Category: Health Care

COVID Data Nonsense – Redux

Health Care, Politics, Reason

Here’s yet another superb case (.sic) of someone saying it better than I ever could. I draw your attention to an article from the Mises (libertarian) Institute on how the media/medical/political complex has warped perception by playing fast and loose with the numbers. I reproduce the story in its entirety, with due credit and kudos!

Mises Institute

Published on Mises Institute (https://mises.org)

The Absurdity of Covid “Cases”

October 2, 2020 – 9:17 AMJeff Deist [1]Topics: Health [2]Media and Culture [3]

Today’s headlines announced Donald and Melania Trump “tested positive” for covid-19. Another claims nineteen thousand Amazon workers “got” covid-19 on the job. Both of these pseudostories are sure to ignite another absurd media frenzy. 

As always, the story keeps changing: Remember ventilators, flatten the curve, the next two weeks are crucial, etc.? Remember Nancy Pelosi in Chinatown back in February, urging everyone to visit? Remember Fauci dismissing masks as useless? Why should we believe anything the political/media complex tells us now?

So what do these headlines really mean? What exactly is a covid “case”? 

Since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, most US media outlets have been exceedingly credulous and complicit in their reporting. Journalists almost uniformly promote what we can call the “prolockdown” narrative, which is to wildly exaggerate the risks from covid-19 to serve a political agenda. They may be motivated to hurt Trump politically, to promote a more socialist “new normal,” or simply to drive more clicks and views. Bad news sells. But the bias is clear and undeniable. 

This explains why media outlets use the terms “case” and “infection” so loosely, to the point of actively misinforming the public. All of the endless talk about testing, testing, testing served to obscure two important facts. First, the tests themselves are almost laughably unreliable in producing both false positives and negatives. And what is the point? Are we going to test people again and again, every time they go out to the grocery or bump into a neighbor? Second, detecting virus particles or droplets in a human’s respiratory tract tells us very little. It certainly does not tell us they are sick, or transmitting sickness to anyone. 

Take a perfectly healthy person with no particular symptoms and swab the inside of their nose. If the culture shows the presence of staphylococcus aureus, do we insist they have a staph infection? When someone drives to work without incident or accident, do we create statistics about their exposure to traffic?

—A virus is not a disease. Only a very small percentage of those exposed to the virus itself—SARS-CoV-2—show any kind of acute respiratory symptoms, or what we can call “coronavirus disease.” 

The only meaningful statistics show the incidence of serious illness, hospitalizations, and deaths. The single most important statistic among these is the infection fatality rate (IFR). Data collected through July shows [4] that the IFR for those under age forty-five is actually lower than that of the common flu. The covid-19 IFR rises for those over fifty, but it is hardly a death sentence. And the data does not segregate those with preexisting health issues caused by obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. If we could see data only for reasonably healthy people under fifty, the numbers would be even more reassuring. 

Mild or asymptomatic covid cases are effectively meaningless. The world is full of bacteria and viruses, and sometimes they make us a bit sick for a few days. There are millions of them in the world all around us, on our skin, in our nose and respiratory tract, in our organs. We are meant to live with them, which is why we all have immune systems designed to help us coexist and adapt to ever-changing organisms. We develop antibodies naturally, or we attempt to stimulate them through vaccines, but ultimately our own immune systems have to deal with covid-19. The virus will always be out there waiting, on the other side of any lockdown or mask—so we might as well get on with it. 

From day one the focus should have been on boosting immunity through exercise, fresh air, sunlight, proper dietary supplementation, and the promotion of general well-being. Instead our politicians, bureaucrats, and media insisted on business lockdowns, school closures, distancing, isolation, masks, and the mirage of a fast, effective vaccine. As with almost everything in life, state intervention made the situation worse. We can only hope many governors are removed from office, either by impeachment or at the next election. Several, including Andrew Cuomo in New York and Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, should face criminal charges for their lawless edicts. There is no due process exception for “public health.”

Lockdowns were never justified [5], either in terms of the covid-19 risk or the staggering economic tradeoffs, which will be felt for decades. They certainly are not justified now, given seven months of additional data showing that the transmission and lethality of covid-19 are not particularly worse than previous SARS, swine flu, or Ebola pandemics. We still don’t know how many of the reported two hundred thousand US covid-19 deaths were actually caused by the SARS-CoV-2 respiratory disease, or simply reflect people who died of other causes after exposure to covid-19. We do know that the harms caused by the lockdowns far outweigh the harms posed by the covid-19 virus.

We have had nearly eight months of life and liberty stolen from us by politicians and their hysteria-promoting accomplices in media. How much more will we accept?

Source URL: https://mises.org/wire/absurdity-covid-cases

Links
[1] https://mises.org/profile/jeff-deist
[2] https://mises.org/topics/health
[3] https://mises.org/topics/media-and-culture
[4] https://www.nber.org/papers/w27597
[5] https://mises.org/wire/end-shutdown

The “Comprehensive Health Care Plan” Canard

Government, Health Care, Science

I’m sick (.sic) and tired of the Left carping that “the Administration has no health care plan” and accusing it of trying to take away the health care of 100 million people! Obamacare demonstrates that the last thing we need is a GOVERNMENT plan! It is the epitome of form over substance. Allowing (actually FORCING) people to procure a lousy coverage plan with high deductibles and unacceptable reimbursement rates for healthcare providers is NOT providing the “comprehensive health care plan” the Left keeps claiming Obamacare provides!

If the government were to withdraw completely from providing healthcare the private sector would quickly, competitively and efficiently take over and provide policies for everyone except the most indigent, who can continue to receive Medicaid!

The Left and its hypocritical (they all have great coverage through their employers!) media accomplices continue to obfuscate health care insurance with health care itself. Providing insurance is NOT providing health care, yet they continue to equate the two. Hogwash! Being able to claim you’ve provided health care insurance (Obamacare) to millions of people and actually providing them with health care are two vastly different things, especially when the insurance is crappy!

As for a comprehensive plan. It is precisely the need to NOT provide a comprehensive, one-size-fits-all plan that is the solution, not the opposite as the Left claims. Government is NOT the solution… it is the PROBLEM! The reason vets are getting better care now isn’t because the VA system (a pitiful archetype of government provided healthcare) has been fixed. It’s because Trump finally made it so vets can get care OUTSIDE of the VA system!

