Guest Survey by Kip Hansen – 17 November 2020
When I am puzzled by something, I try to find out what’s really going on. Years ago, I wrote “What Are They Really Counting?”. The lessons in that essay are even more important today than they were when I penned it at the end of 2015. Many governments of the world have largely shut down their economies and issued edicts restricting the normal every-day activities of their citizens because of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the illness it causes – Covid-19. We are bombarded in the media with screaming headlines of “rising cases” like this:
The curious thing is that among all my family, friends, acquaintances and colleagues, I know of only two people who have been sick with/from (or even suspected) Covid-19 during the entire pandemic period. My wife has one extended family member who was sick, hospitalized for 24 hours out of extreme caution, in Spain. No one I ask knows anyone who is sick with/from Covid-19.
For those of you with little time or no patience:
[if that does not work, click here to take the survey]
There is one exception, we have a friend with a daughter who is a nurse in a dedicated Covid-ward in a local hospital. There have been some sick Covid-19 patients there. Some have even died:
This graph shows the daily Covid-19 deaths for my local county. There have been 87 deaths in the county with Covid-19 mentioned in any way on the death certificate. Since June 2020, there have been only 8 deaths from/with Covid. With a population of about 180,000. This gives my county an approximate generalized death rate of 48.3/100,000. Even if Covid-deaths continue at the current rate and rise to 105 by the end of the year – our annual country-wide Covid-death rate would be only 58/100,000. New York State as a whole has a Covid-death rate of 175/100,000. The death rate of NY State is over 3.6 times higher than in my county. For comparison, the annual death rate from cancers, nationally, is about 160/100,000.
Our local NPR station out of Albany, NY, which I will call “WDNC” for obvious reasons, read letters in today’s “Round Table” program from several readers, all of whom claimed that they didn’t know anyone who had been or was presently sick with Covid-19, however, they were sure that the apparent-President-elect would do the right thing by issuing orders for every citizen to “wear a mask”.
Previous to this, I thought it might be a quirk that among my friends and acquaintances, my family, my county that there weren’t any/many sick people. However, emailing a friend in Portugal revealed that she too didn’t know any sick people, but had heard that there were some in Texas. During a rather unpleasant visit to my dentist earlier today, neither the dentist or any or his staff knew anyone who had been or was sick with Covid-19.
My father was a doctor, I come from a medical family, I studied Pre-Med originally before switching majors, several times. I did humanitarian work in a third-world country where the threats of malaria, dengue and yellow fever were real everyday worries. I know there must be sick people – there are people dying, after all. A lot of people dying, seemingly, but . . . . Total Deaths in the U.S. are not higher than normal for this time of year, despite Covid 19 according to CDC mortality figures. (To see Total Deaths, you must download the .csv file from the GREEN LINK near the top of the page.) The CDC figures for New York State show the same thing – Total Deaths are running even with previous years – despite Covid-19. (Same link – select State instead of the default National. The .csv file is by week, so compare previous years by week numbers. Note: The most current weeks will be incorrect – too low — not fully reported yet – back at least three weeks.)
So, just to try to get a handle on the actuality of the Covid-19 pandemic, as experienced in the real world by readers here, I have created this little three-question survey – I will publish the results here once there are enough participants or in a week, which comes first.
[if that does not work, click here to take the survey]
The survey is only three questions, with dropdowns for your numerical answers. Very quick and easy. If you wish to contribute personal or local information, or anecdotes, use the comment section.
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Author’s Comment:
Covid-19 is not a hoax. It is not a fantasy. It is not simply made up.
However, the responses of our governments, in the United States, and in many other countries around the world have been far more harmful that the pandemic itself. History will replete with books recounting the horrors caused by the worldwide Covid Pandemic Panic.
One of the first to hit the stands is: “The Price of Panic : How the Tyranny of Experts Turned a Pandemic Into a Catastrophe” by Jay W. Richards, William M. Briggs and Douglas Axe. Available in hardback, e-book editions and in audible formats. I recommend it.
