Note from Charles. The original title of this piece was:
Do Lockdowns Reduce the Spread? Maybe a Little. But what else do they do?
However, the data also lead to the new title.
End note.
Guest post by David Stienmier, PhD (Mechanical Engineering)
Case and mortality data from Johns Hopkins (https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19/tree/master/csse_covid_19_data/csse_covid_19_time_series)
Population estimates for 2019 from the US Census (https://www.census.gov/data/datasets/time-series/demo/popest/2010s-counties-total.html#par_textimage_70769902)
Unemployment data from the Bureau of Labor Statisics (https://www.bls.gov/)
Partisan makeup of state legislatures from the National Conference of State Legislatures (https://www.ncsl.org/Portals/1/Documents/Elections/Legis_Control_2020_April%201.pdf)
I’ve had this data for a month or so now and I’ve been trying to decide what to say about it. I assumed someone else would show this somewhere first and I could resume my quiet observation. But I haven’t seen it anywhere and with everyone talking about locking down again I decided I should at least put it out there with minimum comment. So here it is.
Lockdowns are intended to reduce the spread of cases and therefore the number of deaths. A known side effect of the lockdowns is an increase in unemployment. So we should be able to use the increase in unemployment as a proxy for how hard a state locked down. Figure 1 shows how cases relate to lockdown intensity as measured by unemployment. There appears to be very little relationship, but maybe it reduces the number of cases slightly.
Unemployment, however has long been associated with poor health outcomes so it’s reasonable to ask if this is the case with Covid. Figure 2 shows total Covid deaths vs unemployment increase. Do I need to comment?
While reducing total deaths is the goal, the known relationship with unemployment is with health (all cause mortality). So it’s reasonable to look at the case fatality rate. Figure 3 shows that 47% of the variance between states in case fatality rate can be explained by a simple linear relationship with how hard states locked down (and it’s not in the direction intended by the states that locked down hard). I know, “correlation is not causation”. But negative correlation is at least an indication of lack of causation.
And one is compelled to ask who is closing down so hard and failing to prevent if not causing so much death. I don’t think anyone will be surprised by Figure 4. Figure 5 through Figure 7 show how that worked out for the other variables.
And just because I had the data Figure 8 confirms what we probably all knew. The improved mortality is NOT because republicans are generally healthier than democrats.
Table 1 shows all of the data for the above graphs. It’s helpful for locating a state since the labels are sometimes overlapping.
Table 1: Data in above Figures. Mortality and Case Data from Johns Hopkins University, Unemployment Data from the Department of Labor Statistics, Legislature Data from NCSL, and Obesity Data from the CDC
| State | Unemployment Increase | Cases per Million 10/7/2020 | Deaths per Million 10/7/2020 | Case Fatality Rate 10/7/2020 | % Dem in Legislature | Obesity |
| Alabama | 4.03% | 32679.9 | 497.4 | 1.52% | 25.7% | 36.2% |
| Arizona | 4.00% | 30462.6 | 752.6 | 2.47% | 46.7% | 29.5% |
| Arkansas | 3.43% | 29159.6 | 396.6 | 1.36% | 24.4% | 37.1% |
| California | 9.30% | 21121.5 | 381.0 | 1.80% | 75.0% | 25.8% |
| Colorado | 4.93% | 12961.2 | 350.4 | 2.70% | 60.0% | 23.0% |
| Connecticut | 5.60% | 16646.8 | 1260.8 | 7.57% | 60.4% | 27.4% |
| Delaware | 5.83% | 22095.4 | 643.9 | 2.91% | 59.9% | 33.5% |
| District of Columbia | 3.83% | 22177.9 | 879.9 | 3.97% | 92.9% | 24.7% |
| Florida | 6.30% | 33400.8 | 620.0 | 1.86% | 40.0% | 30.7% |
| Georgia | 3.60% | 30400.0 | 622.0 | 2.05% | 40.7% | 32.5% |
| Idaho | 2.00% | 25375.2 | 250.1 | 0.99% | 20.0% | 28.4% |
| Illinois | 8.57% | 24408.7 | 686.0 | 2.81% | 64.4% | 31.8% |
| Indiana | 5.43% | 19003.5 | 521.7 | 2.75% | 28.7% | 34.1% |
| Iowa | 3.67% | 29930.0 | 407.0 | 1.36% | 43.3% | 35.3% |
| Kansas | 3.73% | 21147.2 | 206.3 | 0.98% | 31.5% | 34.4% |
| Kentucky | 0.77% | 17035.2 | 248.9 | 1.46% | 34.1% | 36.6% |
| Louisiana | 4.10% | 36514.8 | 1156.6 | 3.17% | 32.6% | 36.8% |
| Maine | 4.60% | 4168.2 | 104.2 | 2.50% | 58.6% | 30.4% |
| Maryland | 4.37% | 21216.4 | 642.3 | 3.03% | 69.1% | 30.9% |
| Massachusetts | 11.83% | 19779.6 | 1351.8 | 6.83% | 80.0% | 25.7% |
| Michigan | 7.07% | 14495.1 | 699.0 | 4.82% | 45.9% | 33.0% |
| Minnesota | 4.00% | 18817.9 | 358.4 | 1.90% | 53.2% | 30.1% |
| Mississippi | 4.37% | 33918.9 | 944.2 | 2.78% | 35.6% | 39.5% |
| Missouri | 3.43% | 20416.2 | 277.4 | 1.36% | 28.4% | 35.0% |
| Montana | 3.07% | 14752.7 | 149.7 | 1.01% | 41.3% | 26.9% |
| Nebraska | 1.27% | 25036.9 | 233.7 | 0.93% | 25.0% | 34.1% |
| Nevada | 9.57% | 26796.8 | 497.1 | 1.85% | 65.1% | 29.5% |
| New Hampshire | 5.80% | 6421.2 | 322.1 | 5.02% | 58.5% | 29.6% |
| New Jersey | 9.67% | 23615.6 | 1809.1 | 7.66% | 64.2% | 25.7% |
| New Mexico | 5.97% | 14909.1 | 405.9 | 2.72% | 64.3% | 32.3% |
| New York | 10.73% | 17899.0 | 1264.9 | 7.07% | 64.6% | 27.6% |
| North Carolina | 4.13% | 21007.0 | 309.6 | 1.47% | 44.7% | 33.0% |
| North Dakota | 3.00% | 32118.8 | 253.3 | 0.79% | 17.7% | 35.1% |
| Ohio | 5.30% | 13884.9 | 395.5 | 2.85% | 35.6% | 34.0% |
| Oklahoma | 3.23% | 23497.5 | 239.6 | 1.02% | 21.5% | 34.8% |
| Oregon | 6.00% | 8401.0 | 125.4 | 1.49% | 61.1% | 29.9% |
| Pennsylvania | 7.63% | 13370.0 | 623.7 | 4.67% | 45.1% | 30.9% |
| Rhode Island | 8.73% | 24287.4 | 1035.5 | 4.26% | 87.6% | 27.7% |
| South Carolina | 5.10% | 29567.7 | 623.8 | 2.11% | 37.1% | 34.3% |
| South Dakota | 2.73% | 29283.6 | 228.3 | 0.78% | 15.2% | 30.1% |
| Tennessee | 5.80% | 30001.6 | 327.0 | 1.09% | 23.5% | 34.4% |
| Texas | 3.90% | 27531.7 | 521.7 | 1.89% | 43.1% | 34.8% |
| Utah | 1.40% | 24979.4 | 137.6 | 0.55% | 21.2% | 27.8% |
| Vermont | 4.77% | 2927.9 | 93.0 | 3.17% | 64.4% | 27.5% |
| Virginia | 4.23% | 17748.7 | 353.7 | 1.99% | 54.3% | 30.4% |
| Washington | 4.90% | 11856.1 | 269.1 | 2.27% | 58.5% | 28.7% |
| West Virginia | 4.80% | 9420.0 | 175.8 | 1.87% | 41.0% | 39.5% |
| Wisconsin | 4.03% | 23688.0 | 213.7 | 0.90% | 37.9% | 32.0% |
| Wyoming | 2.70% | 11920.3 | 86.4 | 0.72% | 13.3% | 29.0% |
I’m with Willis.
End the lockdowns!
After going through all this I am suddenly sickened by it all. I have had enough. It suddenly occurs to me how much more simple and satisfying life was for humankind before being seduced by, and consumed with, hubris to imagine we could ever conquer an endemic virus.
All we little creatures were faced with then was humbly accepting the natural deaths a virus caused, fearlessly helping the victims of the illness and courageously endeavouring to live and work as usual. Before smartphones and internet, lockdowns could not be even imagined.
I have had enough.
