Yes, COVID cases have risen
I’ve had several conversations about this topic recently. A friend mentions worriedly that COVID is on the rise, and I point out that such a statistic has no real meaning. I mention that it was expected, that it’s partly a function of increased testing, that the numbers in most states are down rather than up, and that even in states where cases have risen the death toll doesn’t seem to have risen.
My listeners seem somewhat skeptical, but in general they haven’t been able to counter what I’m saying. Their worry doesn’t surprise me, though, given the obvious efforts of the MSM to keep stoking the panic.
I get the impression, also, that COVID has either gotten somewhat less likely to cause serious illness and death because of some change in the virus itself, and/or because we are getting better at treating it.
All of this makes sense, and is as expected. It could change, of course. But so far these trends have held.
Here’s an article that says much the same thing:
A dozen states have seen record highs in new coronavirus cases, blares the news media, accompanied by dire warnings of a “second wave” of the disease because those awful Republican states reopened too soon. Once again, however, the mainstream press is needlessly scaring the public by hiding the relevant context…
Even if there is a “second wave,” it doesn’t mean anything in and of itself…
For one thing the Centers for Disease Control has long predicted that coronavirus cases would increase as the country reopened, for the simple reason that the lockdowns were never intended to stop the spread of the disease, only to slow it down. Remember? Flatten the curve?…
What’s more, the increase in coronavirus cases matters only if they are going up faster than expected, and whether this is resulting in a second wave of deaths.
Neither of those appears to be true…
So far this month, in fact, the number of new cases on June 21 was 16% higher than on June 1, but the daily number of deaths was 63% lower.
Still, won’t the current spike in cases lead to a subsequent spike in deaths?
That’s unlikely. As Michael Fumento has repeatedly pointed out in these pages and elsewhere, death rates are higher at the start of an outbreak for the simple reason that the disease claims the low-hanging fruit first. This, he says, is known as Farr’s Law.
That there was always a good possibility that COVID would end up resembling a bad flu year, and this was obvious to many people quite early on, although hardly a certainty. But too many institutions – the Democratic Party, most of the health officials in charge of making predictions, and the MSM – were heavily invested in worst-case scenarios. The reasons? Anti-Trump fervor, the lust for greater power, and the desire for clicks.
Yes, more testing reveals more cases, especially in the under 50 age group. The calculus of an epidemic can’t be changed without a vaccine. Either a tall narrow curve, or what we have, a lower wider curve. The area under is going to be the same. The low hanging fruit (old and infirm) has been picked by the virus. Now we need herd immunity; which is what we’re getting.
Death rates are down even in Florida, and Georgia. Treatment may be better. The data I have shows back in April 15% of the serious cases were dying, that’s now down to 9%.
My non-scientific prediction is the virus will be gone the first week of November.
Our county in Nor Cal in the past week or so, changed from testing in the range of 650 per day to 2700. Now they are warning on their website of a new surge of Wuhan flu. Trouble for them, I believe, is they overplayed their hand back in March. Even with the Gov’s new warning about masks, walking in the local small town here, maybe 10% of the folks were wearing them. No one wants to go back to quarantine…
To be honest, death by COVID sounds preferable to these interminable lock downs. I am losing my mind having to wear a mask everywhere I go, walk one way down the grocery aisle, and keep a 2m distance. Why doesn’t Cuomo put us out of our misery and just nuke us already!
The panic created over COVID19 is really all about orangemanbad.
Yeah, I hate to keep pointing this out but…
The CDC says the U.S. has so far had just over 120,000 COVID deaths out of 2.3 million cases.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html
By comparison, the worst recent flu year was 2017-2018 with an estimated 61,000 dead out of 45 million cases.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html#:~:text=While%20the%20impact%20of%20flu,61%2C000%20deaths%20annually%20since%202010.
Now, if it weren’t for the murderous incompetents running New York and New York City, the U.S. COVID numbers might look a good bit better. But I don’t think the numbers support the suggestion this was just a “bad flu.”