So as usual, the insidiousness of the Left’s BS is that they’ve hijacked the vocabulary and allowed the perception to continue that they’ve done something good with Obamacare. They’ve also convinced many ‘low-information’ voters that they’re providing healthcare to them when they’re not! And now they’re falsely accusing the Right of not caring, of not having a plan, of killing people, etc. etc.

Time for this charade to stop!

THIS ADMINISTRATION’S PLAN IS TO NOT HAVE A GOVERNMENT PLAN! The first step was eliminating the so-called individual mandate, which was a coercive ploy to create a larger risk pool and generate income from people who don’t generally need healthcare (the young and healthy) to pay for lousy insurance coverage for those who do. Remove government regulation and let the free market work and you get vaccines in a fraction of the time it normally takes. Keep the heavy thumb of the government on industry and you get lousy health care insurance AND lousy health care!

Before You Panic

America, Government, Headlines, Health Care, Politics, Society & Culture

Ok, so the inevitable happened. The Trumps have tested positive for the virus. The sky is falling. Biden has won the election, the Democrats will take over America and all is lost. STOP! There’s another, more likely outcome. The President and his wife remain asymptomatic or have only mild symptoms, or get sick and recover quickly, and will prove:

1.            That testing positive is not a death sentence, even with co-morbidities.

2.            That even if sick, one can continue working and being productive.

3.            If they remain asymptomatic, we can perhaps put to rest the notion that a positive test equals a “case”, i.e. one will automatically become terribly ill. (I suspect if you tested the air in your local grocery store you’d find that the store itself is a case!!!)

4.            The courage and positive mental attitude he will exhibit will reveal true leadership qualities that will rally the entire world around Trump and his administration much as it did for Boris Johnson, who recovered even though he got very sick.

5.            The Lefts’ histrionics will further expose their treasonous attempts to seize power and fundamentally transform our country thus causing a backlash that will INCREASE the margin of victory for the GOP rather than diminish it.

Big screen tv’s should be placed at the rallies Trump planned to attend. I’ll bet even MORE people will show up to demonstrate their support. He will stream live from the White House and the response will generate a political antibody that will crush the whining, sniveling, cowardly and nefarious antics of his opponents.

You heard it from me first. Hang in there America, the Leftist Hydra’s life is about to be extinguished.

The COVID Scam – Redux

Headlines, Health Care, Media, Politics, Reason, Science, Society & Culture

Once again, someone has better articulated what I’ve been saying for months and months. The numbers are either: a) flat out wrong due to error or falsification, b) they can be and have been cherry-picked and manipulated in a hundred different ways to support preferred, biased conclusions, c) the Left has hijacked the terminology, yet again, to misrepresent the data, d) the goal of the Left has been to make things seem as bad as they can be so they will win in November and regain power.

The essence of the hoax is the use of the term “case”. There must be a distinction made between a real “case”, defined as someone who tests positive AND has SYMPTOMS, and one who tests positive WITHOUT symptoms, i.e. who is symptomless. Similarly, there is a difference between “Case Fatality Rate” and “Infection Fatality Rate”. The two terms are gratuitously and nefariously conflated to make things appear to be many times worse than what they are.

A Scottish doctor, Malcolm Hendrick, has nailed it. Trust your own judgment as to whether what he cites and explains makes sense to you. It certainly does to me…

Here’s the link to read the original: https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/09/04/covid-why-terminology-really-matters It’s really worth reading the whole thing, which I quote fully, below.

COVID – why terminology really, really matters

4th September 2020
COVID – why terminology really, really matters [And the consequences of getting it horribly wrong]

When is a case not a case?

Since the start of the COVID pandemic I have watched almost everyone get mission critical things wrong. In some ways this is not surprising. Medical terminology is horribly imprecise, and often poorly understood. In calmer times such things are only of interest to research geeks like me. Were they talking about CVD, or CHD?

However, right now, it really, really, matters. Specifically, with regard to the term COVID ‘cases.’

Every day we are informed of a worrying rise in COVID cases in country after country, region after region, city after city. Portugal, France, Leicester, Bolton. Panic, lockdown, quarantine. In France the number of reported cases is now as high as it was at the peak of the epidemic. Over 5,000, on the first of September.

But what does this actually mean? Just to keep the focus on France for a moment. On March 26th, just before their deaths peaked, there were 3,900  ‘cases’. Fourteen days later, there were 1,400 deaths. So, using a widely accepted figure, which is a delay of around two weeks between diagnoses and death, 36% of cases died.

In stark contrast, on August 16th, there were 3,000 cases. Fourteen days later there were 26 deaths.  Which means that, in March, 36% of ‘cases’ died. In August 0.8% of ‘cases’ died. This, in turn, means that COVID was 45 times as deadly in March, as it was in August?

This seems extremely unlikely. In fact, it is so unlikely that it is, in fact, complete rubbish. What we have is a combination of nonsense figures which, added together, create nonsense squared. Or nonsense to the power ten.

To start with, we have the mangling of the concept of a ‘case’.

Previously, in the world of infectious diseases, it has been accepted that a ‘case’ represents someone with symptoms, usually severe symptoms, usually severe enough to be admitted to hospital. Here, from Wikipedia…. yes, I know, but on this sort of stuff they are a good resource.

‘In epidemiology, a case fatality rate (CFR) — sometimes called case fatality risk or disease lethality — is the proportion of deaths from a certain disease compared to the total number of symptomatic people diagnosed with the disease.’ 1

Note the word symptomatic i.e. someone with symptoms.

However, now we stick a swab up someone’s nose, who feels completely well, or very mildly ill. We find that they have some COVID particles lodged up there, and we call them a case of COVID. Sigh, thud!

A symptomless, or even mildly symptomatic positive swab is not a case. Never, in recorded history, has this been true. However, now we have an almost unquestioned acceptance that a positive swab represents a case of COVID. This is then parroted on all the news channels as if it were gospel.

I note that, at last, some people are beginning to question how it can be that, whilst cases are going up and up, deaths are going down, and down.

This is even the case in Sweden, which seems to be the final bastion of people with functioning brains. However, even they seem surprised by this dichotomy. In the first two weeks of August they had 4,152 positive swabs. Yet, in the last two weeks of August, they had a mere 14 deaths (one a day, on average).