Keep following Watts Up With That to catch the survey results.
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I know two people (and know of a third) who have had Covid. One of them was bad enough they put her in a medically induced coma and put her on a ventilator. When they tried to wake her up, they found she had experienced a couple of strokes which had not been noticed, because coma. While I have not seen the death certificate, icthink we can be confident that this was listed as a Covid death (in California) even though she had fully recovered from Covid. Well, at least the hospital got a bunch of extra federal money for the Covid diagnosis and ventilator usage.
Obviously there are more sick people at present than earlier in the year, as there are more in hospital.
But…
I am retired, and am still around quite a few college students due to research, and so I know of several kids who have tested positive. Yet, they never developed any symptoms, and though they exposed all of their roomates, none of those developed symptoms either. These seem to me to be the very definition of a false positive. Probably the most common conversation that I overhear around town is the same and ends with “no rhyme or reason.”
If a students tests positive, then they must quarantine for ten days, after which they are considered immune and do not test again. You can all imagine how this policy might go wrong. Then there were false negatives, and students who figured out “hacks” to keep from being tested when they had symptoms. It has been something like the Keystone cops around here, and the epidemic has had a wild ride for the past 11 weeks, but no one is really sure how many people are truly sick. Never mind. Our public officials are very angry that we mere mortals cannot keep the virus at bay.
I suggested just sending students home to put an end to all this, and strangely the University began doing just that last Friday. We will see in a couple of weeks how much difference it makes to stop doing 15,000+ tests per week on people without symptoms. I will report back.
Kevin kilty ==> There is a huge Testing Madness factor…..
I took the survey but the numerical categories are broad. I know no one at present sick enough to stay home, I have known only one who was actually sick enough to stay home, and an older acquaintance died last summer. He had other problems. I cannot recall how many students/staff tested positive and had to quarantine, but none I recall ever showed symptoms; and part of my accounting problem is that other people were forced to isolate themselves due to having stood next to someone who tested positive — can’t sort it out. To give you an idea, I could include the freshman football team, cheer squad, wrestling team, and cross country team. As you say, it’s testing madness.
With a 1-5% rate of false positive rate and more than 15K tests/week, how long would it take for the majority of the student population to be sent home?
To hear it from some, all the sick people are completely overwhelming the ICU’s.
I find cdc excess deaths graphs more useful: https://public.tableau.com/profile/dataviz8737#!/vizhome/COVID_excess_mort_withcauses_11112020/WeeklyExcessDeaths
Aged care/Nursing homes
The overall effort or quality of care in aged care homes across a region is enough to explain the difference in deaths per region.
Here in Melbourne Australia, most aged care facilities have ramped up their PPE efforts and restricted visitors. Since July they have also implemented a “voluntary” staff ban from working at more than one facility.
The extra costs are of the order of $2000-3000 per resident.
These simple efforts greatly reduce the risk of covid in aged care and thus reduce or skew the nations overall death rates.
What is becoming apparent, is that in theses facilities this years death rates will drop dramatically because the extra efforts are reducing flu deaths by 1000s. This further skews death rates.
Interesting statistical thought
Because covid mainly impacts the very old different jurisdictions based on their lockdowns will have interesting death rate and life expectancy blips when analysed in future years
COVID-19 infections are very clumped. Not uniformly spread in the population. The same is true of the spreading of covid. When the R value is above one so it is increasing in the population, most infected people don’t spread it but a small number spread it to a bunch of people at super-spreading events.
So it’s not surprising that many people will not know any victims.
In the US DoD military active duty there are currently about 1.3 million service men and women.
Since early March testing began, there has been EXACTLY 1 (one) US military Active Duty death attributable to COVID-19.
This death was a 41 yrs old petty officer (an NCO) on the USN carrier Teddy Roosevelt who died after the ship pulled into Guam harbor with a bunch of COVID afflicted sailors.