Mike
I understood that the lock down was to flatten the curve to build up supplies, keep hospitalizations within reason, and be able to figure out treatments and vaccines.
We have done all those things and we are seeing the increase as we reopen. What can’t be determined is how much is really the reopening or the protests.
What I can see in the numbers are increases in the largest cities that had protests as well as increases in the younger age groups who are more likely to go protest as well as go party. But they will not die from this disease.
We have only 265 covid or under investigation cases in the hospital in Oklahoma. We can handle more patients and still take care of the regular illnesses & surgeries.
If the numbers start going through the roof largely because of the protests/riots, then the Left can continue to attack Trump for COVID mismanagement.
Win-win!
(Nadler might even feel moved to open an investigation…)
Went to a tournament for girls’ fast-pitch ten and under. My granddaughter played in three games. There were probably nine teams there with families and so forth. It was about five hours including rain delays.
Lots of people. Not a mask in sight nor any sign of distancing. This was planned in advance and, afaik, nobody in charge said anything at all about precautions.
We’ll see, I suppose.
MBunge:
You are wrong, and I’ve pointed out why many times, in comments (it would take too much time to locate them right now) and in posts.
Here’s one post of many on the subject. Here’s another.
So I’ve been having an on again off again discussion with an astrophysicist who is modeling the covid data. He just produced a non-sensical projection of the current uptrend in cases that looks like a Dirac delta function that climbs straight up for the next two weeks.
The revealing part is why he’s doing this. In his own words: “Our approach is to show what happens if the doubling time trend continues at the current rate of increase (or now, decrease) so people know what current behavior leads to (in case they want to try to do something about it).” He’s more interested in influencing people than in actually producing a good model.
As I said in a previous thread, even physicists are not immune from the SJW disease.
Statistician Briggs, who’s very good with numbers, notes:
“This is bullshit. This is an outright lie, pure power politics.
I’ve been telling us for months (yes, months) that the only number that we can really trust is the all-cause weekly deaths. Everything else can be, and is, fudged, especially in the media.
We’re not the only ones who are noticing. Axios: U.S. Coronavirus Cases Are Increasing, But Deaths Aren’t — Yet. Key sentence “‘The death rate always lags several weeks behind the infection rate,’ top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci told me.”
Fraudci! No handshakes forever Faudci! Ignore him.”
https://wmbriggs.com/post/31431/
Now the idiot governor of WA is making masks required everywhere indoor and outdoor for the entire state. BS. In my county of 900,000 people we had 22 reported cases no deaths today that’s about the average the last week. Many counties have been reporting almost no cases but they all get dragged into this idiocy. The major driver in the cases in this state is Yakima county in eastern Washington but hey some coastal county 300 miles away needs to be treated the same. Wearing a stinking mask in 80-90 degree weather outside is lunacy.
You wanna compare BLM to a cult try the COVID death cult on for size. There are people that get absolutely giddy over any bad news even if it’s not really bad. And of course they have their own prophet in Fauci.
I saw someone the other day say Fauci is the only doctor that gives his own second opinions. The most destructive unelected bureaucrat in a long time if not ever in US history.
Briggs links to a new study that upends the received wisdom.
https://news.psu.edu/story/623797/2020/06/22/research/initial-covid-19-infection-rate-may-be-80-times-greater-originally
Griffin,
You aren’t kidding about the COVID death cult.
I’m the black sheep of my family because I am a political changer. I was raised by an ex-hippy mom and a Viet Nam vet dad who went full Leftist when he returned from the war. And I am now, more even than after the 2016 presidential election, a pariah. My siblings have stayed true to the indoctrination.
And though I am a pariah in my family, and people do not answer phone calls or texts that I send because I am an evil conservative now, that doesn’t stop them from sending me ghoulish updates on the virus whenever they can. I’m just not allowed to respond. But they really are giddy. The prospect of stupid Trump voters dying gets them excited in a most repugnant way.