Have you not seen the history from the great plague 1665 UK. People isolated, village isolated to prevent plague spread from village (most died), rich left london town to isolate (some took the lice and fleas with them spreading it further). house with plague – red cross on door, all locked in, armed guard posted to prevent escape.
There was no humble acceptance of death.
This was a lockdown like no other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And we DID NOT t conquer it – and we DID NOT learn.
Compulsory lockdowns are futile.
Those that do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.
Those that do learn from the past, and advocate to make the same mistakes because of their emotional biases, are at best irritants … this one calls itself ghalfrunt.
You are saying that the 1665-6 lockdowns didn’t work?
I would love to know how you can prove that without a time machine
It would be easy for me to say lock downs worked because many survived. BUT i certainly CAN SAY I HAVE NO PROOF!!
Sweden is doing just fine without lockdowns. See the last chart at https://www.covid19insweden.com/en/deaths.html
Note that the all-causes fatality rate has been tracking the average of the preceding five years since late June.
Clearly isolation didn’t work for the plague in Europe in any of the successive waves. Considerable numbers of the wealthy and powerful died during each wave despite their ability to isolate far more extensively than the commoners.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Black-Death/Cause-and-outbreak
That great plague was a different beast. It was bacterium driven – whereas Covid is an airborne, ordinary corona virus. There is no proof that those plagues ever became endemic in the accepted meaning of the word (though some scholars think it was endemic in London for some years). It is not yet known with any certainty why some of those types of bacteria (which are still floating around everywhere) suddenly killed so many -but not others. It could presumably happen again.
I never mentioned the word “proof”. Of course lockdowns (voluntary or compulsory) work to slow down the spread of virus. All I said was that it is impossible to eradicate an endemic virus (except via a vaccine) – so we need only endeavour to slow it down so as not to overwhelm our health services. The terribly inhumane and economically devastating lockdowns are an abomination and should never exist in free, civilised, enlightened nations. Please look at the Covid graphs from Sweden. Yes, their “second wave” is as big as all other countries – but OOPS, : hardly anybody now die from the illness. I wonder why.
No common sense, either.
Andy Espersen November 23, 2020 at 3:18 pm
hardly anybody now die from the illness. I wonder why.
———————
possibly because the infected are younger. but more likely better knowledge of how to treat the serious cases
The great plague I refer to was one of the last plagues in london and was spread mainly by human fleas and lice not rat fleas. isolation and lockdowns worked the vectors were isolated.
The real killer was the from that which attacked the lungs, an infection called Pneumonic Plague. Death within 24-36 hours after the first presentation of S&S was not uncommon back then.
I have suspected for a quite some time that difference in the form the infection took had a lot to do with the significant differences in the mortality rate from one locality to another.
Anyway, in the case of the plague masks and isolation should have worked IF the vector could also be eliminated. But since nobody knew about Rats and fleas and such as vectors and carriers, isolation and masks could not make much difference.
The bacterial infection called Yersinia pestis has an Infective Dose-50 (ID-50) of exactly one (1) when introduced via airway exposure.
One viable Y. pestis baterium is all that it takes to initiate a subsequently lethal pneumonic infection in many mammalian hosts when introduced via the airway.
Compulsory lockdowns are futile when the country has a large number of entitled idiots who believe that laws don’t apply to them.
Ghalfrunt,
the big flaw in your analysis is you are freely interchanging the words Lockdown and Quarantine.
There is well documented evidence of quarantine (both in the original word origin and our more modern usage) and evidence of people of people attempting to leave the unsafe areas, but very little of actual lockdown. People saying ‘stay the drokk out of our village and sod off and die back in London’ is quarantine, not lockdown. Lockdown 1665 did not happen in any way useful for supporting your argument. The plague was eventually ‘cured’ not by lockdowns, but by the Great Fire of 1666 redeveloping the city so that it was no longer a literal sewer.
Quarantine is the process of restricting outside influences from entering an existing system. You have a ship coming in from places suspect and force it to either turn around or isolate for a set period.
Lockdown is the process of taking components of a system (like for example individual houses within a village) and preventing them from interacting.
Grasp the difference? Quarantine attempts to prevent change within a system by controlling what enters the system. Lockdown subdivides the existing system to prevent sub components from interacting.
The restrictions once you remove yourself from text book examples is that a system still needs to function. If you have a system that is functionally self supporting then you can enforce quarantine to prevent outside elements entering for extended periods. With an internal system if you start isolating sub components you run the risk that the system itself will collapse. This leads to the very important question of What Are You Trying To Achieve?
The knee jerk is ‘Crush the Virus’, but that is not helpful. Better is ‘crush the virus to prevent deaths’.
Why are we preventing deaths? Well obviously deaths are bad and too many deaths causes the system/society to collapse. Social groups become ruined. Economy fails as businesses close. Supply lines collapse. All because people die and are no longer able to perform tasks.
So if preventing deaths protects society, then the important question is at what stage do your attempts to protect society by preventing deaths actually start to destroy society by ruining social groups, closing businesses and collapsing supply lines?
Lockdowns COULD work if they were 100% no exception. EVERYONE (in the literal sense) self isolated for 14 days. No exceptions. Then it COULD work.
Except this is text book dreaming again, so won’t work.
Instead we basically get loophole filled bollocks where latte drinkers on their public service job happily support the Great Reset and tisk at the little people, while everyone else loses their jobs and their sanity.
Remember if the cure causes more harm then the disease, then it is a pretty dumb cure.
Lockdown in the UK 2020. Prior to lockdown people went dancing in the streets having no masks while they still could. Then lockdown and a rapid fall in cases Coincidence?
The major difference I see is that 75 years ago a “Quarantine” was only applied to the sick/infected and their immediate family/household. Whereas today’s “Lockdowns” locks down everyone regardless of weather they are sick, infected or an associate of a sick/infected person. Then the “Controllers” then give exemptions to the “nebulus” “Essential workers.”
Are you going to tell us to drink bleach again. Ghalfrunt is known liar.
Well, what you and every other commoner in this land should have had enough of by now is the ever increasing power of government to dictate over our lives. That is the root cause of the lockdowns along with the decades of “education” that has produced so many compliant sheep that will allow their liberty taken away and even attack those that resist .
THAT is what I’ve had enough of. I have also had enough of Hollywood and Press enablers.
Just a few of the many sickening things going on now:
Ministry of Pennsylvania COVID Compliance Bans Alcohol Sales For Thanksgiving – Restricts School Attendance, and Non-Compliant Family Gatherings…https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/11/23/ministry-of-pennsylvania-covid-compliance-bans-alcohol-sales-for-thanksgiving-restricts-school-attendance-and-non-compliant-family-gatherings/
German Police Raid COVID Lockdown Critic During Livestream of Non-Compliant Thoughts…
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/11/23/german-police-raid-covid-lockdown-critic-during-livestream-of-non-compliant-thoughts/
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy Confronted Over COVID Rules for Thee, But Not For He…
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/11/23/new-jersey-governor-phil-murphy-confronted-over-covid-rules-for-thee-but-not-for-he/
The four boxes of liberty are:
The soap box
The ballot box
The Jury box
The cartridge box.
We are currently moving into the Jury box level now. How many can and will be willing to use the final box as a last resort remains to be seen, But the decline towards the end is a clear as can be.
Hurrah, rah!!
‘Give me liberty or give me death.’
We’ll see how true that is in America anymore.
All your dates end as the year 202….
What percentage of bears shit in the woods? What percentage get CV19?
I rest my case.
+20
Drawing a line through random fly specs on a calendar doesn’t mean you’ve come up with a valid statistical correlation. The closest thing to to a meaningful plot is Fig. 8, Obesity vs. Dem. control of State Legislature.
But there’s lots of other confirming anecdotal data that makes it reasonable, e.g., the utter squalor of major progressive jurisdictions like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, New York, Chicago, etc. These are supposed to be earthly Utopias built upon a progressive philosophy of love, tolerance, inclusion, compassion, care for the poor, elderly, and the common man.
Instead wherever American liberalism reigns so flourishes human pain, misery, poverty, oppression, depression, wretchedness, mayhem and violent death, among other horrid things.
If you tilt your head just right on a quiet night you can hear the soft wails of the poor floating on the wind. The wails mixed with howls of glee from progressives made wealthy, powerful and drunk from the slow and deliberate drip, drip, draining of their very lifeblood.
So, yepper there budrow! I’m willing to buy as a valid statistical correlation these particular random specs drawn through a calendar.
For example, here’s some ProgLove on display in this glorious Erewhon called “Chicago”:
Almost 700 Chicago nursing home workers go on strike amid virus surge
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/health/almost-700-chicago-nursing-home-workers-go-strike-amid-virus-surge
So you would argue that the author’s clearly expressed intent of Figure 8 *merely* as a general aside here:
Has instead this specific intent:
Why isn’t it rather the case that your proposition is an obviously emotion-laden, textbook example of the strawman fallacy?
