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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Are the PCR test results used to announce number of infected?
I ask because in the German parliament Naomi Seibt exposed the uselessness of the PCR test in connection with general testing. The creator of the PCR test has stated that the test is not intended for general testing.
The reactions from the MPs let me to believe they were embarrassed, they just said thanks for the interesting information in a very piano voice.
Sadly they speak German in the German parliament (sarc), but here is a link to her excellent 18 minutes speech where she details, in simple terms, how the PCR test works. May still be too complicated for the MPs though (not sarc):
Thanks for the video link. I don’t speak German, but I think I get the idea. Hopefully someone will post an English transcript. (I wonder how soon before the censors “disappear” this video.)
Hanson usually writes good articles. One article that included the bizarre idea that calories don’t count for dieting was ridiculous and I told him so. He sent a crew of hit men to my house to get me , but I had moved to a safe house. I’ll take it easy on him because he says he lives in Ulster County NY — I grew up in Sullivan County, NY, not that far away. This article has problems, to be kind:
We are in the middle of a pandemic.
It is not over yet.
It is too soon for conclusions.
And there are no experts yet.
Most governments have “largely shut down their economies”???
How can you say that”
Global Real GDP for 2020 might be down 5%.
That’s not “largely shut down”.
The CO2 level in the atmosphere barely changed !
Yes, the lock downs are worse than the disease.
They just gave us a socialist President and communist Vice President.
And we might get a socialist Senate in a few montgs too.
C ID anecdotes about people you know personally to come to a conclusion?
What kind of “science” is that?
You must be kidding !
How about anecdotes to determine how serious global warming is too ?
First of all, very few COVID infected patients die, perhaps 1 of 1,000 now. But about 40 percent, and maybe more, have such mild symptoms they don’t even know they are, or were, COVID-infected.
Concerning causes of death:
As of last year, the CDC did not list influenza as a cause of death. The cause of death would be a failure of a major organ. As of last year, the CDC used computer models to estimate flu deaths. The flu does not have to be mentioned on a death certificate — there’s no CDC list of specific names of the people whose deaths are being blamed on “flu”. Most doctors say the CDC estimates were always too high, and they probably still are.
Virtually everyone who dies with the flu had some other medical problem, known or unknown, or a genetic defect, known or unknown. So it is a guessing game on what deaths should be blamed on COVID (or any other flu strain) .
I know five people infected, all based on testing. All healthy people. Two 60-somethings very seriously sick in March for 2, and 3 weeks,respectively. Both survived. One was a retired doctor cared for at home by her doctor son. He objected to the use of ventilators at his hospital. I heard he eventually got sick too, most likely from his Mom, but with mild symptoms.
Three others only had the lost taste and smell symptom. The two young people were not surprised by that but my 70 something friend got off lucky. Except, his 70 something girlfriend got sick, and blamed him. She had much more severe flu symptoms, and tested COVID positive…. We reminded her the tests were not perfect. So she got tested two more times, while still sick — negative both times! She did have flu, but just ordinary influenza. Not the COVID-19 that her partner had. Unfortunately this incident broke up their five year relationship … although I suppose there must have been other issues.
We both have very small families, but there were five COVID infections among our friends here in Michigan.
There are many nations that were barely harmed by the disease, such as Taiwan and Japan, Sweden and the US are not among them.
Richard Greene ==> You need to study up a bit. The CDC has tracked Influenza Deaths for a very long time. See FluView.
Hanson
I’ll type slowly this time so even YOU can understand.
While you are reading your beloved New York Times.
The CDC uses a computer MODEL to ESTIMATE “flu deaths”.
The death certificate may or may not mention flu.
Because flu alone does not kill people.
Except for SARS1 and MERS that were unusually deadly.
So any death certificate that blames death on the
flu will be judgement call, because there will
be other problems too. It’s rare for an otherwise
healthy person to die from flu alone.
They die from major organ failures.
Attributing a death to the “flu” is not a fact
that can be “tracked? in any way.
Ask your doctor(s) how many of their patients died
from the flu, and the typical answer will be none.
If the CDC claims 100,000 people died from the flu,
there is no list of 100,000 specific names
that someone could pick names from at random
and check whether the flu claim was correct.
ESTIMATING flu deaths with a COMPUTER model
is not the same as “tracking” flu deaths (in the
same way that climate models are not the same
as real temperature measurements).
