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.

Observations on Last Night’s ‘Debate’

America, Government, Politics, Society & Culture

So Trump has been compelled to move from counter-puncher to puncher, from defense to offense. He really has no choice. The stakes are too high. Inarticulate and as much of a blunt object as he is, his principles are right, his cause just, and the fight real.

I have to admit that If I had been vilified, excoriated, politically assaulted and lied about continuously for four years I too would have thrown the BS flag at the first sign of repeated falsehoods, distortions, accusations and deflections. One of the Left’s most cherished tactics is to saturate the air with so much crap that there’s not enough time to respond to it all. They just throw stuff against the wall with such force and variety that it overwhelms any possible response, particularly if it is delivered in one unending stream for a full two minutes. Even using shorthand, the list of defensive replies is too long to state in the subsequent two minutes. So Trump could not have waited a full two minutes for the onslaught to end before unpacking and responding to all the lies and distortions coming from Biden’s mouth. And it would be impossible for any rational comeback to be formulated and delivered in the subsequent two minutes. So Trump did Trump. He threw the bs flag as each lie and distortion left Biden’s mouth, not waiting for the verbal diarrhea to stop.

Last night was an embarrassment for our nation. I wish the civility and diction exhibited in the Reagan-Mondale, or better, the Lincoln-Douglas debates could have had been present. The Chinese, Russians, Venezuelans, Iranians, Palestinians all loved what they saw and no doubt their media will be filled today with “see, we told you so’s” as THEY vilify our constitutional republic form of government. I don’t care. The fact that these two men could stand there and speak they way they did is in and of itself worth defending.

But it’s not Trump who brought our politics into the gutter, but the left who have “resisted” and tried to “fundamentally transform” our nation, barring NOTHING to gain power. Trump has always been a counter-puncher. At this moment, he MUST go on the offensive if he is to save this country from the leftist onslaught. Is it all disgusting? Yes, but the Democrats are the ones who made it so and now that it is a street fight for the soul of our country, thank God there’s a street thug like Trump who will stand up for it.

Their Real Strategy

America, Government, Politics, Society & Culture, Values

Been away for a week hiking in the mountains. With a fresh head I’ve returned home and caught up on all the latest Leftist shenanigans. I am increasingly convinced their strategy of fomenting as much chaos as possible in connection with both the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court as well as the election is deliberate and calculated.

I believe what the Left really wants is to create so much doubt about the results that either: a) should Biden miraculously win on election night, they will immediately stop counting votes and declare him the winner or b) when he gets shellacked on election night, they will declare Biden victorious anyway, ensure that additional ballots miraculously materialize to make it so, and in the meantime start promoting a Biden 100 days plan, publicize his cabinet picks, etc. so as to make it seem a fait accompli.

The whole process now already stinks and the BS flag needs to be thrown well in advance of November 3rd. What the Supreme Court should REALLY do is rule that citizens must show up at a polling place on election day, or submit an AUTHENTICATED election ballot well in advance such that it arrives by election day. NO OTHER BALLOTS should be permitted, except, perhaps, for legitimate and authenticated ballots submitted by U.S. Military personnel or expatriates serving abroad.

Aside from the occasional moron wearing a mask on the trail (I even saw a dog with a mask…maybe it was a fashion statement?), the leaves were turning, the air was cool, clear and pure and there was no cell or internet service so I guess I missed some events in the continuing soap opera. But even though every election is billed as “the most consequential in our lifetime”, this upcoming one is certainly a notch above the last one, and THAT one took the prize!

In just a few weeks Americans will have the chance to either vote for what is Right, or what is Left. Left no longer means liberal – there’s nothing wrong with true liberals. Today’s Left, however, is so antithetical to everything that made America the greatest nation in the history of the world, no self-respecting, self-reliant, self-determinant, self-responsible citizen of our nation should even consider voting for Leftists in November. Say what you will about Trump and the Republican Party, at least they’re not completely insane like the woke, defund-the-police, anti-Christian/Religion, let-the-government-solve-all-my-problems, hyper-hypocritical, projecting Leftist idiots also on the ballot!