Oops, posted in wrong place. Dangit.
Hey you’re LUCKY there windlord-sun!!
Hah!
I’ll answer here.
I do have emotion when someone pulls the Percent No Count con. The emotion gets stronger when this toxic ploy is cited as evidence for controls needed over people.
However, what is the strawman?
I posted irony and sarcasm with the NewYorkThin jape. To show how ridiculous the Republicans Make People Fat lie.
Well, after you proposed an argument from the author where there was none in the first place, then in your emotive outburst of fallaciousness you chose to misrepresent the (non)argument the author never made.
Textbook strawman that.
You took the Argument from Not-Being-Made and entirely misrepresented what was never there in the first place.
Nice. Plausible deniability. “Oh, it’s no big deal that I focus on percentage, I had no agenda. It just ‘happens’ that the method (percentage) that I randomly deployed, happened to make an emotional outburst graph to show highest obesity in states with low Dems in legislature.”
Fine.
I already destroyed your “emotional outburst” thing. It is justified emotion, just as I explained, and you ignore. Doubling down on it only makes you look dull. Also, that is not a valid accusation of a strawman argument. Maybe you don’t understand fallacies. That’s okay.
Democrats control legislatures over higher populations of obese people than Republicans. The table and graph? Propaganda.
Well thankfully, looking dull isn’t BEING dull, as in one who doubles-down on his previous nonsense without addressing the charge of his opponent. On the contrary, what’s certainly not deniable is the implausibility of your charge against me.
Restating propositions doesn’t make them true you know, it just confirms them in the first place as examples of sloppy thinking. You would do well rather to admit your error and retreat with a modicum of face.
The author himself stated that Fig. 8 was added “for humor.” But nay, YOU know the actual truth, YOU, the hypocritically propagandist pauper of personal promotion.
straw man
/ˌstrô ˈman/
noun
noun: strawman
1. an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent’s real argument.
THIS is your brain on pompous assiocity. And it’s name is windlord-sun.
Someone didn’t understand the article…
True, but lack of correlation (or even weak negative correlation) between shutdowns and death rates are a good indication that the shutdowns don’t work (or have such a weak effect that they can’t be measured). And there is no doubt about the negative consequences to the shutdowns both economically and socially/mentally.
No, it could just as easily suggest the tightest lockdowns occurred in places which were hardest hit early in the pandemic when the death rate was higher due to lack of effective treatment protocols. If there is more than one explanation then the data doesn’t prove a thing.
Would the negative consequences have been higher without the shutdowns? There is no definitive way to say but if we had the case counts of today outside of lockdown with the early fatality rates it doesn’t seem like it would have been better.
ghalfrunt November 24, 2020 at 4:45 am
Lockdown in the UK 2020. Prior to lockdown people went dancing in the streets having no masks while they still could. Then lockdown and a rapid fall in cases Coincidence?
Mackrenzle
You are right.
This is mathematical mass-turbation.
A pile of steaming farm animal digestive waste products, to use a scientific term.
The source “data” are haphazard.
CV-19 “deaths” are a wild guess estimate
No one actually dies from CV-19 alone.
Stating CV-19 as a cause of death is a guess.
CDC and others overstate CV-19 deaths, just like all prior flu death estimates
Then we have the unemployment numbers as a measure of stress:
They state unemployment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Household Survey only count people with zero hours of employment, who are also actively looking for a job (in the prior month)
That does not include the self-employed, or business owners.
Several new for 2020 federal unemployment programs, primarily Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), not included here, extended unemployment benefits to the self-employed “gig workers” with no hours of work, OR sharply reduced hours of work. Many small business owners and small landlords have had huge reductions of income too — stressful — but not included in the Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment number.
MASKS HAVE NO SIGNIFICANT EFFECT AGAINST CCP VIRUS: STUDY
By Meiling Lee November 21, 2020
https://www.theepochtimes.com/masks-have-no-significant-effect-against-ccp-virus-study_3588025.html
Can you link to the study please not to the news agency that wants to at least rip off my email address!
Karl Denninger has collected and presented information from different sources and personal analysis.
Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses
Effectiveness of Adding a Mask Recommendation to Other Public Health Measures to Prevent SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Danish Mask Wearers
Postoperative wound infections and surgical face masks: a controlled study
Masks
Exactly. Physicians do not use masks on their postop patients. It is very common to use an antimicrobial nasal swab, however. The facility where I work at the moment use it as prophylaxis on many patients whether surgical or medical.
thanks for the links.
Doesnt seem very conclusive
one study was looking at transfer of infection during operation – but surgeons should have been infection free one would hope.
danish:
Limitation:
Inconclusive results, missing data, variable adherence, patient-reported findings on home tests, no blinding, and no assessment of whether masks could decrease disease transmission from mask wearers to others.
other study
Key messages We are uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/eight-key-questions-on-the-danish-facemask-study
The ‘Danmask-19 trial’ sought to test whether face masks are effective in preventing infection with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes Covid-19) for the wearer. It found that the recommendation to wear surgical masks to supplement other public health measures ‘did not reduce the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate among wearers by more than half in a community’. So does this mean wearing masks is a waste of time? There are several reasons that drawing such a conclusion from this study might be unwise.
Agree with Meiling. Providing links to a site/webpage that is subscription is worse than “not helpful” it is a huge waste of my time at billing rate $17,300,000 per hour.
Navy/Marine Corps COVID-19 Study Findings Published in New England Journal of Medicine
Implementing public health best practices on their own among young adults may not be enough to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission, and additional actions, such as widespread and repeated testing, are recommended to reduce risk of viral spread, according to research published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.
https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/Article/2413465/navymarine-corps-covid-19-study-findings-published-in-new-england-journal-of-me/
I dont see where lockdowns are modeled in these graphs. It is sort of assumed in the background but it isnt quantified.
Maybe lockdowns and % Legislature Dem. Yod have to quantify lockdowns no just by length by by intensity which are rally more like a Dummy Variable.
sorry lots of typos
The OP clearly stated that he is using increased unemployment as a proxy for lock-down severity. Do you not know what a proxy is?
USA case-fatality ratios are worthless data. Everything including cancers, heart attacks, motorcycle crashes and parachuting “bounces” were coded as Covid-19 deaths.
CDC reports:
Of the ~200,000 American deaths attributed to Covid-19, only about 6% were actually caused by the corona virus.
No surprise. the Covid-19 lockdown was NOT necessary- it was a political scam and did much more harm than good.
https://youtu.be/7x-biB_JrcU
Never mind deaths then. Concentrate instead on hospitilizations, which have spiked tremendously. If not Covid, then what?
There is a middle ground, somewhere between hysteria and outright denial. We know that the virus is spread easily in close quarters, usually indoors with insufficient air replacement and/or long periods of time. It’s the viral load, in other words. Certain activities, like going to restaurants, bars, and gyms are likely to create a high viral load. Churches, weddings, and parties as well.
You do realize that if you go to the hospital for say…a broken hand (this is my exact situation)…and you test positive for coronavirus, they count you as ‘hospitalization due to coronavirus”, right?
Even if that happens occasionally, it still doesn’t explain why hospitals are being overwhelmed. No “hoax” can do that.
Link to the study that says facilities are being over whelmed, please.
It doesn’t happen “occasionally”. Cases of and mortality due to influenza is down to about 50% of their normal level for this time of year.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm
In England, if you die of any cause within 28 days if a positive test it’s still covid, even if you fell off a ladder. Combine this falsehood with the insignificant numbers of deaths for those under 65 with no co-morbidity and most of us are safe.
However, while my 14yr old nephew won’t die of it, he could very easily bring it home from school and kill his dad…
All the data I’ve seen indicates that restaurants, bars, and gyms are not significant sources of COVID spread. Even Oregon’s governor – while shutting down indoor dining no less – conceded that their contact tracing data showed that restaurants and bars had only a minascule effect on COVID, and paled in comparison to other sources. Oregon’s health director similarly confirmed that they had no data pointing to restaurants and bars as a source of significant COVID spread. Tennessee’s data is in line with Oregon’s on this point.
So why did Oregon’s governor shut down the restaurants and bars? Because she needed to show she was doing something – no matter how impotent. She conceded that the primary source of COVID transmission according to their data was personal gatherings in work or at home, and though she could issue mandates banning say more than x number of visitors in a home at once, she couldn’t practically enforce those mandates, and knew people would just ignore them – which they are.