That represents 1 death for every 300 positive swabs or, as the mainstream media insists on calling them, positive ‘cases’. Which, currently, represent a case fatality rate of 0.33%. Just to compare that with something similar, the case fatality rate of swine flu (HIN1),  was 0.5%. 2

Thus, lo and behold, COVID is a less severe infection than swine flu – the pandemic that never was. That’s what these figures appear to tell us. They tell us almost exactly the same in France where they ‘appear’ to have a current case fatality rate of 0.4%.

On the other hand, if you look at the figures from around the world, they are very different. As I write this there have been, according to the WHO, 25 million cases and 850,000 deaths. That is a case fatality rate of more than 3%. Ten times as high.

Why are these figures so all over the place? It is because we are using horribly inaccurate terminology. We are comparing apples with pomegranates to tell us how many bananas we have. Our experts are, essentially, talking gibberish, and the mainstream media is lapping it up. They are defining asymptomatic swabs as cases, and no-one is calling them out on it. Why?

Because… because they are frightened of looking stupid? Primarily, I believe, because they also have no idea what a case might actually be So, it all sounds quite reasonable to them.

The good news

However, moving on from that nonsense, there is some extremely good news buried in here. Which I am going to try and explain. It goes as follows.

At the start of the epidemic, the only people being tested were those who were being admitted to hospital, who were seriously ill. Many of them died. Which is why, in France, there was this very sharp, initial case fatality rate of 35%. In the UK the initial case fatality rate was I think 14%. Last time I looked at the UK figures, the case fatality was 5%, and falling fast.

This fall has occurred, and will occur everywhere in the World, because as you increase your testing, you pick up more and more people with less severe symptoms. People who are far less likely to die. The more you test, the more the case fatality rate falls.

It falls even more dramatically when you start to test people who have no symptoms at all. In fact, as you broaden your testing net, something else very important happens. You gradually move from looking at the case fatality rate to the infection fatality rate.

The infection fatality rate is the measure of how many people who are infected [even those without symptoms, or very mild symptoms] who then die. This is the critical figure to know because it gives you an accurate assessment of the total number of deaths you are likely to see.

IFR x population of a country x % of population infected = total number of deaths (total mortality)

So, where have we got to. Well, although the case fatality rate in the UK still currently stands at 5%, because it is dragged up by the 14% rate we had at the start. If we look at the more recent figures things have changed very dramatically.

In the first two weeks of August there were 13,996 positive swabs in the UK. In the second two weeks of August there were 129 deaths. If you consider every positive swab to be a case, this represents a case fatality rate of 0.9%. Around one fifteenth of that seen at the start.

I think you can clearly see a direction of travel here.

  • At the start on the pandemic we had a, brief, 35% fatality rate in France
  • It was 14% in the UK at the start
  • It now sits at 5% in the UK – over the whole pandemic
  • In August, in the UK, it was down to 0.9%
  • It is currently 0.47% in Germany
  • It is currently 0.4% in France
  • It is currently 0.33% in Sweden

It is falling, falling, everywhere. Where does it end up, this hybrid case/infection fatality rate? Remember, we are still only testing a fraction of the population, so we are missing the majority of people who have been infected, mainly those who do not have symptoms. Which means that these rates must fall further, as they always do in any pandemic.

To quote the Centre for Evidence Base Medicine on the matter:

‘In Swine flu, the IFR (infection fatality rate) ended up as 0.02%, fivefold less than the lowest estimate during the outbreak (the lowest estimate was 0.1% in the 1st ten weeks of the outbreak).’ 3

The best place to estimate where we may finally end up with COVID, is with the country that has tested the most people, per head of population. This is Iceland. To quote the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine once more:

‘In Iceland, where the most testing per capita has occurred, the IFR lies somewhere between 0.03% and 0.28%.’ 3

Sitting in the middle of 0.03% and 0.28% is 0.16%. As you can see, Iceland, having tested more people than anywhere else, has the lowest IFR of all. This is not a coincidence. This is an inevitable result of testing more people.

I am going to make a prediction that, in the end, we will end up with an IFR of somewhere around 0.1%. Which is about the same as severe flu pandemics we have had in the past. Remember that figure. It is one in a thousand.

It may surprise you to know that I am not the only person to have made this exact same prediction. On the 28th February, yes that far back, the New England Journal of Medicine published a report by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD (A.S.F., H.C.L.); and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta. 4

In this paper ‘Covid-19 — Navigating the Uncharted’ they stated the following:

‘On the basis of a case definition requiring a diagnosis of pneumonia, the currently reported case fatality rate is approximately 2%. In another article in the Journal, Guan et al. report mortality of 1.4% among 1099 patients with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19; these patients had a wide spectrum of disease severity. If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate (my underline) may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza.’ 

A case fatality rate considerably less than 1%. Their words, not mine. As they also added, ‘the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza.’ 

At this point, you may well be asking. Why the hell did we lockdown if COVID was believed to be no more serious than influenza? Right from the start by the most influential infectious disease organisations in the World.

It is because of the mad mathematical modellers. The academic epidemiologists. Neil Ferguson, and others of his ilk. When they were guessing (sorry estimating, sorry modelling) the impact of COVID they used a figure of approximately one per cent as the infection fatality rate. Not the case fatality rate. In so doing, they overestimated the likely impact of COVID by, at the very least, ten-fold.

How could this possibly have happened?

When they put their carefully constructed model together on the 16th of March, if they had been reading the research, they must have been aware that they were looking at a maximum case fatality rate of just over 1% in China, right at the start, where the figures are always at their highest.

Which means that, unless COVID was going to turn out nearly 100% fatal, we could never get anywhere near 1%, for the infection fatality rate. Even Ebola only kills 50%.

But they went with it, they went with 1%. Actually, Imperial College reduced it slightly to 0.9%, for reasons that are opaque.

From this, all else flowed.

If the INFECTION fatality rate truly were 0.9%, and 80% of the population of the UK became infected, there would have been/could have been, around 500,000 deaths.

0.9% x 80% x 67million = 482,000

LOCKDOWN

However, if the case fatality rate is around 1%, then the infection fatality rate will be about one tenth of this, maybe less. So, we would see around 50,000 deaths, about the same as was seen in previous bad flu pandemics.

DO NOT LOCKDOWN

What Imperial College London did was to use a model that overestimated the infection fatality rate by a factor of ten.