Now the Active Duty military population by active control is a generally healthy young population compared even to the Reserve and Guard components that are older (both mean and median age, much older) and generally not as physically fit as active duty population. This is to be expected. In the US DoD Guard and Reserve there have been a total of around 8 or 9 COOVID-19 attributable deaths out of a 1.0 million serving there.
Compare all this to the 1918 Influenza where many tens of thousands of Army recruits and soldiers (18-21 yr olds) were struck down, badly sick with flu and thousands died. Now I realize this was before antibiotics that today largely prevents a secondary bacterial pneumonia mortality, but still many young healthy teenagers and young adults still die today from H1N1 and H3N2 influenza, where very few actually healthy young have died from COVID-19.
By far and away the most robust conclusion is: the H1N1 Influenza-A as a viral pathogen is far worse on a healthy than this novel corona virus with a naive-to-the-virus immune system.
And also to consider is that the US Army is seeing a spike this year in suicides in young soldiers. What are the real costs of COVID-19 versus the Responses to it by political leaders? I think intuitively we all know that answer by now.
the US Army is seeing a spike this year in suicides in young soldiers
Why? Trump has ended Obama’s wars. He has resupplied the military. They should be training, resting, and in good spirits.
Don’t be so obviously stupid n.n with a serious subject like suicide.
Young very healthy men and women have been isolated in barracks. Their social activities eliminated by leadership told to isolate them from what for that demographic is cold. They are not allowed to travel if they are stationed in places like Ft Drum NY or out in California, by Blue State Demo-Governors stupidity.
Their deployments to AFG, Iraq, and other shitholes around the world have been lengthened to reduce travel and turn-over deployment demands.
Those all have real consequences on mental health, and thus suicides.
“very few actually healthy young have died from COVID-19.”
Virtually always I have found those tested positive, but died of something unrelated to covid. When that’s the case the more honest media will say they died of complications from covid. Like the actor who got VAP from a ventilator, the boy band member who had acute strep, and the nurse who died of sepsis. Media said they all died of covid.
In reply to: Joel O’Bryan
The US military if they know HCQ plus Zinc is an effective and safe treatment for covid, they will not let US soldiers die because of politics and they will use the HCQ, to protect service personal lives.
I see, there are more and more published peer reviewed studies that show the HCQ cocktail is a cheap and effective early treatment of covid.
And because covid is monitored by senior military leaders, the US senior military…. do not get their facts from CNN.
The US senior military will know there is deep state corruption concerning covid. The US military also have independent high tech medical research labs, that are staffed and controlled by the military with independent non political analysis and reports.
Independent analysis shows covid was a manufactured virus. It contains pieces of multiple viruses that have been modified, using AI virus software to invoke specific body responses. There was a HBO program that discussed virus AI software …. it explained how the new AI virus software works and included an interview with one of the designers of the perfect virus simulation software.
The perfect virus simulation software enables a person using an AI like system to design viruses that will have novel like features that could help or hurt people depending on the designer’s intent.
Recent research has found that covid anathesizes the throat… …. so there is little pain as it starts its infection, in the throat.
This novel special feature of covid is the reason why covid spreads so easy. The first throat infection is not as painful as normal throat infections because the covid virus has been engineered to deaden the pain at the point of first infection.
In 0.05% of the population who have a genetic mutation, covid cause the body to produce an antibody that attacks one’s own body. It is the novel feature of covid that cause weird long term serious side effects that are very difficult to treat.
The 0.05% attack the body using the body’s immune system covid novel feature, helps make people afraid of covid, due to the weird dangerous, in some cases life changing health changes.
Done, Kip. And my answers were 0,0,0, thankfully.
Regards,
Bob
PS: And I’m an old fart.
Bob Tisdale ==> #OldFart-MeToo
flatulant GHG emitters you both.
Is this something I have to look forward to in old age?
Joel, overcoming gravity by suspending oneself on a column of hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and methane is most entertaining.
Regards,
Bob
PS: How else do you think magicians levitate?