So she prioritized her own venal political need to be seen as “doing something” over the livelihoods of a small portion of Oregon’s population who are being forced against their will to bear the primary financial brunt of battling COVID in this state, with no compensation from the state. Instead the governor said that it was the responsibility of the federal government to provide the money to keep businesses from going bankrupt from her order, which she concedes will do virtually nothing to stop the spread of COVID.
What leadership!
I take it you will be refusing the vaccines then?
If you cant be reinfected after having the virus what purpose would a vaccine do?
I’m an RN on a Covid unit. I would refuse the Covid vaccine if I could and still make a living. If whatever vaccine they try to push on me turns out to be one of the more sci fi level quackeries they have developed recently I will absolutely refuse it then sue if I am fired.
Tired Old Nurse:
Could you please change your moniker to Sexy Young Nurse?
Tired Old Nurse is depressing.
In an already depressing year.
I’m tired and old too.
But I don’t brag about it.
I also post under a moniker
Richard Greene is not my real name.
My real name is Eaton N. Faartz
How about ‘High Old Nurse’? I just started taking ketamine infusions for treatment resistance depression. Apart from the incredible relief from the depression the treatment itself is quite an interesting experience to say the least! 😜
ALLAN MACRAE November 23, 2020 at 7:13 am
USA case-fatality ratios are worthless data. Everything including cancers, heart attacks, motorcycle crashes and parachuting “bounces” were coded as Covid-19 deaths.
—————-
I presume the medical staff are just faking their anger and deaths. You i assume believe like Trump that the medical staff were selling their PPE to enhance their profligate lifestyles?
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman
I’m angry due to the foolish and harmful response to the disease. I’m angry because many my coworkers and associates lost wages and jobs at the same time were screaming about facilities being overwhelmed. Medical don’t sell PPE on the wholesale level. We use the stuff then throw it away. It’s one use disposable stuff. I personally know of no one, either in my professional life or personal who have tested positive for Covid much less died from it.
Please show me the all cause fatality rate for Sept through October 2019 vs 2020. (Likely the best statistic to determine the severity of the problem.)
Now please show me the Cov19 fatality rate in Nations that use Q. V. And D as inexpensive treatment ( properly administered) vs Nations that do not.
Easy to debunk the 6% claim with a little research.
For example, “The claim that the CDC “admitted that only 6% of… (COVID-19-related) deaths recorded actually died from Covid” is false, because the remaining 94% of cases were instances of comorbidity (the existence of two or more conditions or illnesses in a patient). This does not exclude COVID-19, but combines it with other illnesses, often triggered by the new coronavirus itself.”
The fact that about 6% of the people who died with COVID-19 had no other causes does not mean that 94% died of something else. What it does mean is that the vast majority of people who die with it are already unhealthy. What it also means is that deaths attributed to COVID-19 are insanely overcounted. How much? Impossible to tell.
COVID-19, with rare exceptions, only kills the old or unhealthy. The regular flu kills the young and old, healthy and unhealthy. When something isn’t working, the answer isn’t to keep doing what hasn’t work. Nor is the answer to blame people who aren’t following your ideas. A virus is going to virus. The only way to stop is to let it run its course. Since COVID-19 kills the vulnerable, you protect those people and the rest of us get herd immunity. It takes a lot of hubris to think you can stop a virus — just like it takes a lot of hubris to claim humans can control the climate.
This is for everyone: Do yourself a favor and have the audacity to ask questions. If the media told you the truth, there would have never been a lockdown because nobody would be afraid. Truth to the media is like kryptonite to Superman.
Very good comment.
Not sure if you were trying to go against my comment, but I actually agree with most everything you say. “Insanely overcounted” and the media bits is hyperbolic but otherwise it sounds good.
My point was that the CDC did not “admit” 94% died of something other than CV. They were noting that 94% had other health factors that together with CV led to their deaths. I agree that CV probably paid no role in the death of some % of those.
One last thing, don’t have the audacity to think you are right and the person you think you disagree with is not asking questions. Be open to the idea that you are wrong. It is an important step to well rounded thought processes and learning.
JGrizzly0011
Probably 100% of people claimed to have died from any flu had one or more other health problems, or one or more genetic defects.
The two exceptions may be SARS1 and MERS where the death rates were so high, 10% and 35%, respectively, that a truly healthy person could die.
Other than those two unique strains, that did not affect many people, people claimed to have died from the flu (a computer model guess, not a list of actual names) are NOT perfectly healthy.
Many people — the 6 percent — were also not perfectly healthy.
But their medical problems were simply not known at the time of death. Many people have high blood pressure, diabetes. or heart disease, but have no idea. I lost a friend in his mid-50s whose first symptom of heart disease was a fatal heart attack, for one sad anecdote. And remember the US runner, Jim Fixx, who died in 1984?”
“…often triggered by the new coronavirus itself” is pure speculation. No evidence of this is provided. This is a big unknown area. What we DO know is that only 6% of deaths were in “healthy” people. Many of the comorbidities are long-term problems, like mild obesity or Type-1 diabetes, so those are likely to be a real mix, i.e. no way to know if they were related to the death or not. But serious issues like cancer and heart disease can easily be assumed to be mostly or at least partially responsible.
So if the 6% figure is used in that context, no it can’t be “debunked” because it is an observation, not a conclusion (unless you have evidence it is inaccurate). It is up to the reader to determine what it means to them.
It can be debunked in the sense that the CDC did not “admit” what the commenter says they admitted. Also, we can be sure that CV played a large role in the deaths of most of those with comorbidities. So, while you are right people can come to their own conclusions, I can point out how dangerous it is for people to believe the 6% number.
We know Cov19 causes a specific penmonia, ( a very specific pattern)
so those penmonia deaths are Cov19 deaths.) We know it can cause severe heart issues. ( It would take detailed post death studies to determine if Cov19 was the cause of heart failure in specific cases). And so on…
So, the logical answer is to look at All Cause Mortality, month by month pre Cov19 vs 2020. Then adjust for population and population age. ( A minor adjustment, yet population is growing and average age increasing)
It is my understanding that intially the 2020 January through May All Cause Mortality was much higher then the same period in 2019, YET since then, June to Current, it is flat. ( U.S.). Also other nations including Sweden with no lockdowns, now have average All Cause Mortality rates.
Hospitalization rates ALWAYS increase in the fall and winter. How total hospitalization rates have changed is also cogent, but not as cogent as all cause mortality rates.
These statistics, in combination with better treatment including QVD treatments, most certainly show lockdowns to be foolish.
Are you suggesting Covid-19 is a Democratic party conspiracy hoax…. I think maybe so.
There is no clear evidence that a case is a positive result for a viable SARS-CoV-2 infection. Cases include past, probable, possible, and progressive (i.e. Covid-19). The test in common use, run over extended cycles, has a high false positive rate “Correlation Between 3790 Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction–Positives Samples and Positive Cell Cultures, Including 1941 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Isolates” via Proof Of A Systemic Racket In Covid19 Testing.
Alan clueless Macrae
Of all “COVID-19 deaths”, 100% were caused by a major organ failure, not the virus itself.
It is a guessing game whether to blame CV-19, or any other type of flu.
Doctors believe the CDC guesses have always been too high.
Maybe even worse for COVID, because estimated deaths from other types of flu seem very low.
6% of deaths “were actually caused by the corona virus” is an ig-norant statement.
That’s not what the CDC reported.
CDC ONLY reported that for 6% of the deaths attributed to CV-19, they did not know of any other health problem. That does not mean the victim was perfectly healthy. Almost certainly the person who died did have another health problem, or a genetic defect, whether known or not.
I don’r see how you could call the partial lockdowns a “political scam’.
Politicians do stupid things all the time while thinking they are doing good.
My favorite political quote sums up my feeling about politicians:
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble,
finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly,
and applying the wrong remedies.”
Groucho Marx
It’s too easy to declare the partial lockdowns did more harm than good, but we really have no idea what would have happened if things were different in the US. In Sweden, there were partial lockdowns of high schools and many colleges (the schools were closed) and gatherings of over 50(?) people were outlawed. Every other behavior in Sweden was voluntary. Well, many Swedish people avoided commerce that would not allow them to social distance, for about three to four months. So their real GDP fell almost as much as US real GDP fell in 2Q and 3Q 2020. Many Swedish people voluntarily behaved as if there WERE under mandatory partial lockdowns.
The problem with the US lockdowns is they didn’t end after a few months. Doctors now have the CV-19 survival rate at 99.9%, which is not much worse than a typical seasonal flu. And all the other strains of influenza are either unusually low this year, or being called CV19 in error. So the overall risk of flu leading to death now is no worse than a typical year that we somehow survived without any lockdowns.
If we still need mandatory partial lockdowns now, then we will always need mandatory partial lockdowns every flu season, from now on. If you want something really screwed up, put politicians in charge of it.