We now know, as the IFR rates of various countries falls and falls, that the Imperial College estimated IFR was completely wrong. The UK, for example, has seen 42,000 deaths so far, which is 0.074% of population. The US has seen about 200,000 deaths 0.053%. Sweden, which did not lockdown down, has seen about 6,000 deaths, which is an infection fatality rate of 0.06%. All three countries are opening up and opening up. Whilst the ‘cases’ are rising and rising, the deaths continue to fall. They are, to all intents and purposes, flatlining.

In Iceland it is around 0.16% and falling. In other words…

Stop panicking – it’s over

Whilst everyone is panicking about the ever-increasing number of cases, we should be celebrating them. They are demonstrating, very clearly, that COVID is far, far, less deadly then was feared. The Infection Fatality Rate is most likely going to end up around 0.1%, not 1%.

So yes, it does seem that ‘the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza.’

Wise words, wise words indeed. Words that were written by one Anthony S Fauci on the 28th of February 2020. If you haven’t heard of him, look him up.

Critically though, eleven days after this, he rather blotted his copybook, because he went on to say this “The flu has a mortality rate of 0.1 percent. This (COVID) has a mortality rate of 10 times that. That’s the reason I want to emphasize we have to stay ahead of the game in preventing this.” 5

The mortality rate Dr Fauci? Could it possibly be that he failed to understand that there is no such thing as a mortality rate? Did he mean the case fatality rate, or the infection fatality rate? If he meant the Infection mortality rate of influenza, he was pretty much bang on. If he meant the case fatality rate, he was wrong by a factor of ten.

The reality is that, no matter what Fauci went on to say, severe influenza has a case fatality rate of 1%, and so does COVID. They also have approximately the same infection fatality fate of 0.1%.

It seems that Dr Fauci just got mixed up with the terminology. Because in his Journal article eleven days earlier, he did state… ‘This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza… [and here is the kicker at the end] (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%).’

You see, he did say the case fatality rate of influenza was approximately 0.1%. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong… wrong.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. With influenza, Dr Fauci, the CDC, his co-authors, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institutes of Health and the New England Journal of Medicine got case fatality rate and infection fatality rate mixed up with influenza. Easy mistake to make. Could have done it myself. But didn’t.

You want to know where Imperial College London really got their 1% infection fatality rate figure from? It seems clear that they got it from Anthony S Fauci and the New England Journal of Medicine. The highest impact journal in the world – which should have the highest impact proof-readers in the world. But clearly does not.

Imperial College then used this wrong NEJM influenza case fatality rate 0.1%. It seems that they then compared this 0.1% figure to the reported COVID case fatality rate, estimated to be 1% and multiplied the impact of COVID by ten – as you would. As you probably should.

So, we got Lockdown. The US used the Fauci figure and got locked down. The world used that figure and got locked down.

That figure just happens to be ten times too high.

I know it is going to be virtually impossible to walk the world back from having made such a ridiculous, stupid, mistake. There are so many reputations at stake. The entire egg production of the world will be required to supply enough yolk to cover appropriate faces.

Of course, it will be denied, absolutely, vehemently, angrily, that anyone got anything wrong. It will be denied that a simple error, a mix up between case fatality and infection fatality led to this. It will even more forcefully stated that COVID remains a deadly killer disease and that all Governments around the world have done exactly the right thing. The actions were right, the models were correct. We all did the RIGHT thing. Only those who are stupid, or incompetent cannot see it.

When wrong, shout louder, get angry, double-down, attack your critics in any way possible. Accuse them of being anti-vaxx, or something of the sort. Dig for the dirt. ‘How to succeed in politics 101, page one, paragraph one.’

However, just have a look, at the figures. Tell me where they are wrong – if you can. The truth is that this particular Emperor has no clothes on and is, currently, standing bollock naked, right in front of you. Hard to believe, but true.

I would like to thank Ronald B Brown for pointing out this catastrophic error, in his article ‘Public health lessons learned from biases in coronavirus mortality overestimation.’ 6

I had not spotted it. He did. All credit is his. I am simply drawing your attention to what has simply been – probably the biggest single mistake that has ever been made in the history of the world.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_fatality_rate

2: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(10)70120-1/fulltext#:~:text=Methods%20for%20estimating%20the%20case,a%20novel%2C%20emerging%20infectious%20disease.&text=To%20avoid%20similar%20underestimations%2C%20accounting,be%20about%200%C2%B75%25.

3: https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/

4: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejme2002387

5: https://reason.com/2020/03/11/covid-19-mortality-rate-ten-times-worse-than-seasonal-flu-says-dr-anthony-fauci/

6: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/disaster-medicine-and-public-health-preparedness/article/public-health-lessons-learned-from-biases-in-coronavirus-mortality-overestimation/7ACD87D8FD2237285EB667BB28DCC6E9

BOTTOM LINE CONCLUSION: THE COVID HYSTERIA REALLY IS BASED ON A HOAX, ONE PERPETRATED BY POWER HUNGRY AND REIMBURSEMENT HUNGRY LEFTISTS AND/OR OPPORTUNISTS BENT ON “RESISTING” THE CURRENT ADMINISTRATION NO MATTER THAT THEY DESTROY THE ECONOMY AND THE LIVES AND LIVLYHOODS OF THOUSANDS, PERHAPS EVEN OF HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS, IN THE PROCESS.

The COVID Scam

Government, Health Care, Politics, Science

This week the CDC finally admitted that of the ~180,000 “murdered by Donald Trump” (to quote the Left), 6% (or about 11,000 if my arithmetic is right) died from the virus. Everyone else had, on average, 2.6 additional conditions which caused their death. I’m not making this up. See this link for the details, but here’s a screen grab of the actual statement, buried down in the reams of data and analysis prepared by the back-room gnomes who routinely take invalid, faulty or made-up data and turn it into pretty graphs and multi-colored reports that makes it all so official and appear authoritative.

Here’s the significance of the CDC admission. Of the 180,000 who have died, 11,000 died FROM the virus. The rest died WITH the virus. That’s a HUGE distinction!

Even these 6% and 2.6 numbers are questionable, but the admission that the virus, while it may have hastened their demise, hasn’t killed all those people also corroborates what people resistant to televised or printed nonsense and the ability to think critically, or even those with just common sense, have concluded and been saying for months now!

