I was “emotionally over charged “ and “exaggerating “. Well humble pie 🥧 now.