We know Cov19 causes a specific penmonia, ( a very specific pattern)
so those penmonia deaths are Cov19 deaths.) We know it can cause severe heart issues. ( It would take detailed post death studies to determine if Cov19 was the cause of heart failure in specific cases). And so on…
So, the logical answer is to look at All Cause Mortality, month by month pre Cov19 vs 2020. Then adjust for population and population age. ( A minor adjustment, yet population is growing and average age increasing)
It is my understanding that intially the 2020 January through May All Cause Mortality was much higher then the same period in 2019, YET since then, June to Current, it is flat. ( U.S.). Also other nations including Sweden with no lockdowns, now have average All Cause Mortality rates.
Hospitalization rates ALWAYS increase in the fall and winter. How total hospitalization rates have changed is also cogent, but not as cogent as all cause mortality rates.
These statistics, in combination with better treatment including QVD treatments, most certainly show lockdowns to be foolish.
The year is not over yet.
Most people would voluntarily “lock down” by social distancing whether mandatory or voluntary.
The costs of the lock downs are are rarely reported in total, from financial distress to health issues, from weight gain, depression, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, suicides, wife beating, child beating, mother-in-law beating, and general bad behavior plus the lack of income to pay all the bills, etc.
I don’t see how All Cause Mortality / excess deaths calculations helps us learn anything for a given year, although might be useful for a specific month.
The total US deaths are roughly 2.8 million a year and that can easily vary by plus one percent or minus one percent from year to year. Let’s say CDC wild guesses that CV-19 killed 280,000 Americans this year, and total deaths are 280,000 higher than last year. That 280.000 increase could be from excess deaths from CV-19, or from a random variation from 2019, or some combination of the two. 280,000 deaths is not that big if the total is 2,800,000 deaths/
The huge reduction of CDC wild guessed deaths for all other flu viruses makes me believe the CDC CV-19 “deaths” are overstated.
Richard, I mostly agree but consider two things.
Regarding the “political scam” assertion, there is ever growing evidence that yes, politicians are using Cov19 to get all the policies they wanted but we’re struggling to get via CAGW. ( Several have admitted this)
The political slogan, never let a good crisis go to waste applies.
Sweden’s economy was affected by voluntary reduction in social activities and some real restrictions, YET also their international business and tourism was severely affected by other nations lockdowns.
Good monthly All Cause Mortality rates pre Cov19 to now are, IMV, the best statistic to use.
Mr. Anderson
Democrats do not let any crisis ‘go to waste’.
It doesn’t even have to be a real crisis (like the coming climate crisis hoax)
CV-19 is a real crisis
A real crisis is better than a fake global warming crisis.
Assuming you want to exploit the “crisis”.
Hope many tourists were flying into Sweden in late 2019 and early 2020?
Too cold there !
I meant to write in a prior comment that the Swedish real GDP was down in the first half of 2020, not 2Q and 3Q. My comments are garbled by confuser spellchecks to such an extent that my PhD level comments (Piled high and Deep) that I type into the my confuser get published, and then appear to be written by a deranged lunatic after nine beers. I blame this on an old confuser — a 1953 Apple MacBook Pro laptop. It runs on vacuum tubes.
We should stop talking about Sweden and the US, if we want to find out what worked best — those two nations are nowhere near the ones that had little CV-19 damage.
I never thought of using all mortality data for a specific month — March and April 2020 must have had a COVID-19 spike, when the nursing homes were hit hard, and ventilators were probably the wrong treatment if you wanted to keep patients alive.
Of the ~200,000 American deaths attributed to Covid-19, only about 6% were actually caused ONLY by the corona virus.
Completely false Maclerae and I’ll correct you again.
six percent of deaths attributed to CV19 (actual cause of death was a major organ failure (usually the lungs) were people NOT KNOWN to have other medical problems or genetic weaknesses … but almost certainly DID have such a problem(s). It would be very rare for CV-19 to be the ONLY cause of death. And even then, “CV-19 plus pneumonia” would be a better description of the cause of death.
Specious nonsense Richard.
Yes, ‘specious nonsense’ is essentially what I wrote about YOUR 6% interpretation.
You refuted EVERYTHING I wrote with JUST three words.
“Specious nonsense Richard”.
You could have used two words — I know my name.
I might as well debate my cat.
YOU HAVE A CLOSED MIND.
And probably believe in UFOs too..
COVID-19 ASSESSMENT BY EMINENT PHYSICIAN AND VIROLOGIST DR. ROGER HODKINSON, 13NOV2020:
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/health-expert-outraged-government-response-covid/
LEADING CANADIAN HEALTH EXPERT OUTRAGED AT GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO COVID
“I would remind you all that using the province’s own statistics, the risk of death under 65 in this province is one in 300,000. One in 300,000. You’ve got to get a grip on this.”
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/health-expert-outraged-government-response-covid/
Dr. Roger Hodkinson, MA, MB, FRCPC, FCAP, CEO and medical director of Western Medical Assessments, spoke at the Edmonton City Council Community and Public Services Committee meeting on Nov. 13 about the city’s move to extend its face-covering bylaw. He was listed as speaker number 95 on the meeting agenda.
Hodkinson was trained at Cambridge University in the UK. He is ex-president of the pathology section of the Medical Association. He was the chairman of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada Examination Committee and Pathology in Ottawa, Canada.
Here’s a recording of Dr. Hodkinson’s testimony: https://www.brighteon.com/6b749204-7aa0-4669-adc2-aa3505ee90f1
‘While reducing total deaths is the goal, the known relationship with unemployment is with health (all cause mortality).’
No. Because short of an immortality drug death can’t be stopped. It’s a 100% sure thing. And if Covid doesn’t get you there a decent chance that some other virus caused respiratory disease will because susceptibility.
The only important stat is facility utilization. How full are the ICUs and Covid units?
But hey…as an RN working on a Covid unit my pay has gone through the roof! My bring home has more than doubled. A few more years if this and I can retire very comfortably.
Your important statistic is corrupt for self-selection; modus ponendo ponens, mode that by affirming affirms
WRT: “The only important stat is facility utilization. How full are the ICUs and Covid units?”
I have great respect for what you do. But for some months now, the news has been reporting dramatic hospital layoffs and cuts in budgets, as well as “overwhelming” patient loads. These reports would seem to show some contradiction in the way hospitals are responding to Covid.
How many hospital staff outside the ICUs in your facility have been furloughed?
How many beds outside the ICU are being utilized?
It’s not just how hospitals are responding to Covid-19, but also how many elective surgeries are being put off. I have a friend who was planning to have knee replacement surgery this year but has put it off until the pandemic is over.
I expect there will be a surge in plastic surgery and similar stuff then.
Very good questions. I have personal experience in facilities in Kentucky and Tennessee. Two states with somewhat different responses to Covid. During the initial respond in both states furloughs were the order of business. Not just in hospitals but also at the practices. It was a bloodbath. ICUs were not and are not overwhelmed as far as I can tell. (I fully admit that this is all antedoctal evidence, take it with a grain of salt). Forloighing has not been happening recently but the governor ofKentucky just ordered more lockdowns so we will have to wait and see.
We have 4 Covid units at the hospital in East Tennessee where I now work. They are not full. We have been trying to figure out why the last unit was open as we gave plenty of empty negative pressure rooms available.
The foregone electives is one reason. Behind it all is the unemployment situation nationally.
That’s a June article in Pew Research. I don’t know what’s happened since. WRT health care…
Many people on unemployment may be skipping all care – even refraining from getting a Covid test. Probably more to the point of hospital layoffs, they DO get care and can’t pay for it. Whichever the case, the hospitals and clinics see dramatic reductions in business. Medicare only reimburses hospitals at a fraction of the rate of private insurers.
Then there are the insurance companies… It’s like watching toppling dominos with multiple forks.
Since the Covid-19 lockdown began, just the INCREASE in opioid deaths equals the TOTAL Covid-19 deaths in Alberta – and similar in BC. That is just one of the many examples of ancillary death and destruction caused by this erroneous lockdown,.
In fact, the lockdown killed many ~30-year-olds but failed to save many ~80-year-olds, due to poor contagion management in old-folks homes. Total years-of-life-lost was huge and preventable. The devastation to the young, the poor, families and businesses was huge and largely irreparable.
The Swedish experience with Covid-19 is conclusive. Anyone who defends the Covid-19 lockdown cannot do elementary math, The Covid-19 lockdown was a total FAIL and continues to be so.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/09/24/the-medical-thought-police-theyre-coming-for-you/#comment-3091468
By now it is clear that Covid-19 is only significantly dangerous to the elderly and infirm. Thus the full-Gulag lockdown of the workforce and schoolchildren was NOT justified and the enormous damage to citizens and the economy was far worse than the disease. Willis and I independently called it correctly in 21March2020 based on available data.