In a previous post I pointed out that today EVERYTHING is political, and polarized between Left and Right. The Left wants the virus to be seen to be as bad as possible so they can both blame the current administration and set things up so government can ultimately “save” everyone, once they’re fully in control. The Right, while of course trying to shape the narrative in their favor, nevertheless seek to put things into perspective…into a positive, hopeful light, because they actually care about us and the country.

There are some principles that transcend politics, however. Included among them is, “Follow the money.”

Here’s the simple truth. The healthcare system is largely based on a system that has a physician or medical institution provide care and be reimbursed either by the government (Medicare, Medicaid, etc.), by health insurance companies or by individual patients, or some combination of the above (each a “Payer”). Medical provider revenues (and profits) are maximized by playing what I’ve long called the “coding game”. When a medical provider submits its “invoice” to the Payer it assigns both diagnosis as well as procedure “codes” to their bill. These codes dictate, in most cases, how much reimbursement the provider receives.

Is it any wonder that the reimbursement for treatment of an infectious disease during a pandemic would be higher than for an upper-respiratory infection or even the flu? It should be obvious that it is in the healthcare provider’s best economic interest to code treatment or treatments such that they maximize reimbursement. The dirty little secret is that providers, when given an option to code treatment for a patient dying of emphysema or COVID treatment will opt for the latter, or include both. Why? Because even though it was the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease that killed the patient, reimbursement for treatment of COVID is higher.

And it should also be obvious that hospitals, seeking to net as much helicoptered money as the Federal government has doled out as they can, will benefit from jacking up their COVID numbers as well. It’s no wonder therefore, that we’re told that ~180,000 have been killed by the virus!

Follow the money.

Turn off the news. Stop listening to the “experts”. Use common sense. Don’t cough in other peoples’ faces and don’t let them cough in yours. Don’t let the Left destroy our country. Vote them out this November.

Their Platform is Chaos

America, Education, Government, Health Care, Media, Politics, Reason, Religion, Science, Society & Culture, Technology, Values

Who but limousine liberals unaffected by government policy either through exemption (e.g. Leftist politicians) or due to inoculating wealth (e.g. Hollywood celebrities or tech tycoons)… the intellectually indolent, the perpetual victims, the “low information voters” as Rush Limbaugh calls them (a euphemism for illiterate or cerebrally lazy people easily swayed by demagoguery), the race-baiters or the grievance acolytes… could possibly support the Democrats in 2020?

Really, no-one who has any self-respect – who cares about principles such as meritocracy, excellence, achievement, probity, self-reliance, self-determination, traditional sexual identification, traditional education, traditional family structure, that life (or at least the potential of life) begins at conception, that there is a God (or at a minimum a set of eternal rules of right and wrong that are immutable and transcend all generations)…could support the Democrats in 2020!

I had a conversation the other day with my Board-certified internist during my annual physical exam who, when asked for his opinion on the Wuhan Virus pandemic, started to recite the scripts of WHO, CDC, AMA, Johns Hopkins, and other canned platitudes. Little did he know at first that I spent several years running an early intervention healthcare company based on epidemiological research. When I began to confront him, gently mind you as he was about to check my prostate, with the emerging evidence that the Wuhan plague/pandemic is no worse than a bad flu and cited evidence of how faulty is so much of the data on which decisions are being made and regulations being promulgated, did he start to back off and admit that “we just don’t know.”

I was going to let him off the hook until he said, “I’m concerned, however, about the Second Wave.” At that, I asked him the question, “What is the metric that will allow kids to go back to school normally, that will allow us to stop wearing face diapers, that will signal an end to the crisis?” I was gratified that he conceded that should the Democrats prevail in the coming election, everything will all be over beginning November 4th, not because he’ll vote Republican, but because it was an admission that most of what underpins the rhetoric and discourse is political.  I then ran down the list of disastrous economic and societal consequences the government response at all levels has wrought and then, fortunately, found common ground with him as we delved into a cost-benefit discussion and both agreed that rational decision making and critical thinking was sorely needed.

My half hour session went an hour. A nurse had to bang on the door of the exam room to remind my Doc he had another patient waiting.

As I left the office I got to wondering about how it is that a highly-educated, highly-skilled physician could be persuaded to lazily rely on and spout institutional pablum. I concluded that the damage caused to all our institutions: medical, educational, social, religious, economic, even family structures has created so much chaos that even the smartest among us are overwhelmed by the tsunami of, frankly, BS that has invaded every facet of our lives. Out of sheer enervation even the strongest of us have had to pause from the fight to catch our breath. Meanwhile, the ability of the Left to sew chaos through outright deceit, lies, projection (especially projection) and carpet-bombing with idiocy has continued unabated. The megaphone in the hands of the Leftist media, regrettably, doesn’t take much electrical power.

This is precisely what the Left wants to do. Create so much chaos that only THEY can fix things. Only THEY will be able to unravel the mess…so long as they are granted unlimited power to do so. For that is their goal…POWER! I didn’t used to believe it. I thought there were Democrats who were classic liberals, who believed in the American way of life but wanted to ensure that we looked after those who truly were less fortunate, were REAL victims… No more. Now the Democrats just lust for power as they arrogantly, absurdly believe that if they control everything and everyone they’ll move us all toward their utopian fantasy. That fantasy is the stuff of socialism/communism and while they know it’s a fantasy, it isn’t about actually creating a utopia. It’s about POWER, the thing Leftist politicians must have much as water or oxygen.

We must shake off our weariness and continue to fight to expose the Left’s dysfunctional, delusional, adolescent enchantment with and pipe-dream of utopia and their deplorable thirst for power.

In a small way, having that extended conversation with my doctor made me feel like I was able to get off a few rounds in that fight.

On Propaganda

Government, Headlines, Health Care, Media, Reason, Science

The other day an organization I’d never heard of before was brought to my attention. It is a Swiss-based think tank named Swiss Policy Research Institute (SPRI). It describes itself as “an independent, nonpartisan and nonprofit research group investigating geopolitical propaganda in Swiss and international media”. They can be found at https://swprs.org, and I highly recommend a visit to their site and reading some or all of their essays.