CDC talks about their computer model estimates here:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/how-cdc-estimates.htm
CDC causes of death ( warning — very depressing)
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/datalinkage/underlying_and_multiple_cause_of_death_codes.pdf
“…There are many nations that were barely harmed by the disease, such as Taiwan and Japan…”
It’s almost like being an island nation that can isolate itself from the rest of the world makes it less vulnerable.
Islands are Isolated???…go figure
Yeah, have to remind the Terminally Smug that all islands (New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii as well) simply can’t be measured equally.
Oh, and I strongly suspect population density might be a bit of a driver, too.
Japan was and is being affected.
Two things to note are that Japan has a tradition of not shaking hands and/or touching each other and there is strong evidence CV19, or a related form of it, started in spring of 2019 (they found the virus in sewage sample in Italy. The CV19 strain of coronavirus was also found in blood samples taken in Italy in September 2019. This suggests that a version of CV19 circulated in east Asia in at least last summer 2019, which suggests that people in those countries had developed a T-Cell and antibody response.)
Japan also has a flu season, despite non-touching AND much greater mask wearing.
I only know two people who were tested positive for COVID-19. My stepdaughter who attends college lives with six other college girls in a house, and one of them tested positive, who quarantined herself in her room for two weeks and recovered without any of the other girls being infected. My wife’s cousin, in her 60’s tested positive, and recovered in two weeks by taking only Tylenol.
The lockdowns may have been justified last March and April when it was believed that COVID-19 was highly contagious, with no known cure, and hospitals started filling up with patients on ventilators (most of whom were infected by recovered patients sent into nursing homes by governors of northeastern states, especially a CNN anchor’s brother).
But as we learned more about this disease, the strategies should have been adapted in consequence. School-age children seem to be naturally immune to it, and do not transmit it to each other or teachers, there is no logical or medical reason to keep schools closed.
Otherwise healthy working-age adults tend to fight it off with symptoms ranging from a mild cold to a two-week flu, so there shouldn’t be massive shutdowns of industry or office workers. Besides, therapeutics are available now (which were not known last April) that can lessen the severity of symptoms and/or speed the recovery, including hydroxychloroquine, zinc, remdesivir, dexamethasone, and the antibody treatments. Some doctors have even claimed that ordinary mouthwash can kill the COVID-19 virus if it is ingested with food. We don’t have to live in mortal fear of this virus.
Elderly people, particularly those with diabetes, heart, or lung disease, are the most vulnerable to COVID-19. But since most of them are retired, they can be isolated from contact with infected people with minimal effects on the overall economy, and should be the first to receive a vaccine when it becomes available.
Not all people who are “tested positive” develop any symptoms, because the testing procedure uses a reproductive technique to “amplify” the chemical compound indicating possible presence of the virus. Each cycle about doubles the concentration, and typical testing procedures use 30 to 40 cycles, which increases the concentration from a billion times (30 cycles) to a trillion times (40 cycles). Some of the “positive” test results are actually detecting fragments of dead virus that cannot cause disease.
The “lame stream media” have been driving the fear factor through the use of misleading statistics. When we see charts of “10 million cases”, that is the cumulative total of those who have tested positive since last March. The typical infected person either dies or recovers within two weeks. If we consider the start of the pandemic to be March 15, it has been about 35 weeks since then, so that for a cumulative total of 10 million positive tests, an average of 570,000 of these people are infected at any given time, or about 0.17% of the population, or about 1 in 600.
This means that the average person would have to come in close contact with over 300 strangers to have a nearly even chance of catching COVID-19. If those who are tested positive self-quarantine from the rest of society, the odds of catching COVID-19 decrease. Do we really need a total lockdown to avoid meeting 300 strangers? Or should we just wear masks in public and sit 6 feet away from strangers until there is an effective vaccine?
We also have about 250,000 cumulative deaths in 8 months from 10,000,000 total infections, for an average fatality rate of 2.5%, concentrated among people over 70 years old. But if the average life expectancy is 80 years, for a population of 330 million people, one would expect 4.1 million deaths (of all causes) in any given year. If 250,000 COVID-19 deaths in 8 months is projected to 375,000 deaths per year, then COVID-19 would have increased the normal death rate by 9.1%.