Along the same lines…when I hear a commercial for a pill that reduces the severity and duration of the common cold, I wonder how are they measuring this? Seems like a difficult metric to measure, impossible really.
Granny, on the Beverly Hillbillies, had a cure for the common cold. Mr. (?) Banker was very excited about it … he would get rich, it seemed.
She cooked up some funky stuff for him, made him breath in some funky stuff, told him to drink a lot of liquids, & to stay in bed for a week or so, and he would be cured….
John Bell ==> Most of those commercials are, bluntly, fraudulent. Some get away with it as there are a few sketchy studies that show increasing your intake of Vit C might reduce the severity of your common cold.
Kip
A little anecdotal story about Vit C. Back in the days when I was teaching, I had to teach some chemistry labs to fill out my contact-hour load. One day we had a substitute teacher fill in for another chemistry professor. I had time to talk with him while supervising a lab. He had worked personally with Linus Pauling. He was a strong believer in Vit C and assured me that large doses were quite safe. He was quite convincing. For two or three years after that, I tried to abort colds by taking up to 1 gram per hour during my waking hours. There were no noticeable side effects. There was also no noticeable curative powers. I invariably ended up with a secondary bacterial infection in my upper respiratory system, and had to see a doctor for antibiotics. I finally decided that I had given Vit C a fair trial, and it didn’t live up to expectations, at least for me.
Incidentally, since I got my Prevenar-13 pneumonia vaccine, I have not had any secondary bacterial infections when I have caught a cold. That is in contrast to almost always getting secondary bacterial infections from my 20s on.
The most useful vaccine so far is the Russian Sputnik, a modified adenovirus. It can be stored at room temperature. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are mRNA vaccines which require storage at -70 to -80 C, requiring expensive equipment and problematic for many countries with limited infrastructure. Hard to hear of course, regarding the racial enemy to the east, but true nonetheless.
Phil Salmon ==> I believe the Moderna vaccine can use simply placed in a refrigerator freezer for storage.
I’ll check – I thought they said -70.
I would guess from biochemistry that -70ºC freezers for long term storage, but -20ºC freezers are okay for short periods < 60 days… as long as it is not a "frost-free" freezer.
Freezerology-101: Frost free freezers are bad for biosamples because of the defrost cycle (periodic heating) they use.
I have had a few family members catch it, but all have recovered. The first two were a police office and his nurse wife. The next cousin works in schools, and a niece who works in schools. Then a nephew brought it home from high school and gave it to his dad and brother. All recovered.
It is all so weird, really. Fact is, we know precious little about this virus. Such epidemics usually take 2 to 3 years to fully run their cause. And we are not even a year into this one. It will be a couple of years before we get to know all relevant statistics about this virus, i.e. its true fatality rate, just how dangerous it is, the ways it spreads in countries varying so hugely demographically, culturally, racially and genetically – and that on the background of enormous differences in the strictness of lockdowns and peoples’ obedience to those, etc., etc..
Looking at present European statistics, it appears as if the final death rates in the midst of this so-called second wave are all slowly merging, irrespective of the strictness of the lockdowns – or even if there were enforced lockdowns or not (viz. Sweden).
The news media are no help. All they are interested in is making fat, alarming headlines. We rely on free, independent blogs like WUWT to keep us informed (and to keep us sane!)
I am guessung that will generate data similar to the Zoe app in the UK which seems to provide accurate data about a week in advance of the official data https://covid.joinzoe.com/
The data showed the infections had levelled off before we went into the second lockdown which England is now half way through.
Paul C ==> Thanks for the link.
I’m 73 and I know hundreds of people. In my whole life I’ve known only 6 people who have died. I think people mostly live forever. This whole death thing is a hype designed to make you miserable.