Among their recent studies are several dedicated to the COVID pandemic. For several months now I’ve been calming friends and acquaintances with what I’d call common sense analysis of the numbers and proven facts about the disease. The bottom line has been that the Wuhan Virus is no worse than a bad flu. The only difference is that individuals with compromised health and/or immune systems are at greater risk to contracting it and their bodies’ response to COVID when coupled with their existing medical conditions can become overwhelmed and hasten their demise. SPRI has documented precisely the same conclusion. I reproduce here with due acknowledgment and credit, their most recent research. Links are to supporting data and corroboration.

  1. According to the latest immunological and serological studies, the overall lethality of Covid-19 (IFR) is about 0.1% and thus in the range of a strong seasonal influenza (flu).
  2. In countries like the US, the UK, and also Sweden (without a lockdown), overall mortality since the beginning of the year is in the range of a strong influenza season; in countries like Germany, Austria and Switzerland, overall mortality is in the range of a mild influenza season.
  3. Even in global “hotspots”, the risk of death for the general population of school and working age is typically in the range of a daily car ride to work. The risk was initially overestimated because many people with only mild or no symptoms were not taken into account.
  4. Up to 80% of all test-positive persons remain symptom-free. Even among 70-79 year olds, about 60% remain symptom-free. Over 95% of all persons develop at most moderate symptoms.
  5. Up to 60% of all persons may already have a certain cellular background immunity to Covid-19 due to contact with previous coronaviruses (i.e. common cold viruses). The initial assumption that there was no immunity against Covid-19 was not correct.
  6. The median age of the deceased in most countries (including Italy) is over 80 years (e.g. 86 years in Sweden) and only about 4% of the deceased had no serious preconditions. The age and risk profile of deaths thus essentially corresponds to normal mortality.
  7. In many countries, up to two thirds of all extra deaths occurred in nursing homes, which do not benefit from a general lockdown. Moreover, in many cases it is not clear whether these people really died from Covid19 or from weeks of extreme stress and isolation.
  8. Up to 30% of all additional deaths may have been caused not by Covid19, but by the effects of the lockdown, panic and fear. For example, the treatment of heart attacks and strokes decreased by up to 60% because many patients no longer dared to go to hospital.
  9. Even in so-called “Covid19 deaths” it is often not clear whether they died from or with coronavirus (i.e. from underlying diseases) or if they were counted as “presumed cases” and not tested at all. However, official figures usually do not reflect this distinction.
  10. Many media reports of young and healthy people dying from Covid19 turned out to be false: many of these young people either did not die from Covid19, they had already been seriously ill (e.g. from undiagnosed leukemia), or they were in fact 109 instead of 9 years old. The claimed increase in Kawasaki disease in children also turned out to be false.
  11. Strong increases in regional mortality can occur if there is a collapse in the care of the elderly and sick as a result of infection or panic, or if there are additional risk factors such as severe air pollution. Questionable regulations for dealing with the deceased sometimes led to additional bottlenecks in funeral or cremation services.
  12. In countries such as Italy and Spain, and to some extent the UK and the US, hospital overloads due to strong flu waves are not unusual. Moreover, this year up to 15% of health care workers were put into quarantine, even if they developed no symptoms.
  13. The often shown exponential curves of “corona cases” are misleading, as the number of tests also increased exponentially. In most countries, the ratio of positive tests to tests overall (i.e. the positive rate) remained constant at 5% to 25% or increased only slightly. In many countries, the peak of the spread was already reached well before the lockdown.
  14. Countries without curfews and contact bans, such as Japan, South Korea, Belarus or Sweden, have not experienced a more negative course of events than other countries. Sweden was even praised by the WHO and now benefits from higher immunity compared to lockdown countries.
  15. The fear of a shortage of ventilators was unjustified. According to lung specialists, the invasive ventilation (intubation) of Covid19 patients, which is partly done out of fear of spreading the virus, is in fact often counterproductive and damaging to the lungs.
  16. Contrary to original assumptions, various studies have shown that there is no evidence of the virus spreading through aerosols (i.e. tiny particles floating in the air) or through smear infections (e.g. on door handles or smartphones). The main modes of transmission are direct contact and droplets produced when coughing or sneezing.
  17. There is also no scientific evidence for the effectiveness of face masks in healthy or asymptomatic individuals. On the contrary, experts warn that such masks interfere with normal breathing and may become “germ carriers”. Leading doctors called them a “media hype” and “ridiculous”.
  18. Many clinics in Europe and the US remained strongly underutilized or almost empty during the Covid19 peak and in some cases had to send staff home. Millions of surgeries and therapies were cancelled, including many cancer screenings and organ transplants.
  19. Several media were caught trying to dramatize the situation in hospitals, sometimes even with manipulative images and videos. In general, the unprofessional reporting of many media maximized fear and panic in the population.
  20. The virus test kits used internationally are prone to errors and can produce false positive and false negative results. Moreover, the official virus test was not clinically validated due to time pressure and may sometimes react positive to other coronaviruses.
  21. Numerous internationally renowned experts in the fields of virology, immunology and epidemiology consider the measures taken to be counterproductive and recommend rapid natural immunization of the general population and protection of risk groups.
  22. At no time was there a medical reason for the closure of schools, as the risk of disease and transmission in children is extremely low. There is also no medical reason for small classes, masks or ‘social distancing’ rules in schools.
  23. The claim that only (severe) Covid-19 but not influenza may cause venous thrombosis and pulmonary (lung) embolism is not true, as it has been known for 50 years that severe influenza greatly increases the risk of thrombosis and embolism, too.
  24. Several medical experts described express coronavirus vaccines as unnecessary or even dangerous. Indeed, the vaccine against the so-called swine flu of 2009, for example, led to sometimes severe neurological damage and lawsuits in the millions. In the testing of new coronavirus vaccines, too, serious complications and failures have already occurred.
  25. A global influenza or corona pandemic can indeed extend over several seasons, but many studies of a “second wave” are based on very unrealistic assumptions, such as a constant risk of illness and death across all age groups.
  26. Several nurses, e.g. in New York City, described an oftentimes fatal medical mis­manage­ment of Covid patients due to questionable financial incentives or inappropriate medical protocols.
  27. The number of people suffering from unemployment, depressions and domestic violence as a result of the measures has reached historic record values. Several experts predict that the measures will claim far more lives than the virus itself. According to the UN 1.6 billion people around the world are at immediate risk of losing their livelihood.
  28. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden warned that the “corona crisis” will be used for the permanent expansion of global surveillance. Renowned virologist Pablo Goldschmidt spoke of a “global media terror” and “totalitarian measures”. Leading British virologist Professor John Oxford spoke of a “media epidemic”.
  29. More than 600 scientists have warned of an “unprecedented surveillance of society” through problematic apps for “contact tracing”. In some countries, such “contact tracing” is carried out directly by the secret service. In several parts of the world, the population is being monitored by drones and facing serious police overreach during lockdowns.
  30. A 2019 WHO study on public health measures against pandemic influenza found that from a medical perspective, “contact tracing” is “not recommended in any circumstances”. Nevertheless, contact tracing apps have already become partially mandatory in several countries.