Fractal Rabbit:
Sorry to hear of your family situation. Griffin is correct about the madness of King Jay. That was also pretty good about Fauci and second opinions.
I am on-board with this:
1) cases going up
2) deaths going down
Two thumbs up and pop the champagne corks … but …
The one thing still nagging me is that I’ve seen refs here and there to spikes in hospitalizations. Recovered hospitalizations are way, way better than deaths but still give aid and comfort to the worriers.
Are the hospitalization numbers a potential source for concern?
Off topic, this blog has a strong focus on Covid news, for those interested.
https://spinstrangenesscharm.wordpress.com/
Check it out and see what you think.
A recent post discusses this topic, for example
“Italian infectious diseases specialist Prof. Matteo Bassetti, who works at the St. Martin Hospital in Genoa, makes the claim that the virus has mutated into a weaker form”
JimNorCal,
Apparently in many areas of the south hospitalizations are up but ICU beds not so much so the theory is that many people are going in for those elective surgeries that were delayed and of course they are tested for COVID and some are coming back positive with little to no symptoms so they do the knee surgery or whatever but the hospital lists them as COVID patients because they get extra money for them.
So what you have is people hospitalized with COVID but not because of it. That explains the lower deaths despite cases ticking up (in total not in percentage).
To me the REAL scandal is that it is June 23 and we still don’t have a national RANDOMIZED Covid-19 testing system established.
Statisticians can be good but actual data – open and verifiable by all – is better.
And cases is such a stupid way of measuring this.
The cultists have made a big deal that we have been over 30,000 cases three times in the last week after not hitting that since May 1 but today they reported 32,984 cases out of 511,484 tests for a positive rate of 6.4% and back on May 1 we had 33,042 cases out of only 295,581 tests for a positive rate of 11.1%.
And the Prophet Fauci’s new thing now is that they are seeing negative side effects in younger people testing positive which of course he has to say because apparently the ages of those testing positive has gone down substantially and after saying it doesn’t affect young people for months they now have to counter that.
Remember all the sick babies we were going to see?
Bunch of charlatans.
The LA Country Health Director was on the local tube yesterday evening wringing her hands. Governor Gruesome Newsom is in a snit because people aren’t following his orders. Several localities have announced that they will not enforce the latest ones. We no longer hear anything about the plans to move the infested homeless encampments off the streets and in to hotels. (Shades of Cuomo and Nursing homes.) Either they did it, or they don’t want to talk about not doing it.
The panic generators continue to take a toll. I have discussed previously that my daughter, who is an LA County health professional, is totally convinced–brain washed. She worries about spikes since states have loosened the controls. Like so many, she has gone from “flatten the curve” because she feared they would be overwhelmed; to some other criteria. She does have a couple of co-workers in the hospital who are afflicted–one, a 70 year old was very serious, but apparently turned the corner. That one was apparently pretty careless about basic precautions in the work place. I don’t even talk about the big picture of cost vs reward any more.
On the plus side, daughter still does all of our grocery shopping and will not let us go into a store–if she knows. Kind of an old fashioned concept; family taking care of family. I wish all Octogenarians had such a support system.
PS For folks who feel hemmed in, fishing– in a kayak, float tube, or even a canoe–can be a solitary activity, and even California has allowed it to go on. One more reason to thank God. Actually, the bays of SoCal have been busy throughout the pandemic panic with kayakers, paddle boarders, and swimmers (brave souls). On the downside, Gruesome shut down most of the parking around beaches or parks, which complicated things a bit.
As of today, the 7-day average (rolling average) for Winnie the Flu (personalize, Alinsky tells us ) deaths is 620, which represents a 72% drop from the peak 7-day average of 2208 (15-21 April). That tells me to keep loosening up. Oldsters need to be more careful.