Now ask me how I REALLY feel about the new Democrat party.

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.

Yard Sign Pollution

Morality, Reason, Society & Culture, Values

Is any one else as disgusted by the virtue-signalling lawn signs that pollute my neighborhood as I am? The self-righteousness that drips off these eyesores actually angers me. It makes me want to rub the noses of these bleeding-heart hypocrites into these signs like a puppy dog’s into the mess on the living room rug!

Sometimes others say it so well that it’s just best to bring their writing to the attention of our readers giving them full credit and applause. Such is the case with this topic and the work of Christopher Skeet, whose September 8th article in American Thinker entitled “Ascent of the Yard Sign Prophets” is spot on.

Here are, however, some choice excerpts:

“Shortly after Trump was elected president, “HATE HAS NO HOME HERE” (HHNHH) yard signs began adorning the minority-manicured lawns of white-collar, white-skinned liberals.  You’ve seen the sign.  Its message is translated into multiple languages, which is meant to broadcast a globalist diversity of sorts by those who speak not only just English, but that sniffy dialect molded within the narrow confines of a university pedigree loftier than junior college but conspicuously short of Ivy League.  You can all but hear them finish their Starbucks order with that irritating raised inflection on the last syllable.”

“The underlying message of the HHNHH yard sign is two-fold.  First, it’s virtue signaling in its most tawdry form.  Yard signs announcing “POVERTY IS BAD” and “I SUPPORT CURING CANCER” would ring just as hollow.  Sorry, but you don’t get a cookie for broadcasting to the world that you oppose hate.  Most people do, and their daily actions are sufficient proof thereof.  A lion doesn’t need to convince people it’s a lion.”

“Second, the HHNHH yard sign alludes that a home which opposes President Trump is axiomatically hate-free, and, by deductive logic, a home which supports President Trump categorically welcomes hate with open arms.  The sign smugly implies, “I’m a good person, and it’s a shame that you’re not.”  This insinuation might not rise to the level of hate, but it certainly sinks to the level of arrogance, condescension, and sweeping judgment.”

“But over time the HHNHH yard signs faded along with the “I’m With Her” bumper stickers.  The yard sign prophets needed something new, something snarkier, with which to impress their woke comrades and irritate the handyman who lives on the street’s only single story home.  So a new yard sign was handed out that reads like a manifesto.”  

“They really upped the ante, didn’t they? The first thought conservatives have looking at this sign is that they agree with every statement on it.  But the purpose of the sign is not to find common ground across the political spectrum, but to further drive a wedge.  The purpose of the sign is to insist that these statements are true only within the narrow ideological limits of the sign owner’s worldview.  If you disagree with the yard sign prophets on any policy point, then, in their minds, you disagree with the statements themselves.”

“Like its HHNHH predecessor, the WE BELIEVE yard sign isn’t an argument, an ideology, or a philosophy.  It isn’t a set of principles or tenets of a faith.  It has no depth, no complexity, and no animation.  It’s a regurgitation of drive-by gotcha-isms, dutifully parroted with overconfident arrogance and unearned righteousness by those who haven’t thought to the next sentence.”

“The WE BELIEVE statements are easily dissectible, and should never be allowed to fester unchallenged for the sake of avoiding unpleasant conversation.  The yard sign is designed to elicit shame in its opponents, but there is nothing shameful and everything noble in resisting what Solzhenitsyn called “the mechanical propaganda of dead ideas”.  You won’t make a dent, but they should know that neither did they.”

Thank you Mr. Skeet…could not have said it better myself!

 

Invoking “Science”

Uncategorized

How often recently have you heard a reference to “the Science”? You hear it more from the Left than the Right because the Left thinks that by invoking “Science” all their positions are automatically affirmed, while the Right continues to apply common sense, critical thinking and skepticism to even the most hallowed scientific pronouncements.