Sweden was one of few countries that made the right call and now has probably achieved effective herd immunity. Most of the other governments on the planet blew their brains out (if they had any to begin with) and destroyed their economies and severely harmed their young people to protect a high-risk population that was unlikely to survive the year in any case. One thing about life – “nobody gets out alive” – get used to it!
The original justification for the lockdown was to prevent “a tsunami of cases that would overwhelm the medical system”, but that tsunami never happened, and was never even close to happening! One 600-bed hospital in Calgary was typical – it had a maximum of six Covid-19 cases and typically had only 2 or 3, but was effectively shut down for over 8 weeks! Then the goalposts were shifted and the full lockdown was extended, for reasons that still do not make sense to me. The lockdown has not saved lives. All the lockdown accomplished was to extend the life of the Covid-19 virus, delay herd immunity and even possibly allow the virus to survive into the next flu season. Attaboys all around!
Regarding the alleged “conspiracy”:
Like global warming fraud, the Covid-19 hysteria is hugely overblown, and that is blatantly obvious by now. So the question is WHY? It is irrational to believe that otherwise reasonable, intelligent people could be this incredibly stupid for this long, so what is their motive for promoting the hysteria? Are they really that stupid, or is there a covert reason for their deliberate dysfunction?
Regards, Allan
https://flatheadbeacon.com/2020/11/23/its-not-about-death/
Where does saving the healthcare system become a priority? Without it what do we have?
What we individuals can honestly afford.
The only thing the “Health Care System”, like all other business sectors, need saving from is from the government. Other than the ICUs, most hospitals are running at bankruptcy inducing low levels because everybody has been forced to put off “non-essential” treatments and surgeries (although some of these people will die as a result because they didn’t realize their situation was much more serious than they thought). Even if hospitals are “overrun” by temporary surges in (real) cases, that won’t damage them or the “system”. There would be some unfortunate results for some patients and probably a lot of stressful overtime for doctors and nurses, but hardly a collapse of the entire health care system.
HCQ availability by state vs governors’ political party by state would be interesting to see.
https://www.americasfrontlinedoctors.com/hcq/
Thanks for that link, icisil.
What stands out to me are the obesity numbers.. COVID or not, a lot of people are going to be dying younger and having a poorer quality of life on the way.
WIthout meaning to detract from your work, it seems that the results are strongly weighted by the performance of NY, MA, CT, RI, and NJ. They always seem to lie in the unfavorable quadrant and well separated from the main cluster.
The problem is that the analysis uses total mortality over the whole period of the pandemic. the five states you list all got hit hard in the first wave, but have kept deaths lower since then (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/05/us/coronavirus-death-toll-us.html). I’d be interested to see the same analysis from the top post, but based on deaths/100,000 over the past couple of months. If we look at just the last week, then the states that are doing the worst are South Dakota (20 covid deaths/week! that’s more than the average US all-cause mortality rate of 17/week!), North Dakota, and Montana (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/coronavirus-us-cases-deaths/, see Case and death counts by place table).
Cherry picking short segments out of this type of peaky/noisy data is a really good way to misrepresent the situation. It makes much more sense to use the entire time period available.
Given the lack of time travel, if your question is “do lockdowns work” then using data that includes deaths that were baked in _before_ the lockdown* would be worse cherry picking. I’d probably prefer to use the last 3 months rather than the last week, but I don’t have easy access to that data.
*e.g., in New York, deaths peaked at the beginning of April… given a 3 week lag between infection and death, those deaths shouldn’t count for evidence that lockdowns don’t work.
And the Governor of NY got an Emmy for seeding nursing homes with covid positive patients there by increasing that initial wave of mortality. PA also seeded their nursing homes. Lots of differences from state to state that make some statistical analysis very sketchy. Also there is the fact that testing has increased greatly over time there by greatly increasing the case count which cuts many ways, including lowering mortality relative to cases. And of course improvement in treatment protocols also effect that ratio considerably.
What strikes me as the most obvious sign that what is happening is political and has nothing to do with our welfare is the FACT that during the first lockdown period the authorities and press stressed hospitalizations and mortality. Now they are stressing cases.
Very nice job. Thank you, David Stienmier.
By order of the court, all states are hereby ordered to redistribute their populations to achieve uniformity in obesity, age distribution, incomes, urban mix, vitamin D deficiency, zinc deficiency, skin color, CO2 emissions, and grid unreliability. You have 90 days to comply and all legal costs to the Sierra Club must be compensated.
How very discreet of you, David Stienmier, to resist the temptation to plot unemployment versus legislature composition. The most spectacular outlier on that plot is Washington DC, where the employment situation seems admirably (?) stable.
Government employees are almost never laid off. This is especially true for the federal government which doesn’t have to worry about balancing the budget.
Doh! My goof. That chart is right there.
https://flatheadbeacon.com/2020/11/23/its-not-about-death/
When does saving the healthcare system become a priority? Without it what do we have?
https://ravallirepublic.com/news/local/article_c1d7840d-bbfb-53c1-9fcb-3d0c0b295657.html
“Republican State Legislatures are Positively Correlated with Obesity…”
“Do Lockdowns Reduce the Spread?”
I see what you did there. 😉
Thanks for the table, very useful data. Here’s a quick and dirty graph generated from party percentage in the state legislatures and Covid deaths per million and trend (-:
The charts here – and yours Steve Case – are interesting, but I think a lot of caution is needed when trying to interpret them. Especially in distinguishing between cause and effect. The clear trend in Virus deaths vs Dem-Rep may be because the urban conditions that tend to boost the Dem vote may be the same conditions that favour virus spread. Lockdowns are more likely to be tried in places with many virus cases, so lockdowns won’t end up with lower stats than non-lockdowns. Etc, etc.
Maybe one day it will all be analysed and recorded accurately for posterity, but I doubt it. Everything is so politicised that I doubt that a genuine analysis will ever be universally accepted. History is written by the winners. If Donald Trump doesn’t prevail in the courts (and there’s no sign yet) then Joe Biden is free to write the history. In that history, the Democrats defended people valiantly with lockdowns that the people all agreed were wonderfully effective, while the Republicans encouraged people to get the virus and die.
Mike Jonas November 23, 2020 at 3:24 pm
Thanks for the reply. The graph I produced is the same as figure 5. I didn’t put the percent government makeup after each state on the vertical scale it was quick & dirty because I didn’t want to be too far down the comments list. But they are arranged by state government makeup as the arrows indicate on the far left of the graph.
The real Value of David Stienmier’s post is Table 1. It tells me my chances of dying of covid in Wisconsin is one in five thousand. Table 1 would be better if it had included columns by age groups.
I agree. The government paying hospitals more for CCP 19 diagnosis than any
other cause of death makes the numbers unreliable.
https://www.bing.com/search?q=florida+man+killed+in+accident+died+of+covid&cvid=dfd2e1f8e19e413aa605a3837edf96de&FORM=ANAB01&PC=HCTS
why do you only consider your corrupt healthcare system. Most sane countries have free healthcare for all. Tere is no extra cash paid for invalid treatments!
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/tu-quoque
Free healthcare for all? So all the doctors and nurses work for free? Everyone chipped in and built the hospitals and health care centers for nothing? All the drug companies donated the drugs?
There is no such thing as free healthcare. It gets paid for somehow by those that use it.
About the only thing I can agree with is the US has a corrupt healthcare system, but as bad as it is, I can go to 3 world class hospitals in 1 hour or less drive time and the physicians are top notch. My healthcare quality can easily exceed the best of the “free” versions elsewhere.
Half-wit doesn’t absorb facts like that.
rbabcock November 23, 2020 at 12:02 pm
Free healthcare for all? So all the doctors and nurses work for free? Everyone chipped in and built the hospitals and health care centers for nothing? All the drug companies donated the drugs?
——————-
Free obviously to most people would mean free at point of delivery. Lifeboats (RNLI) are free to sailors in distress – but actually get funded by public charitable donations. NHS is free to users but is funded by taxation on all tax payers (so homeless people are not funding the NHS other than slightly higher food prices)
The NHS is woefully underfunded but at least allows impoverished the same treatment as wealthy.
The chronically sick and pensioners get prescriptions drugs free e.g. diabetics in the uk get free insulin – others pay a nominal £9 for any drug of any cost
free prescriptions can be obtained based on
Age
Benefits
Tax credits
Pregnant women and those who have had a baby in the last 12 months
Medical conditions
Low income (including students and pensioners)
People who receive War Pension Scheme or Armed Forces Compensation Scheme payments
‘Most sane countries have free healthcare for all.’