Yes, deaths are slightly up in Texas, but the deaths per million for Texas is about a fifth of the US rate and about a twentieth of the NY rate.
Locally, very few pedestrians have masks. Masks are required to enter stores.
Corona virus USA
The funny thing is I was talking to someone this morning that the last couple of days have really started to feel like normal around here. Some wear masks some don’t but most businesses are open and then this afternoon the governor says masks everywhere and who knows for how long. I can only imagine how the Karens will react to anyone who dares to not wear a mask in some area where we are supposed to be wearing one. They cannot let it end and by it I mean the control.
om,
Thanks. It doesn’t usually get to me too bad but every once in a while I feel it.
Fractal Rabbit
The prospect of stupid Trump voters dying gets them excited in a most repugnant way.
I don’t know if there is a tactful way to break the news to your relatives, but recent data informs us the following:
67% of Winnie the Flu deaths are in states that voted for Hillary (at the beginning it was 75%)
The correlation between % vote for Hillary and Winnie the Flu death rate per million is 0.52, which is a strong to moderate correlation.
If this were broken down by counties, the correlation would be even greater. One time I looked at the death rate by county in New York state- 0.58. I haven’t located a quick and dirty way to get that data nationwide.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.13.20101253v2.full.pdf
Objective: To estimate the infection fatality rate of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) from data of seroprevalence studies.
Results: 23 studies were identified with usable data to enter into calculations. Seroprevalence estimates ranged from 0.1% to 47%. …. Among people <70 years old, infection fatality rates ranged from 0.00% to 0.26% with median of 0.05% (corrected, 0.00-0.23% with median of 0.04%). Most studies were done in pandemic epicenters and the few studies done in locations with more modest death burden also suggested lower infection fatality rates.
Google Game of the Day:
Go to google.com
Type in any 3 numbers
Follow those numbers with “new cases” (no quotes)
Hit return and scan the results. BrainWash. Rinse. Repeat.
Griffin: oh barf. I only learned about King Jay’s edict by reading the comments here. Craptation. I can’t stand not knowing *how long* it will last. I’m 63 for crap’s sake and not worried about it.
My 85 year-old mom who lives in Oregon wants to have lunch on Saturday. Now I have to wear a mask. Bummer. Mom isn’t worried either, but I guess in order to be good and caring citizens we’re supposed to wear the masks to protect other people. So say all the lib friends I know, anyway.
Last night Tucker Carlson had actual journalist, Alex Berenson (who does actual journalism) on his show to discuss this topic. Berenson was clear that he has not seen conclusive data to make him confident of a reason for the trend, but said there are indications it may correlate with people spending more time indoors in buildings with circulating air from air-conditioning.
Arizona, Florida, Texas… Most all areas of those states get very hot in June.
Rufus T. Firefly:
but said there are indications it may correlate with people spending more time indoors in buildings with circulating air from air-conditioning.
I find that plausible. The summer my father died, I left hot Texas for New England and the hospital where he was a patient. I got a cold that I blame on some bug I got from the hospital AC system. I don’t use AC at home in Texas summers, though my summer classes definitely had AC.
The summer cold I caught in New England was quite tolerable until we ate out at an Italian restaurant. (The chances of getting a bad Italian restaurant in New England are as small as the chances of getting a good Mexican/Tex Mex restaurant there. 🙂 )
The AC filter in that Italian restaurant mustn’t have been replaced in months or even years. I could barely breathe inside that restaurant. As soon as we stepped outside, I could breathe again.
Once I got back to Texas, I sweated off the cold.
Based on that experience, I find it plausible that AC systems might have some Winnie the Flu (personalize!) trapped inside.
Floyd was infected. Did he die of Covid-19? And, yeah, Planned Parent (cross-contamination) was the leading cause of excess deaths. Planned Parenthood, too, in some liberal progression of justice.
Off topic, so apologies for that, good people: in regards to “cases”, Lt. Gen Flynn’s case has been dismissed pursuant to the District Court of Appeals grant (in part) of the writ of mandamus requested.