I don’t agree with all of their conclusions, but I urge readers to read their work and judge for themselves whether the pandemic is evidence of an apocalypse as much of the media would have you believe (remember, “if it bleeds it leads”) or evidence of propaganda and mass delusion.

Stay well.

Below Average Government Policy

America, Government, Health Care, Reason, Society & Culture

Government policy is based on averages. But there is no such thing as average…it’s an arithmetic concept, not a practical one. Average is intended to describe “tendency”, not reality. When a small group of outliers skews an average in one direction the picture painted by the data can be highly misleading. Let’s say there’s a small town where the average household income is $50,000 per year. If Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett were to move into the town and average household income recalculated, the average wouldn’t be very representative would it?

Government policy is also based on categorizations. – putting groups into neat boxes. But this also distorts reality. For example, the government’s definition of a ‘small business”, causes a 5 employee hair salon to be lumped together with a 500 employee manufacturing firm and be subjected to the same lockdown order. Policies that are intended to make people safe or ensure economic survival in a factory aren’t going to adequately or correctly help the hair salon, yet that’s the way government regulations are applied and assistance is apportioned. Makes for poor policy with obvious results like protests and defiance!

Someone famously pointed out that two quarters of declining GDP may technically be a recession, but for the family breadwinner out of work it’s a depression! It doesn’t matter to the mid 50’s manager whose job was eliminated in a “right-sizing” at the company he or she works for that unemployment is at 3.5%!

Permit me to rephrase an old saying:

“Government can help some of the people some of the time. It can help a tiny few people all of the time. But it can’t help the “average” person most of the time.”

In short, government and politicians’ reliance on data, statistics, numbers and all their associated manipulations is a very messy way to devise policy.

This is why the less government the better. The less government regulation the better And conversely, the more self-reliance, the better. The more self-regulation, the better.

Let’s consider for a moment what would happen in the absence of government mandated Wuhan Virus lockdowns. Reasonable, responsible and self-reliant individuals would protect themselves, sneeze and cough into their handkerchiefs or tissues, protect their elderly relatives by staying away from them, and no doubt wear masks and wash their hands frequently knowing there was an airborne, highly contagious, nasty bug around. People getting sick would call in sick, (“I’ve got the flu and don’t want to infect everyone around me!”) and as soon as they got better, would go back to work.

If you asked an epidemiologist whether there IS such a thing as a common cold, they’d respond by citing a laundry list of rhinoviruses and bacteria that cause “cold-like symptoms.” I urge you to read the description of the Common Cold on the Mayo Clinic website, here. And there’s no cure for it!

Now we’re finding out there are a lot of people who have had the Wuhan Virus, were either asymptomatic or had only mild, temporary symptoms…just like the common cold.

This is not to suggest that the Wuhan Virus is no worse than the common cold, nor diminish the severity of this bug for those with compromised immune systems, underlying risk factors, other ailments like chronic respiratory disease, etc. Of course people with these conditions are more vulnerable, and of course we need to take extra precautions with them. And of course they need to take extra precautions themselves!

Had the government simply warned us of the severity of the threat as data was received instead of fueling the “if it bleeds it leads” media crowd, I can’d help but suspect we’d all have been better off.

And, on a personal level, I happen to fit into the category of the more vulnerable. Would I have taken extra precautions as I am now without government megalomania? Yes. Would I have run to get tested when not having any symptoms? No. Is there a chance I’d have gotten sick. Yup.

But there’s a chance I might contract a severe case of the flu, bronchitis and then septicemia that I’d have to fight too. Or have a stroke. Or get hit by a car walking across the street.  Or contract Ebola. Or be shot by a crazed sniper. Or be hit by a meteor. Or be struck by lightening (er…well, I HAVE been struck by lightening but that’s another story…) That there’s a chance to get sick or die or be killed in any of a hundred ways doesn’t automatically mean the likelihood is greater.

If instead of displaying a graph showing the rising deaths from the Virus, we saw one that simultaneously displayed other deaths, Wuhan Virus, as horrible as it is, wouldn’t appear so horrible! Here are CDC’s numbers for 2017. I’ve added Wuhan VIrus to show where it stacks up. Oh, and by the way, let’s not forget that of the deaths attributed to the Virus, many were caused by underlying heart, metastatic, or chronic respiratory ailments exacerbated, no doubt, by the Virus.

Number of deaths for leading causes of death in 2017:

  • Heart disease: 647,457
  • Cancer: 599,108
  • Accidents (unintentional injuries): 169,936
  • Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 160,201
  • Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 146,383
  • Alzheimer’s disease: 121,404
  • Diabetes: 83,564
  • Wuhan Virus: 80,000+
  • Influenza and Pneumonia: 55,672
  • Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis: 50,633
  • Intentional self-harm (suicide): 47,173

    Source: CDC

As I’ve also noted often, EVERYTHING is political. Thus, it’s in the interests of Leftist politicians to report as many virus-related deaths as possible so as to support their case that the Trump administration is incompetent. That’s why Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York suddenly, one day a couple of weeks ago, increased the total of virus-related deaths by several thousand. He simply declared that any death that could remotely be associated either directly with the Wuhan Virus, or even indirectly, be counted as a virus-related death. Why? For the obvious reason stated above.

So, talk about shooting ourselves in the foot! We’re crippling our economy, causing immense emotional distress, and in just about every way doing exactly what our political, economic and military adversaries want us to do!

Hooray, therefore, for the protestors storming state capitols demanding the lifting of lockdown restrictions. Hooray for Shelley Luther, who stood up to a condescending, megalomaniacal judge. Hooray for the increasing number of law enforcement officers defying orders to arrest otherwise law abiding people defying lockdown orders. Hooray for the front line health care and other workers who  are choosing to help their fellow human beings. Hooray for the military and law enforcement of our country who are at risk every minute of every day while seeking to keep us safe. And finally, hooray for the AVERAGE (.sic) Americans who have had enough of this constant drone of gloom and doom and, despite risk, want to responsibly, thoughtfully and carefully return to living!