Take the wildfires in California. Despite the fact (and I mean FACT) that the fires were set by arsonists or by careless attendees of a “gender reveal” party (.sic!), the leftist loons claim they’re the result of “Climate Change”. Does anyone with half a brain still listen to such nonsensical drivel? The fires were started by humans and spread uncontrolled because years of environmental “protection” banned the thinning of underbrush and prevented the cutting of fire breaks!

But, says the Left, “Science will solve all our problems”. Just “follow the science” and all will be well, because, as one thinking, rightfully skeptical author put it…. “Because, SCIENCE! YAAAAAY.” As the author, Sharon Hill aptly points out, “People who advocate fanatical reliance on science—where all competing methods of gaining knowledge are illegitimate—are practicing scientism.”

The subject of Scientism can and has produced thousands of pages and years of argument. The key point, in my opinion, is that there is a difference between Scientific proof and the application of the Scientific Method. Just because the Scientific Method can produce repeatable results in a laboratory does NOT mean a universal truth has been discovered or established. Or, that policy should be made based on the results!

When politicians invoke Science as their explanation for everything, they make fools of themselves. When they invoke Science as the basis for policy-making, they simply expose their biases and proclivities. Science has become a bludgeon on common sense and rational thinking.

The Wuhan Virus pandemic is a clear case-in-point. After all these months what should the reasonably informed, thinking adult conclude? Here’s my take:

1.            It’s a deadly virus but not a whole lot more deadly than a nasty flu. While it kills people more selectively and more rapidly than some other viruses, and while it may be spread somewhat more easily than the flu, colds and bacterial infections, the numbers, especially when discounted for all the “woke” interference, medical reimbursement gameplaying, false positive testing, (false negative testing as well for that matter), political opportunistic/anti Trump hysteria, foot-dragging, dumb decisions, inaccurate conclusions, media hype and soccer-mom hand wringing…despite all that… the numbers show that the number of people who have contracted, been infected, been hospitalized and who have died in this pandemic have been about as with a severe flu season.

2.            The reaction to the pandemic has been disproportionate to its threat. It’s pretty clear to me that the media hyperventilating and the fickle, hypocritical flip-flopping and rhetoric of the Left is based not on Science but politics. As I’ve noted numerous times, I’m no big fan of Trump, but the Left’s use of “Science” and the weaponization of the crisis to try to harm him, at the expense of the country’s economy not to mention the deaths caused because of fear of obtaining care for things totally unrelated to the virus, is disgusting and morally repugnant and should be to any objective observer.

3.            The response SHOULD HAVE been similar to that of a bad flu season, i.e. “if you’re sick, stay home from work”. If you’re really sick, go see your doctor or get to a clinic. If your symptoms are so sudden and acute (e.g. like a heart attack or inability to breathe!) that you’re worried you might not live, call 9-11 and seek emergency care! The impact of politicians desperately trying to show they’re doing something through news conference infomercials turned out to be reckless in some cases. For example, Cuomo’s order to send infected seniors back to their nursing homes, long term care and hospice facilities for fear of insufficient hospital beds had a devastating negative impact on deaths!

4.            Face masks (a.k.a. “face diapers”) do more to make people feel safe than actually protect either the wearer or the people around them. Common sense suggests that giving people the false sense of security that a mask provides may actually do more harm than good as people crowd closer to one another and aerosolized virus may then actually reach each other. Social Distancing, a term I hate because it has the same “wokeness” sound as Social Justice isn’t about being social or not social. It’s about being physically separate…kind of like when someone with a cold is coughing or sneezing near you!

5.            If, God forbid, Joe Biden wins the election in November, miraculously the pandemic will disappear. That’s because the Science will then reflect that he/it saved us all. The Leftist, sycophantic media will herald the virus’s demise as a response to getting rid of the “science-deniers” presently in the White House. Ugh…my breakfast creeps up at the thought.