Funny what your idea of ‘free’ is, half-wit.
“Most sane countries have free healthcare for all”
The world is perishing from the greed of people demanding something for nothing … as a right!
More nonsense
260,402 dead.
if USA had German level of fatalities that’d be what, 38,000
No sign of most people in the USA taking necessary public health measures and no sign of it stopping in the USA. and now it is Thanksgiving and there’ll be a worse spike…
If the US didn’t artificially inflate their mortality number so much, and hadn’t aggressively intubated covid patients so much, their number might be where you say it should be.
Now do a comparison of Peru and Germany…
The Germans were more sensible about how they coded Covid deaths. In the US if you had a heart attack and died but tested + for Covid, then you were coded as died of COVID. which has wildly inflated Covid death rate.
In the US hospitals were given financial incentive to code deaths as COVID … so they where they could, they did. This is because many hospital’s financial conditions became dire due to the shutdown of non-emergency inpatient care and closure of half or more of hospital floors.
It’s the same in Canada. If you die within 14 days of testing positive for CV-19, then you are recorded as a CV-19 death. Comorbidities are irrelevant for the count, merely a footnote.
Griff has been told that (in other threads) before, but he still insists on making that COVID death comparison of numbers derived by wildly different methodology. So he’s not ignorant when he tries to compare US’s to Germany’s numbers, he’s being willfully dishonest while thinking he’s being clever.
THANK YOU – Grift and the other trolls are constantly corrected, every single day, yet are not the slightest bit fazed, and will religiously repeat their disinformation – that constant repetition.
Progressives WORSHIP Goebbels and believe in him more than our current Pope believes in God.
Nearly half in Planned Parent facilities. Bad Choice. Wicked solution.
80 to 90% excess deaths due to denying and stigmatizing early treatments that have been observed to be effective around the world (i.e. signal diversity). Spreading social contagion caused collateral damage. Wearing portable petri dishes and inflating a perception of safety likely increased the case count.
griff, Germany is to be commended for their early and speedy response to the pandemic. They ramped up testing far faster than almost all western nations. However, Germany’s latest fatalities, 240 per day, per capita (83 million) is 2.89. The US had 730 deaths per day in the most recent data so per capita (328 million) that’s 2.22. For the hard-of-thinking (hint griff, that’s you) Germany’s most recent death rate per capita is greater than that of the U.S.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/?utm_campaign=homeAdvegas1?%22%20%5Cl%20%22countries
No reliable comparisons can be made without proper context – which includes data and details from previous years and how factors can be identified that change the annual number of flu deaths (and now also coronavirus deaths).
Take a few facts about the age demographics which are not reflected in the total number of deaths:
Ethiopia has about 3% that are 65 and older while in Sweden it is over 20%.
Two thirds of deaths in Sweden occur among those 80 and older where life expectancy was 82.7 years.
Griff, you do not have to agree with all others have to say. You will gain their respect with careful reasoning which this site allows. Why do so many sites that dislike the views I could rationally support seek to denigrate and vilify the dissenters rather than engage in careful reasoning? I believe it is because they do not have enough confidence in their views to do so.
Come let us reason together applying this standard to the points made by Stienmier, by yourself and by mine. That way we could all learn.
The numbers in the US are artificially inflated. The US isn’t Germany. And lastly, freedom.
Off Topic: Yesterday I posted on Kip Hansen’s “Survey Results” page that we were having 7 for thanksgiving. That dropped to one or zero over night. Wisconsin has 200 Covid-19 deaths per million (0.02%) and the media is scaring people over this. I’m assuming David Stienmier’s numbers are correct. OK it’s not Off Topic.
You plotted state legislature makeup vs. deaths per million. I suspect a lurking variable.
I plotted population density vs. deaths per million. I ignored DC because its population density is an order of magnitude greater than any of the states. What we can say is that there is a big clump of states with low population densities and low deaths per million.
Yeah, that’s one of the things that has kept the NH rate low. Our per capita rate increases through the southern half of the state where out “big” cities are and it gets closer to Boston and all it’s mass transit.
One thing I haven’t looked into in detail is that early on our death rate in Long Term Care was some 80% of the total. A lot people wrung their hands about that. While things in LTCs have improved with better testing, PPE, etc, I’ve seen few people note that 20% for non-LTC fatalities means we’ve done a decent job overall.
NH (and ME) have a higher average age among the population than Florida! That may be one reason for the LTC spread.
I also think population density is important, but also living arrangements – multi-generational families in small units – and other issues.
One of the problems regarding the deaths is that Long Term Care places (& senior living) got hit hard early on. Thus, the vulnerable died – and some were removed by family, and others did not replace them.
Many such places were old with physical issues and not very economically in good shape – goes together. Now they are in worse shape.
There is research and design underway to modernize hospitals and LTC with future builds. No hope for immediate issues. Good place to direct money, though, instead of wasting it on green slush funds.
Population density should correlate more with cases, I would think. But case fatality correlates much better (to the variables I posted). Unless you are suggesting that population density negatively affects immune health. Which, I suppose, is plausible.
Maybe a plot of population density to state legislature makeup?
Be frightened. Be very much afraid and voluntarily allow the government to
control your life.
I look forward to the day that WUWT resumes emphasizing science over politics.
Per chance, have you ever heard of “politicized science?”
Yep. Eisenhower got that and the military/industrial complex right in his farewell speech.
The social industrial complex operates with a multi-trillion dollar annual GDP and produces a larger short-term and long-term signal in society to force both positive and negative effects locally and globally.
I look forward to the day when Werme’s breaking of windy whinges wane like a whispering memory at WUWT.
I look forward to the day when politicians stop twisting science to justify their destructive policies. Until then, we can’t every completely separate the two.
Charles asked permission to change the title, and I said yes. These plots are presented in very close to chronological order. I wanted to see if the effect of lockdowns was visible. It wasn’t until I labeled the states that I saw an apparent relationship with my perception of state ideologies. So I went looking for a more continuous variable than the party of the Governor. The fraction of voices of one ideology vs another in the state government seemed right. These plots are about “what should be done?”. And that is a political question. Charles recognized that right away, and I agreed with very little persuasion needed.
That won’t happen in the presence of progressives. That’s who injected the politics, and now it has to be addressed because they have an agenda, and no shame about it.
Obese people sequester more carbon than skinny people. They’re helping to reduce global warming.
They would sequester more carbon on their person, obviously, but in most cases their caloric intake, and, hence, overall emissions would exceed those of skinny people on average.
Their will be exceptions of course, but it can almost be guaranteed that overall emissions associated with caloric intake from someone like Michael Moore would greatly exceed emissions from an Ethiopian, for example.
But they get that carbon from food and food needs carbon to be produced. Some of that is wasted in the process, so he still sequester more carbon.
Here in PA we have a REP legislature with a DEM governor. The lockdowns and policy to send the COVID flu folks to the long term care facilities was a edict by the GOV.
Would it be possible to augment the COVID vs % DEM legislature with points flagged with the DEM REP governor noted. Say solid squares vs open circles?
Column B in the linked spreadsheet is the party of the governor.
All the unemployment versus covid cases and death assumes the arrow of causality.
I think the data is clear that lockdowns do not effect the transmission of the virus to any substantive degree.
The facts show that the lockdowns are merely a mostly futile attempt by humans to control something they can’t, at least not without a vaccine to artificially induce a Covid herd immunity.
Vaccines are science. Lockdowns are human folly masquerading as science.
Without a vaccine, we merely think we can affect the virus spread viral ecology), when we cannot as long as we must interact in connected, dependent society for food, fuel, essential activities to our interconnected modern lives. It is mostly unfounded hubris in play.
It is the very human political response to order shutdowns (that then cause unemployment to spike) in response to increasing and accelerating cases that we see in the graphs. It is not a viral ecology (biological) response that we want to see. Just like with changing climate, the human emotional side of us wants to believe we can control which we cannot. (Without a vaccine).
WHO, back in 2019, said lockdowns for pandemics were not recommended.
So did the CDC. They also said simple masks were useless for preventing the spread of viruses. They’ve only changed their tune now because they don’t want to risk angering their masters in government.
I’ve had a lot of contact with medical professionals just recently – among other things, I have a friend who just had a brain tumor removed. All her nurses told her the masks were bullshit – not intended for defense against viruses – but, boy, after the PC police moved in, they changed their tune – NOW, masks ‘work’ – they can’t tell you why, other than they’ve been given marching orders to repeat that dictate.
Three blind studies have been published that concluded that masks are not effective against viruses. NONE have been produced that have reached the opposite conclusion.
Years prior to this Fauci also said masks are ineffective against viruses. Something about trying to stop a mosquito with a chain link fence.