Sarcasm aside, the TOTAL death rate in the United States is already up 15% over 2019. That has not happened in a century. Those on this website who minimize COVID are simply too scared to admit that such a threat could exist. Yes, it is true that this is not the Black Death that killed one in three. No one says it is. But the ostrich-like attitude shown here is why HUNDREDS of times as many Americans per capita are dying of this disease then died in S. Korean, Taiwan, New Zealand and China, where the government and the people dealt with the disease as the threat it is and protected each other from it. Ideas can kill and the idea that COVID is a hype has killed and is killing hundreds of thousands if not millions.
My calculation from CDC data is that the average of the first 6 months of data from 2020 is 14% higher than the average month in 2019. However, it appears that seasonally, the worst is over 2020, so that the monthly average for 2020 will come down.
I think that the Hong Kong flu in 1968 would be almost as high. In any case, low excess deaths one year leads to increased excess deaths the following year and vice versa. We’ll see.
Does that count your parents? You are mighty lucky. I am only 74, do not have a huge circle of friends, but I know a lot of people who have died, and some young: two suicides, car wreck, and one drug overdose.
I am sure some guys I knew in school got shipped to Vietnam. Don’t know if some didn’t come back.
This Covid is essentially harmless for young people. Let them live normal lives.
Eric Lerner wrote
“TOTAL death rate in the United States is already up 15% over 2019”
While I’ll readily accept it is my fault, I spent a couple of hours looking for CDC data on US total deaths. I could not find anything after 2018. I would greatly appreciate your link to information.
Andy ==> One source of Total Deaths, by week, is available at the CDC FluView site — you have to download the data for NATIONAL from the Green Link near the top. It comes as a .csv file, so can be opened in Excel (Or Excel clone) and you can sum the figures by month or year if your wish. The Total Deaths column is the one you want.
I take your point, Mr. Lerner, but the question is, how old were the people who died? That has always been the big fraud: that COVID-19 kills people of all ages. The fact of the matter is, if you’re healthy now, the chances that you will die of COVID-19 are statistically zero.
I’m 68, and I live in a seniors’ residence. (All our tenants are independent, which is to say that none of us have health problems so severe that we need professional home care visits.) In 2019, about fifteen tenants died. The thing is that, when a tenant dies (usually suddenly; he will be fine and then hospitalized, and then dead in about ten days), no one is really surprised. This is because we understand that human beings are mortal, and that death in old age is normal and natural. Young people will tell you that all deaths are tragic, but old people know that death in old age is often a relief, as it is an end to suffering.
So what’s my point? It is this: The pandemic is nowhere nearly as tragic as is commonly believed, because so few of the dead are young or middle-aged. COVID-19 and heart disease have roughly the same age-to-mortality graph. Heart disease kills many more people than COVID, and we don’t decide to sabotage the financial and social lives of the young to prevent heart disease. COVID-19 is really just another cause of death in the elderly, to go along with the many other causes that already exist.
A better question for the survey, compared to what other ailments?
I know zero covid fatalities, but 2 under 60 and 3 under 50 years old amongst my network succumbed to other causes.
That 15% increase is surely a bit of noise in a longer term statistical measure. 2 million seniors in America die each year from all causes. 80% of covid death is coming from that 65+ age group. With 500,000 alone normally coded as having died from heart disease. The other 1,500,00 from lung, cancer, liver, kidney etc. are all diseases that would, if you had them, be a co-morbid factor in your covid. You can die from one cause or the multiple complex interactions of co-morbidities, but it’s eventually got to end up registered in one CDC column or another.
So an 80 year old who passes in 2020 with covid and a bad heart will list as covid but will be reduced from the year’s heart disease numbers.
Looking back from 2025, perhaps life expectancy will have been seen to go down by some small amount, but the compression of a few months death will likely disappear in a three year rolling average.
Why the message from public health to wash and mask doesn’t mention vitamin D as another possible, cheap prophylactic perplexes.
“So an 80 year old who passes in 2020 with covid and a bad heart will list as covid but will be reduced from the year’s heart disease numbers.”