The fear of COVID-19 has been used by unscrupulous politicians to impose draconian rules in the interest of “public health” in order to increase their control over society, with disastrous effects on the economy and the education of our children. There is no logical reason why children should be deprived of education beyond last summer’s vacation–ALL school-age children should be in school right now, full-time, 5 days per week. Some unscrupulous politicians have even tried to cancel religious services and gatherings for Thanksgiving and Christmas–if a person knows that all family members are tested negative, what is the danger of a group of healthy people sharing a turkey dinner?
The lockdowns of last spring also opened the door to massive social upheaval. When the looting and riots started last May, without the lockdowns, the looted businesses would have been open to customers, and they would have had security guards and called police to protect their businesses, employees, and customers. But following the lockdowns, many of these businesses had been closed for two months or more, with no employees or security guards present, and plenty of unsold inventory ripe for stealing by rioters who knew they would get away with it.
The best strategy now is to get the children back in school, open up businesses (with masks and social distancing if needed), provide the best therapeutics available to those who need them most, and when an effective vaccine is available, distribute it widely and let everybody back to work like the “good old days” of last February.
“School-age children seem to be naturally immune to it, and do not transmit it to each other or teachers, there is no logical or medical reason to keep schools closed.”
Of course there is. The Democrat cities and states that are keeping schools closed are controlled by politicians who receive major donations from teacher’s unions and election assistance(phone bank volunteers, door knockers, etc.) from union leaders and their activist teachers. The teachers, you know
those most honorable of professions, ARE NOT essential to society. Wall mart workers are. Police and Fire are. UPS and Post office are. But NOT teachers.
This pandemic and the closing of schools by Democrat politicians is reason enough to eliminate all PUBLIC school systems. Give each parent a voucher and let them decide where their kid goes to school. The schools that stayed open would have more students than they could handle. Those run by leftists that stayed closed after the minimal level of hazard was understood (by the fall semester) would NEVER reopen.
This could have been the beginning of the end of leftist public school indoctrination of our children. Hopefully it still may be.
“Give each parent a voucher and let them decide where their kid goes to school.”
Federal aid should follow the child. State aid should follow the child. Schools should not be funded by property taxes but by sales taxes.
In the alternative give the money directly to the parent/guardian of the child. Perhaps they know their child will not benefit from any education but could benefit from expenditure in another venue.
Freedom of choice engages competition which lowers prices.
The downside of competition is that poor judgment has consequences. “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” — Abe Lincoln when all education cost real silver coin.
Kip, another way of looking at this is how many people had it and recovered. USA data at https://epidemic-stats.com/ shows 7,063,305 recovered to date.
This is obviously anecdotal , but how many well-known older people have had COVID and recovered quickly? Besides president Trump, here’s a story about football coaches back to health: https://larrybrownsports.com/college-football/head-coaches-tested-positive-covid-19-symptoms/565743
Ralph Dave Westfall ==> There are a lot of anecdotes about Covid. The purpose of the survey is to turn everyone’s personal anecdote into a overall view.
During the last 10 years two friends I had known for a long time have died after catching winter Flu, one would have fallen ito the vulnerable category for CV19. I don’t know a single person who has even tested positive, far less displayed symptoms.
Good News… this likely will end the need to isolate/wear masks (when we are vaccinated).
Two covid vaccines, super safe as they cause the body to do only one thing…..
And super effective, as that one thing is to produce a chemical that finds the hock on covid, which is like a super covid virus killing chemical.
Until now the very best vaccines developed had an efficacy of less than 70% and it took a year and a half to develop a vaccine …. (Dead virus technology)
That was because we used old technology.
mRNA is a biochemical delivery system which enters our cells and gets our cells to produce a specific chemical.
This is different than a dead virus that can in some rare cases cause the body to produce dangerous antibodies which attack one’s one body.
We now have two mRNA covid vaccines…. That have an efficacy of more than 90%. And that can be used to develop a vaccine in 8 months, with optimizing.
Fauci…. is part of the swamp. The reason why there is now a super covid vaccine is the FDA and the medical industry have been holding mRNA technology back.
“We don’t know yet what the efficacy might be. We don’t know if it will be 50% or 60%. I’d like it to be 75% or more,” Fauci said in a webinar hosted by Brown University. “But the chances of it being 98% effective is not … (William: it is not chance)
https://nypost.com/2020/11/16/moderna-covid-19-vaccine-nearly-95-percent-effective-in-trial/
Moderna released breakthrough research Monday showing its experimental coronavirus vaccine is nearly 95 percent effective and doesn’t need ….