6.            We need to stop listening to the so-called experts and use our heads. Some things OF COURSE make sense…they’re the same things our mothers taught us when we were kids…”wash your hands”, “cover your mouth and nose when you sneeze or cough”, “if you’re REALLY not feeling well, stay home, but that doesn’t mean you get to watch tv all day”, “if you’re running a persistent fever, we’re going to the doctor”… etc.

                As Sharon Hill concludes in her article: “Science is an awesome thing. It has well-deserved respect in our society because it’s damned reliable compared to other ways of finding out. Because of those qualities, it’s easy to overreach and attribute problem-solving capabilities to the scientific method alone.”

                Amen.

I Have a Dream

America, Economy, Education, Family, Government, History, Morality, Politics, Reason, Religion, Science, Society & Culture, Technology, Values

With credit and apologies to Martin Luther King, I have my own dream of what could be. In a sense, what follows is MY version of a Utopian society…not the Dystopian society the Left is pushing.

I dream of an America that stands together, (including for our National Anthem!) as it once did during the Second World War. People from all walks of life, from every background, color, creed, faith, national origin are ALL proud to be American, grateful for the opportunity and freedom we have, bonded together through citizenship in a democratic republic we all believe in and cherish, and where educated, grammatically proper and syntactically correct American English is the national language.

I watched the movie “Miracle” the other night, the story of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team’s beating of the unbeatable Russian hockey team and our gold medal win. The period leading up to that triumph was a time of great trouble: the winding up of the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Iranian hostage crisis, the welfare state was growing like gangbusters, the rapid breakdown of traditional families and a continuation of what occurred in the 60’s – a growing fracture between Left and Right.

At that moment, in that hockey rink in Lake Placid, NY, all of America was united irrespective of where we stood on the ideological, political, or societal spectra. Oh that we could bottle and distribute that patriotism and pride today! The same pride we all felt as we heard the words, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

I dream of an America with leaders who uplift, who inspire, who seek the betterment of all our citizens and who assert with dignity and nobility America’s rightful role in the world as the “beacon on the hill”. In my lifetime, I’ve watched and listened to a slew of presidents, political, religious, academic, military and business “leaders” pontificate and (with apologies now to Shakespeare) “strut and fret their hour upon the stage” telling tales like idiots, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Sometimes the rhetoric resonated with enough people that it became, (to use a modern term), a “meme”, and our nation’s course was altered accordingly. Sometimes it just drifted away on the wind and was “heard no more.” Today our politics is more than ever gutter politics. Both the Left and the Right are talking down and at one another rather than with one another. The public, at least those who bother, are watching this “s-show” and shaking their heads, rolling their eyes and asking themselves, “can’t we do better than this?” I hasten to add, as I often do, however, that while both sides participate in these deplorable political antics, you’d have to be willfully blind or just plain stupid to not see that the Left has deepened and putrefied the gutter beyond anything the Right or any grade-school educated person could ever have imagined!

I dream of an America where children are once again taught about its greatness, about its Judeo-Christian roots and underpinnings, about the sacrifices and struggles of those who, imperfect though they were, united together to build this nation and establish it as the greatest engine of freedom, peace and prosperity the world has ever known. Those lessons we learned in grade school about the founding and early history of America, about 2+2 being 4, not 5 (“but Johnny, that was a good try and I’m so glad you feel empowered to give that answer”), those trophies that we received because we WON, not because we showed up, are not QUAINT! They’re an accounting of what made America great (.sic) not to be trampled upon with New Math, 1619 projects, multicultural and globalist, anti-national revisions to history, and poisonous, Leftist, “nobody should have any more than anyone else”, dystopian idiocy.