And that 80 year old probably survived a very mild flu season last year, yet very few would be indecent enough to point out he/she got another year of life out of it…
Basically, anything less than a five year rolling average of expected death rate for whatever jurisdiction you want to look at will be noise. We are only (basically) one year into something that could take another year to “fix”, being optimistic. Most data until then is cherry picking for whatever political flavour your choose.
My responses were 0,0,0. One of my neighbors knew someone who was seriously ill from CV-19 and required several days of hospitalization.
While I see where you’re going with this survey, I have to note that neither I nor most of my immediate family or acquaintances know “a lot” of people. Our circles are limited to people with whom we communicate on a regular basis, and do not necessarily include people we pass on the street or see in the shops, or even live on the next street over. I don’t know anyone who owns a Porsche, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t Porsche owners on the other side of town. 😉
PaulH ==> Yes, thus the survey — of a very complicated, dispersed, heterogeneous cohort — WUWT readers.
We will see what a larger sample of individuals turns up.
Kip,
I’m going to self identify as “a very complicated, dispersed, heterogeneous cohort”…
you’re never alone with schizophrenia (;-))
This interview with Dr Mike Yeadon is certainly worth listening to. His opinions on PCR, and evaluating the current situation in the UK make too much sense – so will be ignored by politicians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZjtiqujql8&feature=youtu.be
No excess deaths here since the original spring spike.
Paul C ==> Thanks for the link.
Agreed Mike Lowe, the climate has become a political tool with which to convince the public, particularly in the West of the necessity of accepting gradual changes in their lifestyles which most are still unaware will slowly impoverish the mid-to-lower classes but enable the élite to enrich themselves further. Some players in this game claim their aim is to redistribute wealth more equitably across the globe. Maurice Strong was possibly the first in a succession of billionaires with strangely extreme socialist beliefs, all of whom sound quite fanatical when talking about the climate, yet clearly either don’t know much about “the science” involved, or don’t care if the base of their proselytizing is unfounded.
What is happening now is a group of these fanatics at the World Economic Forum are seizing on the Covid repercussions to try to accelerate the goal of redistribution and they make no secret of it. Will the MSM tag along or support it?
It’s all here:- https://www.weforum.org/agenda/global
https://sociable.co/technology/skeptical-great-reset-technocratic-agenda-waited-years-crisis-exploit/
My kinky socks himself let it slip recently:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE77utcasb8
They should have kept him in the dark, because he is too stupid not to let these plans slip out to the public. I heard the WEF had removed a video describing reset life in 2030. I have not confirmed this personally.
Kip, nobody ever talks about Sweden. The third chart at https://www.covid19insweden.com/en/deaths.html shows a lot of fatalities earlier in the year, but since the end of June they are indistinguishable from the average all-causes mortality in the previous five years. This achieved without massive lockdowns and or face mask mandates.
Ralph Dave Westfall ==> The same is mostly true in the United States. Total mortality in the US is running about even with the last few years.
In France, on october 28th, resident Macron warned us that without lockdown there will be 400,000 more deaths.
According to the WHO, the SRAS-COV2 infection fatality rate is about 0.2%.
So, in order to reach 400,000 more deaths this winter, there should occur 400,000/0.002 = 200 million more infections in a few months.
But in France, there are only 67 million inhabitants.
Covid clowns are just as dishonest and dumb as climate clowns and resident Macron is a conjunction of the two kinds.
Is he still using the discredited data? IFR/CFR that was fed into the models.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/09/08/covid-19-cfr-and-ifr-confused/
the missing question is ” do you know of anyone that has committed Suicide/died from an overdose in the last 9 months”
My answers 0/1/0/3
JG
John Gentzel ==> My condolences regarding your acquaintances that took their own lives.
Thank you
Looks like Denmark have fought off (for now) the next stage of the totalitatian state planned for us all. Apparently, there have been protests for nine days which have been ignored by the fake media.
https://truth11.com/2020/11/17/forced-vaccination-law-abandoned-in-denmark-after-mass-protests/
Do you have another source for this?
It looks like that “truth” website is way off in lala-land.