…The results from the Phase 3 study — announced a week after Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, said their shot was more than 90 percent effectivy
New RNA Covid Vaccine 95 Percent Effective
https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/modernas-covid-19-vaccine-candidate-meets-its-primary-efficacy
Phase 3 study met statistical criteria with a vaccine efficacy of 94.5% (p <0.0001)
For the Moderna vaccine, it was 100% effective at preventing severe COVID, which are the only cases that really concern anyone very much.
And there are at least 3 more vaccines in the US alone that are in the final days of phase 3 testing.
And behind them are 170+ additional ones that are moving through the process of testing and clinical trials.
So the news is even better than one might think just from reading the recent headlines about vaccines.
Survey: 0,0,0. Those answers the same for my wife, one sister and one sister-in-law (all of us retired) that I have queried today. Now, I have heard about relatives and/or co-workers of neighbors who have been sick, or even died, but of the four deaths I heard of, three were in dementia care facilities and one in a retirement home. All were elderly, the oldest was 99. At least in my state they backed out the deaths from gunshot wounds and car crashes that had previously tested positive for Covid-19. For awhile a positive test no matter when obtained was enough to get a dead person classified as a Covid-19 death.
Sometime in July, well into this Coronadoom (as William Briggs calls it) I was speaking with the manager of my local large chain grocery store. I asked how the staff was holding up; if any had become sick. “None,” he said. Same for other stores within the regional division the store was in. Guess those small retailers could have remained open after all; the virus really did not know or care about the size of a store it was in.
I’m exposed to many from the NY City area. So I’ve known 30 people forced to quarantine for 2 weeks due to exposure. 10 positives with symptoms, zero deaths. The symptoms ranged from slight cold to bad flu, one was hospitalized but only got IV fluids.
0-0-0. I’ve thought about this myself and have asked all my family members pretty much the same questions. 0-0-0.
I know 7 people who contracted COVID-19, all recovered without hospitalization and only 1 had it bad. Of those seven, 3 wars a mask religiously, 3 wears a mask frequently, and 1 hardly ever wears one.
I do not wear a facemask. I claim exemption under the Americans with Disability Act, or ADA. I will not under any circumstances or for any reason wear a non-medical facemask because these greatly increase your chances of getting sick. The medical ones cause me severe problems. I have not altered my routine. In my business, I see hundreds of people every month. And I don’t wear a facemask. Most say nothing, but the few that do I explain why I cannot wear the ones that might work. If they persist, I show them a multi-decade list of studies I have that prove they don’t work. I must emphasize multi-decade, because my studies proving how ineffective they are have been out for a very long time. Not even the cancel culture can silence the internet archive!
Oh, and I will not get tested for COVID-19 either, even if I feel sick. According to the New York Times, the tests being used are 100 to 1000 times too sensitive. (Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html ) In other words, for ever 1000 positive cases, the real number of sick people is between 1 and 10. Does that sound scary to you?
Wade ==> Yes exactly right on “positive tests”.
Semi related.
Last week in my day job I was shocked to hear that one of the members in the next team had died. Given that many in his team had been working from home regularly for the last 6 plus months the fact I had not physically seen this person for a while had not even registered.
Apparently he had gone into the hospital for minor problem six weeks ago and walked out with knowledge he had an incurable brain condition and six months to live. Given the obvious personal nature of this very few in the office were made aware of this and hence the utter shock to discover his passing.
Discussing this after with some peers I was mentioning the horror of the suddenness of it all. It was, I had said, literally as if I had told someone I was going to be late to work tomorrow as I was getting a check up at my doctors and then not making it to Christmas.
“Yes’, my peer had said, “But remember he also had some pre-existing health conditions”.
So I nodded and we grimaced and I moved on.
Then five minutes later thought “Pre-existing health conditions? Oh. So just like Covid then?”
So we have situations where 80 and 90 year old die in nursing homes (so called because the people living there need ‘nursing’) and that is flagged as a Covid Death, while a man in his early 50s dies from a fatal brain disease and “yeah, but pre-existing medical conditions”.
Yes.
There is something very… casual about the way this nominally deadly diseases is being monitored.
Craig ==> In the US, your workmate would have been classified (inappropriately) as a Covid Death.