I dream of an America where traditional views of right and wrong are once again firmly established in our practices, laws, regulations and politics, where principles of equal opportunity rather than equal outcomes are engendered and manifest, where we don’t compromise, alter or eliminate these principles and harm and offend the vast majority of our people because some minority professes to be victimized by their application. One can argue that there is no black and white, but the Leftists would have you believe that there are no standards…that each and every one of us ought to be the arbiter of what is good, what is evil, what is right and what is wrong. Peaceful marches and protests (ones that don’t disrupt commerce, travel and the lives of those who are not involved) are RIGHT. Riots, looting, assault, battery, disturbance of the peace even… are WRONG. The taking of responsibility, restraint and continence are RIGHT. Infanticide and abortion as contraception is WRONG! Practicing and exhibiting manners is RIGHT. Anything goes is WRONG.

I dream of an America where our legal system is purged of distortion and justice is meted out with equanimity and without political bias, where laws are respected, and people understand and expect to abide by them not from fear of judgement and penalty, but because they’re just and benefit all of us. We were taught as kids to respect police officers, firemen, heck, even “our elders”! Today the Left wishes to destroy respect for just about anything! Weaponized law, weaponized politics, weaponized regulations…all these were started and have been fomented by the “it’s all about me” Leftists who were the hippies of the 60’s, the losers who sought to “tune in, turn on and drop out” and who now form the core of what is known as “the Deep State”. How could the Left use the law to persecute (some might say destroy the lives of) its opponents while allowing its own scandalous, obvious and disgusting violations of law go unpunished?

I dream of an America:

                Where the rights and thoughtful, not shrill views of all are tolerated but where unlawful and aberrant behavior is not!

                Where ALL lives matter!

                Where faith is restored in FAITH!

                Where we can earn an honest day’s wage for an honest day’s work.

                Where government isn’t the source of philanthropy but individuals, families and communities look after one another.

                Where technology, systems and artificial intelligence don’t substitute for people communicating directly with one another, where human beings answer the customer service 800 number, speak English and are empowered to solve problems rather than belch canned scripts like “I’m sorry you’re having a problem with…I’m here to help with that.” And where REAL intelligence in REAL humans deliver REAL results, and where parents “just say no” to 10 year olds demanding their own iPhones.

                Where drugs, alcohol, pornography, social media and other addictions are dealt with head-on, not excused, tolerated and talked about endlessly.

                Where the real racism and bias inherent in the hypocritical Left’s actions are exposed and expunged so that real fairness of opportunity can prevail.

                Where men can once again be men and are not automatically accused of being misogynists; where women don’t feel they have to act like men (and behave like misandrists!) and where it’s ok for traditional roles of bread-winning and child-rearing to prevail again.

                Where shame is felt for shameful behavior.

                Where government no longer tries to engineer social justice through housing mandates, but allows communities to form freely and the pick-winners-and-losers-robin-hood-taking-from-Peter-to-buy-the-vote-of-Paul no longer takes place.

                Where the rights of those who seek to obey the laws, focus on caring for themselves and their families, and work hard to be contributing members of society are not permitted to be trampled by the obnoxious, repugnant behavior or those who break the laws and seek to impinge on or take from others what is not rightfully theirs, and who do so with impunity.

                Where honest capitalism is not denigrated but celebrated, but where crony capitalism is rooted out, exposed and eliminated.

                Where limousine liberals and people who have no idea of what real suffering is remove their hypocritical, self-righteous, virtue-signaling signs from their lawns and instead, take a weed whacker to the overgrown grass and mess by the side of the road.

                Where our schools teach kids reading, writing and arithmetic again instead of indoctrinating them in multicultural, gender-confused, anti-American drivel.

                Where the term “marriage” is returned to its religious definition, but where the ability of same-sex partners to enjoy the same legal rights as married couples is codified in our laws and where LGBTQ militants no longer try to shove their preferences and ideology down others’ throats.

                Where our military and law enforcement, as well as all other public service occupations are purged of incompetents and bad apples, our churches and the Boy Scouts are purged of pedophiles, our colleges are purged of socialists and marxists.

                Where we can calm down, lower the speed and decibel level of our lives, aspire to be good and do good, do what is right, and actually “all get along”.

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