I went though two newspapers, one for sheeple and one that traditionally was conservative, at least when I left Denmark thirty years ago.
In both papers every second headline is about Covid-19, but I didn’t see anything about heavy protest over a forced vaccination. I may have missed it.
On the other hand, I did see a lot of scary titles about people getting rejected as scum if they turn out positive for Covid-19 (they probably mean SARS-CoV-2).
Here is another source Carl.
https://www.thelocal.dk/20201113/explained-what-is-denmarks-proposed-epidemic-law-and-why-is-it-being-criticised?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=LNCH%20%2020201117%20%20House%20Ads%20%20SM+CID_c97ef34eca81f6db9660be3ce3d68e5a
Thanks Paul C and tobyglyn.
This new Permanent Marshal Law (my interpretation of the “epidemic-law”) in Denmark is paving the way to fulfilling “1984”, Agenda-21 and what Yuri Bezmenov told us in 1983.
The new Danish Permanent Marshal Law is bound to be misused as it’s activation is solely in the hands of the sitting government. The government is not obligated to follow advice from the health institution or medical specialists.
Considering that every other year we have an influenza-like epidemic which, like SARS-CoV-2, has had little to no influence on mortality in Denmark, the Permanent Marshal Law cannot be defended from a health viewpoint, leaving only political reason for for the Permanent Marshal Law to be implemented and sustained.
I had previously understood the Danes’ enthusiasm for climate policy, as it adds considerably to the GDP by the export of wind turbines, just like cement and cellulose industry has been a valuable engineering export for over 100 years.
What I do not understand is that it has been possible to convert or “normalize” the previous freedom loving Danish population to invoke measures exceeding those in place during the country’s occupation April 9th 1940 to May 5th 1945.
I felt the path to DDR was on the way as early as the mid 1970s and patly the reason why I in periods began to live abroad in the US and Germany, for finally to migrate late 1989.
The authority and indoctrination from the academic left, had reached levels which became gradually clearer to those, like I, who from childhood on had lived in a very international environment and seen and lived with people from all corners of the world and all walks of life. You get love people, but also getting to see, understand and compare other major societies first hand.
Maybe I regret. It would have been easier and maybe happier to just follow the sheeple around me and pursue an economical better carrier.
It is like the boiling crap syndrome. The “normalization” is beginning slowly, for finally to accelerate exponentially. Will the US be able to slow or reverse this trend for itself and for the western world? – Let us fight and hope.
I have exactly two extended family members who tested positive–both had very mild symptoms for a day or two and likely would not have voluntarily stayed home from work if they were not required to be quarantined for 2 weeks. Otherwise I have heard about a couple other people who may or may not have had it. The assisted living facility my mother is in has not had any cases, either, but on the other hand is completely locked down now and has been in some version of lockdown for 9 months. The mental toll on her and everyone else is pretty bad.
My county has as many open ICU beds (23) as it has ICU beds with Covid patients (22)–and lots of beds with with lots of other patients (52). Six hundred non-ICU hospital beds are available and 138 ventilators. Only one half of all tested persons are symptomatic anyway. I don’t see too much of a problem.
I agree–where are the sick people??
An acquaintance died of the SARS-2 virus last spring.
My wife’s niece contracted it at college, but didn’t require hospitalization.
A mother and daughter (72 and 91) who live near a friend of my wife have been diagnosed. They hadn’t left their house in months except for medical appointments.
The husband of a mod at an online forum I frequent came down with COVID-19, but recovered at home. It took several months for him to fully recover. No one else in the household was infected.
I don’t know enough about medical models, but it seems that using data from the new NHS system https://opensafely.org/, they use a model in this study published in the infamous Lancet to erase a raw data benefit during COVID when patients had been treated with HCQ for another condition. It could be valid, but does seem like a BIG adjustment.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanrhe/article/PIIS2665-9913(20)30378-7/fulltext
The raw data shows a clear benefit from HQC, to a final result which shows no effect.