I work for a small family owned appliance company that sells and services major appliances. Since the beginning, we have not been shut down and have been running approx 100 service and delivery calls per week. We call each person the night before and ask medical questions about people in their household. Only 4 cancelled due to having some symptoms but not diagnosed with COVID. Our 4 employees who do all the deliveries and service calls are fine as with those of us who work in the store and deal in person with customers daily. This in spite of being in a community which has the highest per capita age group in the Country.
Now, at this time of the year, the snowbirds are arriving bringing with them all their nasty attitudes and diseases. We have not required customers to wear masks prior but now we do. Who knows what crap they are bringing down here from where ever they came from.
Did not take survey. But have some very personal knowledge. My son, his wife, and my granddaughter all tested positive last week In Chicago. Son has bad symptoms but thankfully no co-morbidities. Wife is positive but asymptomatic. Granddaughter has only mild symptoms.
So Sunday granddaughter told grandpa, ‘we are all sick, so going to watch Star Wars for the first time!”
That was my sons way of saying they will all be OK, via a Longstanding family joke—when he was about 3 or 4, he had watched Star Wars (first, ‘episode 4’ ) so many times on our then VCR that he ate the cassette box. So my wife sent the chewed box in requesting a replacement—and they sent it (just the box) complements to a true Star Wars fan!
Now he is a Harvard magna/HBS grad senior exec that will NEVER live that box story down at family reunions.
Best of luck to you and your family, Rud.
Hoping your son gets through it OK.
Just thought I would mention, taking an expectorant has been found to stave off the odds of a moderate case progressing to pneumonia.
Speeds up the mucociliary escalator, keeps the lungs from developing fluid buildup.
I don’t know anyone who has had covid-19. 0,0,0
I’m reasonably sure that I had the covid in April. It was mild; the symptoms were shortness of breath (gasping and wheezing when walking uphill) for about 15 days, then a mild fever and phlegmy cough for 4 days, followed by a persistent dry cough which still occurs for 10-15 minutes once or twice a day, even 6 months later.
I couldn’t get tested because the Ontario rule at the time was you needed a fever of 38.7°C or higher, and mine never went over 38.0°. None of the other three family members in the house had it.
But a strange thing occurred: for somewhere between 2 and 3 months after my assumed covid infection, I was perturbed by persistent gloomy feelings and thoughts of suicide, both of which are very unusual for me. We are starting to read occasional reports of psychological effects of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. I wonder how many suicides and cases of severe depression are going to be the work of the virus itself, exacerbated of course by lockdowns, job loss, evictions, etc.?
It’s already hard on children and their families. Kids are missing parts of their education (already attenuated by decades of progressive schooling); parents and other family members are getting stressed out by being stuck at home with kids who need an outlet for their boundless energy (in our part of the world, somewhere around a third of kids are kept home by parents worried from the incessant media coverage); and it must be awful for primary school teachers, spending time and effort making the little kids keep their masks on and keep their distance from each other. I wonder if the kids who do make it to school are actually learning anything.
Self fulfilling prophecy. Alarmist report that we’re in a second wave and more people get tested. Increase in positives are a results of more tests. The US is slowing deaths/capita which is the only measurement that makes sense since some infections cause little to no discomfort. Previous flue outbreaks didn’t involve the massive testing we’re doing now so there’s no comparison. Not trying to minimize the seriousness of #19 but trying to put it into perspective.
So far family wise, my youngest sister has had it (week and a few days off work, high fever bad flu feeling, was a concern as she lives with Ma and Dad who are in their mid and late 70s) May or June, my brother-in-law (different sister, have not heard that he was very sick, and sis who tested no at the same time still hasn’t had it) and just last week a Cousin has gotten it.
Another cousin, same age as the latest, figures he had it back early January as he lost taste and smell, and was hammered under for over a week, but no testing back then or even thoughts about anything new and most everyone he worked with got ill with what ever it was. Same sort of thing came through my work place around the same time, and as far as I know, none of those who’ve tested positive here since, were of those sick back then. Same for cousin’s work place, no one there has been affected, even those who had contact with someone ill since. Those I know who have been tested positive lately at work, and do show symptoms are apparently not nearly as sick as those who came down with it earlier in the year.
I also know of 4 people who “tested Positive” and never had testing done.
At least they are all alive, and not like the lady in Tennessee, who died in February and somehow tested positive in June, and got a letter telling her in August to quarantine.
not like the lady in Tennessee, who died in February and somehow tested positive in June, and got a letter telling her in August to quarantine
Now that right there is messed the F*** up.