For Flynn, it’s over.
https://mobile.twitter.com/JohnWHuber/status/1275794907408535556
Gringo,
Unfortunately, I live in a state that voted for Hillary. In my community, my leftist parents are in the minority. But that puts me in my mind of something that’s been driving me nuts lately, especially at less civil places like Instapundit. The ‘They can get it good and hard’ faction. I want to stress I am not assuming you belong to that group. Your comment only reminded me of them and why I’ve taken a break over there (Between that and the ‘You want to kill grandma’ Chicken Littles, its been a very different place these past few months)
There are millions and millions of good and decent people in those Hillary voting states who didn’t vote for the mess they are in: they voted against it. We’re just outnumbered by NYC and a couple of other Leftist population centers.
Whether the problem is economics or family ties, up and moving to a red state (where coincidently, many of those same “They can get it good and hard” factions-a growing group over at Instapundit) my not be desirable or even feasible. They’ve stuck it out, voted red, raised their family and done nothing to deserve the situation they’re in, except perhaps not see the signs that some of their neighbors do not consider them human beings anymore.
“There are millions and millions of good and decent people in those Hillary voting states who didn’t vote for the mess they are in: they voted against it. We’re just outnumbered by NYC and a couple of other Leftist population centers.”
Exactly the situation in Connecticut. The election maps show all of rural CT (where we live) voting red, it’s Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport, New London, Norwich, etc that determine it to be a blue state. Now that we are retired we are planning a move to more southern, and redder climes. The problem is that the Dems have so destroyed the economy in this once great manufacturing state, that more people are trying to leave than come in. Housing prices are depressed and trying to sell a house without taking a huge hit is almost impossible. We couldn’t leave before retirement due to jobs and maintaining our financial security.
Coronavirus Updates: NJ, NY, CT announce Tri-State COVID-19 quarantine agreement
“NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo said people coming in from states that have a high infection rate must quarantine for 14 days.”
Isn’t that rich? The man has enormous cojones.
“Exactly the situation in Connecticut. The election maps show all of rural CT (where we live) voting red, it’s Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport, New London, Norwich, etc that determine it to be a blue state. Now that we are retired we are planning a move to more southern, and redder climes. The problem is that the Dems have so destroyed the economy in this once great manufacturing state, that more people are trying to leave than come in. Housing prices are depressed and trying to sell a house without taking a huge hit is almost impossible. We couldn’t leave before retirement due to jobs and maintaining our financial security.” physicguy
This is exactly what we are looking at here is So Cal. Our area of the valley can be counted on for a conservative agenda. The last election, our district alone thwarted a huge boondoggle on the roster. If we could sell our house today we would but we have 3 more years of work ahead of us. Chances are our home value will drop like a rock by that time, but c’est la vie. Short of a miracle turn of events, we will plan to retire in a more sane place. One of our kids is looking at Idaho.
And with regard to Covid-19 and people’s attachment to the narrative. I have 2 encounters already where I have shared with people that it is now known that you cannot get it from surfaces due to the viral load. They looked absolutely crestfallen to hear such news. I think so many people are invested in their “new normal” of how they are in charge of the germs that they do not want to give it up (gloves, clothes off at the door, incessant hand-washing, etc etc).
Brian Morgan,
That’s our Cuomo. He left out where he probably wants them to quarantine in the nursing homes.
physicsguy
A childhood friend, a staunch Democrat, ran for a seat in the CT Leg, and got elected. The campaign bullet point was to revive the economy. Good point. However, the main reason for the collapse of the CT economy was excessive spending over decades. As such, the priority #1 should have been and should be to cut spending. But my childhood friend made no reference to cutting back on excessive spending.
physicsguy, maybe you should stay in CT so you can vote to throw the scoundrels out of Hartford- though that may be futile. After all, they have been running things for some time.