Re-Entry

America, Health Care, Reason, Society & Culture, Technology

It took just a minute to turn the switch off. But in the Northeast Blackout of August 2003, it wasn’t a matter of flipping the switch back on…the electrical grid had to be brought back on gradually lest some nasty power spikes set the whole system on fire! The COVID-19 mess is similar.

The parallels end with how relatively straightforward restoring power was as compared with restarting an entire economy. The complications: pragmatic, sociological, psychological, political, even spiritual, are mind-boggling. It amounts perhaps to the most intricate optimization problem society has ever faced. Compounding the problem is a lack of good will…the Swamp is the battleground.

One could argue that were the government at all levels to just step out of the way, the ship would right itself. Commerce, ingenuity, inherent good judgment and common sense could very well generate answers to the myriad problems.

On the other hand, so reliant, even dependent have our citizens become on the government to tell us what to do, leaving the re-entry to the good will of society and the workings of the marketplace, especially now that the government like the Blob has inextricably inserted itself into the equation, could result in an s-show of monumental proportions!

What to do?

Think for ourselves. Play strategic “what if” games. Start with the worst possible set of circumstances – there’s a renewed outbreak, the hospitals are overwhelmed, the therapeutic drugs don’t work and there is civil unrest, i.e. roving gangs of looters and killers. What, if anything, could you do about such a scenario?

Then, think of the more realistic dire but potential circumstances: you lose your job, your savings will last only so long, you’re healthy but it doesn’t look like there’s going to be any kind of meaningful recovery for you and your family in the near future and you know anything the government gives you is peanuts compared to what you were making before and your obligations. What do you do then?

Or let’s imagine the other extreme. The crisis was overblown and with a face mask on you return to work by, say, mid May. The kids go back to school with an extension of the school year into late June or July. How will you handle THAT?

To one degree or another any or all of the above scenarios are possible right now! Hard to believe since Netflix and the Internet are still operating, and even though the news shows look like the beginning of the Brady Bunch, with each co-host in his or her own square and your closet is stuffed with toilet paper and paper towels, life while different and crazy, goes on for most of us.

In short, assume the government is not the solution but the problem. How do we inoculate ourselves from a cure that is, indeed potentially worse than the disease?

Unfortunately, the time for preparation is gone. We’re in it now and have to make do with what we have and the circumstances we face. Certainly I cannot tell you what to do. Neither can some bureaucrat. Nor can some talking head on TV. Assume there will be no black and white decisions. All future forks in the road will be shrouded in fog, and ambiguity will reign over every decision we face.

Each and every one of us must think for ourselves, critically, pragmatically and do what is right to the best of our abilities. And each of us will have to be sole arbiters of “what is right”.  

Take heart! As bad as things are, they will get better, and better, and better. We can do this! Think of what the Apollo 13 astronauts faced. Think of what the battered bastards of Bastogne faced at the Bulge in December 1944. Remember Winston Churchill’s words, “When you’re going through Hell, keep going!” And think of what we went through on 9-11.

We can beat this thing. Those of us who have survived will be stronger. Those who have perished will be taken care of in a Better Place. Those who have lost loved ones will be comforted, in time. Those of us who have been knocked down will get up and fight again, for our families, for our friends, for our neighbors, for our communities, for our country. We will rebuild. We will rejuvenate, and we will once again re-assert our position as the greatest nation the world has ever known.

May God bless us in this novel (.sic) endeavor.

Grumps’ First Law of Experts as Applied to COVID-19

America, Economy, Family, Health Care, Politics, Reason, Science, Society & Culture, Uncategorized

“On any subject one can find at least twelve world-renowned experts citing documented, empirical, irrefutable evidence to support arguments that are diametrically opposed to one another.” – Grumps

Who you gonna believe? Dr. Anthony Fauci? Dr. Deborah Birx? Dr. Oz? President Trump? Secretary Steve Mnuchin? Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy? Senator Chuck Schumer? Senator Mitch McConnell? Larry Kudlow? Rachel Maddow? Laura Ingraham? Nancy Pelosi? Andrew Cuomo? Chris Cuomo?

Simply put, there are no end of experts, pundits, commentators, ‘contributors’.

Have you ever wondered why these people after being interviewed by some television host most often say “Thank you,” at the end of their segment, right after being thanked by the host? If it were I, my last words would be “you’re welcome”, or “happy to contribute”, or “my pleasure”, or even a simple nod. No, most say “thank you” or “thank you for having me”.

The reason is simple. The media is theater and these people being interviewed are being paid to entertain (.sic…they claim to inform but they’re mostly offering opinion, parroting someone else’s commentary, or simply making up stuff on the fly) so I’ll say entertain rather than inform despite even the best of intentions. If they’re not being paid, they’re hoping to someday be paid. If they’re neither being paid or hoping to be paid they’re desperate for attention and recognition in order to advance their careers, at best, or just their egos, at worst. They got their 15-180 seconds of fame. That’s why they say “thank you”.

I say despite their best intentions because many of the talking heads really do try to present relevant, useful, information and some even say what they really think. And some tell the truth, some omit the truth, some flavor or color the truth, some think they’re saying what’s true, and some disclose that they’re offering their opinions, which many take as truth.

On the other hand, there are many who intentionally deceive, ‘spin’, twist and color truths as well as outright lies to further their agenda. The more outrageous the deception, the better to “make it bleed”, thus “lead”.

And of course, depending upon where one sits on the ideological continuum, lies are truth and vice versa, spin is omnipresent…it’s a question of degree.

So whom to believe?

Ourselves. We went to school and supposedly learned how to think there. Instead of lapping up what the talking heads tell us, we need to think for ourselves. And the thinking needs to be critical. If what we’re hearing is contradictory, obscure, wrapped in gobbledygook or simply sounds like nonsense, it probably is. Doesn’t matter who’s spouting it and it doesn’t matter how much of it is fact, applicable to our own circumstances, or how much is conjecture, fiction, outright falsehood, etc.

We need to believe in our own God-given good judgement and make decisions that are right for us, not just run along with the sheep.

The only expert needed is us.

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