No, that right there is bureaucracy, working exactly as expected, no more, no less.
That’s the same thing. bureaucracy is messed the F*** up most of the time.
Nope. The bureaucracy neither delivers too much, or not enough, but exactly what it needs to deliver, when it needs to deliver it.
It, of course, being life-long employment for the “differently abled” who can’t get a job in the public sector.
And I’ll put on my “absolute hypocrite” hat as I was a bureaucrat for 30 years, somewhat coincidentally… as a health statistician here in Canada.
I assume she also voted in November.
Just stumbled across this, figured I would share. From August: https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(20)30673-2/fulltext
We have proposed an algorithm based on age and comorbidities that allows for a large proportion to be monitored and treated at home during self-isolation with the aim of reducing the risks of hospitalization and death.
Well, here’s another vicious attack by the Guardian on Australian MP Craig Kelly.
“What do supporting hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19 and climate change denialism have in common?
Apart from a dwindling body of scientific support for either of them, the two causes have united some of the world’s most conservative politicians, from the outgoing US president, Donald Trump, to the Australian federal MP Craig Kelly.
Kelly, the Morrison government’s most outspoken climate crisis denier, has embraced the cause of hydroxychloroquine as enthusiastically as Trump once did.”
Wow! CO2 + C18H26ClN3O is a bad combination, it seems.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/nov/18/push-to-oust-liberal-mp-craig-kelly-gathers-pace-its-awful-to-be-the-laughing-stock-of-the-country
My niece is a nurse at an OBGYN clinic that had to close for a couple of months earlier in the year. She and a couple of the other nurses went to New Jersey and worked with COVID patients at a hospital on an eight week contract. During her time there, she said the people dying from it were on ventilators and would pretty much die shortly after being rolled to prevent bed sores. It seems to me the heavy blood clotting caused by COVID would likely be the culprit in these deaths. On a side note, four months after finishing her New Jersey work, my niece found out she has had COVID, and she had zero symptoms.
A bit off topic, sorry, but I have been trying to figure out why Covid19 is always reported as the number of positive cases and not as number of positive cases / number of tests. (% positive tests)
Up here, Health Canada has been reporting Respiratory viruses including Coronavirus as the number of tests and the % positive tests. Yet Covid19 is reported as the number of positive cases.
Would appreciate any input.
Thanks.
Gerry McIsaac ==> It seems that the media and those who wish to promote PANIC use Positive Tests to keep the public scared. The medical profession is just beginning to try to defeat this madness as nearly all positive tests are of non-actionable trace amounts of viral genetic material and do not indicate infection or infectiousness.
Thanks
Hydroxychloroquine & the Judgment of History by Canada’s Donna Laframboise
How a safe, well-understood malaria drug was demonized as a COVID-19 treatment. Because a politician (Trump) said good things about it.
In the aftermath of this pandemic, books will be written about how medical professionals responded. What treatments they tried, what worked, what didn’t – and how regulators and politicians assisted or hindered them.
In the meantime, a lengthy essay by Norman Doidge persuasively argued that history will judge many people and organizations harshly. Including most of the media.
Early in Hydroxychloroquine: A Morality Tale, Doidge says “politicization has started to penetrate the peer review process” of scientific journals. In fact, that process has been gathering steam for decades (see here, here, here, and here).
But this is a mere hiccup. Keep reading. Doidge methodically describes how boatloads of smart people suddenly started calling one of the world’s oldest, safest, and cheapest drugs dangerous.
Originally developed to prevent and treat malaria, Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) was later found to be helpful for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. It has long been deemed an Essential Medicine by the World Health Organization, which describes the drugs appearing on that list as “safe and cost-effective.”
The US Food & Drug Administration gave HCQ the safety thumbs-up back in 1955 – 65 bleeping years ago.
A factsheet on the website of the US Centers for Disease Control continues to declare that HCQ can be “safely taken by pregnant women and nursing mothers,” and prescribed to “children of all ages.”
So what changed? Only this: US President Donald Trump began talking about HCQ as a promising treatment for COVID-19.
In the midst of a worldwide pandemic in which millions of people are infected, hundreds of thousands are dying, and doctors are perishing as they try to save others, some people are so addled by their dislike of a politician they’ve stopped thinking straight. These include journalists, public health officials, and many practicing physicians.