I don’t know. Do you know?
I think everything we have done to prevent spread of CoVID has been mostly futile with the exception that in some cases it spread out the initial wave which may have been beneficial to regions where health services were overrun. A colleague of mine in infection control recently confessed to me his sense of futility that anything we did was changing the ultimate outcome.
What is certain is that it is a mistake to consider any measure to reduce CoVID transmission without considering the costs/unintended consequences. Given that, according to today’s stats, 99.2% of the world population has not tested positive for CoVID and 99.98% have not died from it, there is a very high chance that all the measures to “lock down” and close the economy have had negative effects far out of proportion to the threat. A tiny proportion of people have been directly affected by covid but nearly everyone has been affected negatively by the government response.
People who die from covid are mostly (but not exclusively) elderly or chronically unwell so that the impact on their longevity is small. People who die from suicide, social violence, hunger, lack of access to timely medical care for treatable conditions etc. Are losing much more of their productive lives and we don’t seem to be counting them.
In addition people lose businesses, jobs, educational opportunities, social and family relationships, self confidence and self worth and these losses may impact the rest of their lives. PTSD will likely become epidemic.
+6%
Andy Pattullo on November 23, 2020 at 10:35 am
said
The only worthwhile metric(way of measuring) the impact of mortality, due to “the virus” is Quality-adjusted Life-years lost(QALY). When measured this way it is clear that “the virus” is a non-event.
Economic damage causes early death and morbidity. That is utterly inarguable.
As well as co-morbidities it is a certainty that huge numbers of people, of all ages(but especially the elderly) have multiple nutritional deficiencies. For example the medical profession has vitamin D below 20 ng/ml as “deficient”, but this is absurdly low. At least 60 ng/ml is required for optimum health and 70 is probably even slightly better. People are also deficient in zinc, selenium vitamin C vitaminE and magnesium.
The NZ medical cabal ensures that anyone who follows their advice on vitamin D WILL be deficient. Their recommendation is the exact reverse of what it should be. They say, paraphrased, to get sun early morning and late afternoon in summer, but this is worthless. UVB is much more stroongly absorbed than UVA. Atall times in order to get best benefit for least damage sun exposure should be when the sun is nearest vertically overhead(Sun elevation above 60 degrees is good enough; below 45 degrees is worthless). Nowhere in NZ is any vitamin
D formed in winter.
https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/vitamind-sun-exposure.pdf
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” – H. L. Mencken
Another thought about the statistics above. It appears to me that some other factors may be playing a role in the shape of the epidemic in various locations. These include local population density (E.g. high density Manhatten versus low density rural areas) and cultural factors and behaviours. Woiud love to see more data on these items.
Isolation protects from the virus. If you are not near enough to anyone to be infected you will not get infected. If you accept no goods from anyone just in case.
A lockdown is a partial isolation and thus yields partial success by slowing down the spread. Prolonging the time to herd immunity.
Senior care homes must be isolated. Seniors who are worried may self-isolate. Those 65 and under should live a normal life with an expected death-rate from COVID no more than that due to driving a car. But anyone at all can self-isolate if they wish, Karen, including you.
At 77 I want to socialize. Interactions with other people are that which gives life meaning.
Sumpin’s gonna get me gone. I don’t want forced hermit status. No wish to end life, a quality of life wish.
Here’s what I’m sick over: People using percentage instead of count, to suit an agenda.
A glance at figure 8, “OH MY GOD the fewer Dems in the StateGov, the more obseity!” If I took such a thing as causal (which this graphing hopes to infer), I would be justified in saying “If I move to New York I’ll Get Thin!” That’s how void the worldview of this essay/chart is. It’s is a prime example of use of percentage to nail a slant.
Here’s the rework assignment:
In table 1, look at column 7, marked “Obesity.”
Now, get rid of the percentage.
List the total NUMBER of obese humans in the state.
Now make a scatter graph of DemsInGov vs NumberOfObesePeople.
You will see this: the more Dems in Gov, the more obese people.
[ADD: by the way, a graph of DemsInGov vs NUMBERofDeathsFromCovid would be interesting.]
I’m sure you would see exactly that. And you would learn nothing. All of the data here is per capita. That is a fraction. Some of the fractions are per million (ppm) and some are per hundred (percent) for scale. But that is how you compare apples to apples. Using total NUMBERs would be misleading. The obesity numbers were mostly for humor (The idea of the fat redneck has a touch of merit maybe … as I look in the mirror). But your statement that if I moved to a democrat city and started hanging out with vegans and doing yoga I might lose weight maybe has merit too.
Obesity is caused by what vegans eat, not by what carnivores eat.
All the rest of your post = zero, as well.
Busybody governments have gotten so single-minded about stopping the spread of Covid that they have ignored important facts that should have brought the whole effort to a halt many months ago:
* Like all cold and flu viruses, Covid gets less dangerous over time. By now it doesn’t matter much if we get it.
* Children, in particular, aren’t susceptible. So closing schools was and is bonkers.
* Prolonged shutdowns ruin people financially — a much more devastating problem than having a cough for a month or two.
* Forbidding normal social activities ruins people’s quality of life.
* The largest clusters of deaths have all come from specific harmful government actions such as forcing nursing homes in New York to accept Covid patients. (Governor Cuomo needs to go on trial for murder.)
There is a lesson to be learnt here, and it deserves publicity. The lesson is that we need to revamp laws (including common law) granting any official emergency powers, so that if such things happen again, we the victims are entitled to challenge them in court and get them stopped quickly.
I suspect that your data correlates much more directly with population density – or more precisely the proportion of each State’s population that lives in crowded cities. A high proportion that lives in crowded cities leads to a fast spread of COVID causing Governors to implement stricter lockdowns causing more unemployment. We all know that the percentage of Democrats is the highest in major cities.
Not in Japan
Thanks to David Stienmier, an engineer.
My son, an engineer, began raising serious concerns privately in February. Shockingly it is only recently that a number of medical people have begun to raise these concerns in Ireland – more than eight months later!!! He has felt like he is banging his head against a wall simply trying to get colleagues and friends to seriously consider major flaws and deficiencies in the presentations of medical government advisors, politicians and the media.
While he believes that within the next week or two official data from (all cause and excess deaths) both the UK and Sweden will show even more clearly – among those who reason carefully and logically – how terribly wrong our political leaders and their advisors have been, they will refuse to acknowledge this and try their best to attribute declines in cases and deaths to draconian and worthless measures. He believes that they have to do this because the alternative is to have their credibility and careers totally destroyed.
will show even more clearly – among those who reason carefully and logically
Well that lets the political class out. There’s no reason or logic to be found amongst them other then the logic of grabbing and holding onto power.
Here in Victoria, Australia, we have today the triple donut of zero new Covid cases, zero Covid deaths and zero known Covid cases. First time triple zero since early 2020.
If lockdowns did not help to achieve this freedom, what did? The State was getting to a high drain on hospitals treating Covid a few weeks ago. People feared an epidemic going out of control. Instead we have peace of mind with quarantine and vaccine policies to come.
Politics had little to do with anything positive, but some connections to stuff-ups. Any government would have followed similar courses because the looked so medically appropriate. Geoff S
Causation or correlation?
This is a huge difference.
Do not hold your breath for a honest political answer – this is more lethal than covid-19.
It’s summer.
Not in Japan
Concerning ”elective surgery’. First off one hell of a lot of people have been delayed or denied surgery or treatments that were not “elective” here in the US and elsewhere.
But here in Indiana I have a surgery scheduled for December 9th after presenting to the OR being unable to pee on Nov 4th.
Having taken the tests and a CT scan with contrast it was found besides a swollen prostate I also have two diverticulum (sacks) off my bladder. The urologist recommended that I have both problems taken care of in the same surgery. Diverticulum in the bladder usually results in repetitive URIs and sometimes “bladder stones”. So the “green light” procedure which is a laser surgery done by scope that has become the preferred procedure for relieving the pressure on the urethra is out and it’s gross dissection for me.
After a week with a Foley Cath I had that taken out am an now taking medications and self cathing every 8 hours or so as needed.
I will have to be tested for COVID 19 and have some other blood work done seven days prior to admittance for surgery. The time from diagnosis to surgery does not seem excessive to me for the condition I have. I thank God I don’t live in Canada or the UK.
Best to you, rah.
Keep on truckin’.
Thanks John
No truckin right now and I’m wondering if I will be able to do the on-call salary job I have done the last 7 years when I do go back. We’ll see. The job will be waiting for me if I want it. If I can’t deal with that more demanding position anymore than I will probably get myself a nice dedicated route that has a regular schedule. One that provides just enough work to keep me on full time status and allows for long weekends and all major Holidays off.