Overall, n=194 637 deaths=547 HQC n=30 569 deaths=70 Death rate=0.23% Untreated n=164,068 deaths=477 Death rate=0.29% 0.23/0.29 * 100/1= 79% of the deaths = 21% reduction in death. However, digging deeper, the average age is three years lower in HQC group, and a marginally higher proportion of women, so their adjustments for these narrows the difference, and everything else is pretty much on a par. Finally, “Our analyses used non-COVID-19 mortality as a negative control outcome”. Again, I am no expert, but what I think they are doing here is as follows – as there is a similar reduction in death rate in the HCQ group that has not been tested for COVID-19, they feed this reduced mortality expectation into their model, and completely wipe out the higher survival rate of the HCQ treated COVID-19 group. However, they have already adjusted for age, sex, etc. – so this is double counting. For example, if HQC reduced deaths by 99.9% for both COVID and non-COVID causes, the result of the model would be that HQC does not prevent COVID deaths at all, because there are also 99.9% less non-COVID deaths. In fairness to the study, they do conclude that HCQ at standard doses is safe to use in trials and those trials should run to their conclusion. Very useful summary of studies here https://c19study.com/
I so highly respect this website and your “math” minds – but on this one issue – many of you are dropping the ball. Please prove me wrong…
1. Regarding cases – about 3% of the country has tested positive. Since the tests tend to be for the symptomatic – and the symptomatic tend to be “old” – it makes sense to me that in a work place with 100 employees – you’ve quite probably had zero cases. Not a surprise. If you know 100 people – up close – MAYBE you know three who were sick. I know at least 10 – up close and personally – so probably someone, somewhere, doesn’t know any. It’s not a scam – it’s just data. Use it.
2. Regarding death – death itself, from any cause, is not common. Ask the question a different way: Of all the people you knew well, that died this year, how many died of COVID? On average…10%. Over age 50, it’s nearly 10% across the board. Of all 55 years olds that died – almost 10% were COVID. Go check it out. It’s true.
terrinot ==> “Since the tests tend to be for the symptomatic ” is not true in the United States. Almost all of the tests are voluntary testing of non-symptomatic people.
Kit==> The majority of POSITIVE tests are not for asymptomatic people. It doesn’t change my overall point anyway – “Where Are All the Sick People” is easily answered. Only about 3 in 100 have ever been tested as positively sick. Clearly some areas are worse hit than others. Stands to reason lots and lots of folks know or know of many sick people – while (necessarily) lots and lots of other folks don’t know anyone. The point is – the entire question is – based on the stats – just silly. The sick people are simply not that common. No one is saying they are. But plenty of people interpret the news that way.
The sick people are simply not that common
terrinot, that’s Kip’s point. the sick people are simply not that common yet if you follow the media narrative, you’d think nearly the entire country was stricken with COVID and going to die unless we follow the strictest totalitarian restrictions on our freedoms and liberties. The media is trying it’s hardest to make it sound much worse than it really is. And, sadly, all too many people buy into that narrative.
Almost all of the tests are voluntary testing of non-symptomatic people.
I don’t know if its “almost all” or not, but I do know it’s a very good percentage of them. If you get admitted to the hospital for any reason, you will be tested (a relative of mine tested negative on every test they were given during their recent stay at the hospital, a stay that had nothing to do with COVID). If someone you’ve been in contact tested positive (whether they show symptoms or not) you will be tested. Anyone can be tested whether they have symptoms or not as testing isn’t reserved for those with symptoms (and indeed, I’d say it’s likely the majority of tests, at least here in the states, are performed on people with no symptoms to speak of), which logically means that a good many of those testing positive won’t have had symptoms at the time of their testing.
Keep in mind, also, that just because someone tested positive, does not mean that they will necessarily develop symptoms, or that any systems that do develop with be anything more than mild, let alone require hospitalization. Which is why the focus on “cases” is so deceptive – It’s a big scary sounding number that paints a skewed picture.