After compelling research showed HCQ halved the death rate of patients in six Detroit hospitals, CNN invited a panel of commentators to tear apart this research on air. If it treated all research this way (especially weak nutritional studies), that would be responsible journalism. Instead, this was a politically motivated hit job.
For additional reading, this Newsweek article is typical. It quotes the FDA which did a sloppy job of HCQ evaluation for OUT OF HOSPITAL EARLY USE, and in my opinion even Dr Fauci ignores that obvious fact and bad mouths HCQ. In my opinion, Peter Navarro had it right in the link below. This current up to date list of HCQ papers suggests over 1/2 of Covid-19 deaths could have been avoided with early use of HCQ + AZ + Z. https://c19study.com/
https://www.newsweek.com/trumps-trade-adviser-says-administration-sitting-millions-hydroxychloroquine-doses-1521372
The White House Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro said the administration is “sitting on millions of doses” of hydroxychloroquine, the controversial anti-malaria drug President Donald Trump claims to treat COVID-19.
Navarro claimed in an interview on CNN’s New Day on Wednesday that half of Americans who died from coronavirus yesterday would still be alive if treated with the drug.
The disputed effectiveness of the drug has divided the Trump administration and health experts, many of whom have cautioned against the use of the drug, saying it is not effective in treating the virus.
“We’re in the middle of a pandemic where over 1,000 Americans died today. 1,000 Americans died yesterday. And if you have a medicine that there’s relatively little or no downside risk and possible upside; why would you not let the American people have it?” Navarro told reporters on Wednesday.
“Right now the American people really can’t have it because I can’t ship it to distributors or hospitals, because the FDA doesn’t allow it to off label use, and almost half the states have strict regulators, who won’t allow doctors to prescribe,” he added.
Navarro cited a new study that has emerged from the Henry Ford Medical Center, which suggested hydroxychloroquine could help patients who were mildly ill with coronavirus to recover faster.
Health experts were quick to point out that the patients in the study were not randomized and that patients were twice as likely to be given steroids as a placebo, which have been proven in trials to help.
On June 15, the FDA revoked the emergency use authorization of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 after clinical trials found the drug to be ineffective at “decreasing the likelihood of death or speeding recovery.” Director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci has also publicly opposed the use of the drug, clashing with Trump and Navarro.
Since the beginning of the administration’s pandemic response, Navarro has disagreed with the doctor, undermining Facui’s concerns about hydroxychloroquine and penning an op-ed titled “Anthony Fauci has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on.”
The overview of studies here does look like HCQ has a very significant positive effect when used early https://c19study.com/
As vitamins C and D with zinc carry no credible risk at any standard dose, their benefits can be taken with no downside.
The overview of studies here does look like HCQ has a very significant positive effect when used early https://c19study.com/
As I posted downthread: https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(20)30673-2/fulltext
“Peer-reviewed journals” right?
The proposed protocol includes HCQ, Zinc, and Azithromycin.
Gerald Machnee ==> I have a file on the HCQ Wars, and will eventually write about it (after people quit dying from Covid).
The battle against HCQ has been entirely political — in the USA and in France.
The medical world as a whole was not looking for a cure for Covid — they wanted something that would save those reporting to the hospital for acute severe respiratory symptoms. HCQ is not that drug. HCQ is a drug that prevents people with early Covid from becoming hospitalized patients.
Only one person I know has died. Hospital had him on a respirator for weeks, which probably contributed greatly to his dying. Only other person I know that has tested positive (this week) is my future son in law. Daughter is waiting on her test results but is feeling better today. Wife and I have no symptoms, our clinic is saying they are testing only people that show symptoms.
“Hospital had him on a respirator for weeks, which probably contributed greatly to his dying”
Yep.
“”A standard treatment cannot be applied to an un-standard disease,” said Luciano Gattinoni, a world-renowned Italian intensive care specialist.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ventilators-covid-overuse-1.5534097
See: “Aspirin Misuse May Have Made 1918 Flu Pandemic Worse”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091002132346.htm
Lockdowns, social distancing, shutting down schools, and ………………… masks — don’t get me started on masks — Okay, DO:
https://discover.hubpages.com/education/A-Coronavirus-Face-Mask-Cult-Is-Bullying-the-World
He didn’t die of COVID. He died of old age.