I agree Neo on nearly all of this but have to agree with Mike, MBunge about the “bad flu” part. I read the links you offered, and it’s just not enough. There are difficulties in counting both influenza cases and C19 cases, but that does not mean that all numbers are invalid and can be regarded as meaningless.
We are headed for 150,000 deaths by Aug 1st, because it is a long tail in decline, plus disabilities of an unknown amount that are seldom mentioned. People do sustain long-term damage, especially to lungs and kidneys, and this is not common with influenza. All this without a second wave. Deaths in an average flu season are 24,000. The worst in the last 20 years was 61,000, and both those numbers have a representative solidity. That is, the possible undercounts and overcounts are comparable for both illnesses. They are estimates and there is not full standardization, but they aren’t made out of air either. The Hong Kong Flu deaths were over three years. Not comparable on that basis alone. Not yet, anyway.
I like Vanderleun’s stuff in general but he is also wrong on this. The overall death rate is not the only number that matters. The lockdown has reduced contagion from all illnesses, so this year people aren’t dying from a lot of the stuff they usually die of. Fewer car accidents, too. I’m not saying lockdown is worth it, but we have to be strict in our treatment of numbers.
None of this is to say that we should not be opening up or to agree with the amount of lockdown we have experienced. Those are separate topics. But this is not comparable to a bad flu season. We may end up with two diseases in our flu seasons from here on out, and have to simply endure that risk, as humans have always had to. But this is worse by all measures and we aren’t done yet. I am hopeful that the gradual decline in deaths will continue and we only have to manage hotspots from this point onward.
Lot of stuff to process.
First, Inslee’s order in Washington state for facial coverings in public, outdoors or indoors, is qualified with “when unable to maintain social distancing”, so it’s not a blanket order to wear a face covering.
There are exemptions for various health related conditions, the deaf or hard of hearing, or children under five.
Second, the “surge” in cases is something, though surge might be slightly hyperbolic. Arizona is a good example. While the number of tests has gone up dramatically in the last month and a half, and positive tests have gone up, which would be expected– the percentage of people testing positive has gone up from 10% to over 20%, which are numbers seen in New York. In my state, Washington, the number has remained under 5%, and the number of confirmed cases is actually coming down.
I’ve read speculation it’s the virus is becoming less lethal, or that as people move back outside they’re not getting the same “viral load” as when they were sheltered indoors. It’s also possible that more people are using the hydroxy/zithro cocktail earlier, avoiding hospitalization.
In the case of Arizona, are people moving back indoors as the summer temperatures increase to an uncomfortable level?
I ran across this study how to reduce infections indoors and the central takeaway is to increase outdoor ventilation.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/05/indoor-spread-covid-19-can-be-lessened-experts-say
Also here’s a website that graphs the COVID data.
https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=states-normalized&highlight=Arizona&show=highlight-only&y=highlight&scale=linear&data=testPositivity-daily-7&data-source=ctp&xaxis=right-4wk#states-normalized
When you consider that we have a flu and pneumonia vaccine it’s not wrong in my estimation to compare covid19 to the flu.
“But this is worse by all measures and we aren’t done yet.” AVI
As a person that had it and whose husband almost died as a result of the mishandling of it I have a strong opinion on this. The CDC bears the bulk of the responsibility for the mishandling. They had one job, have a protocol for a pandemic. They didn’t. Shut down to flatten the curve so hospitals can respond to the sick? If that was in play, why was my husband, a known positive for COVID-19 sent home without so much as being asked the questions regarding the reasons he was brought to the hospital? It was a miracle that by the time I brought him back (after 2 calls to paramedics to our home) that he survived. It wasn’t the virus but the resultant cytokine storm that almost took his life. The hospital ultimately came through, but with thousands praying at that point I consider that a divine grace. (Especially when I compare what happened to that actor at Cedars Sinai at the same time.) I was over the fever by day 3, but wore an N95 mask for 20 minutes and suffered a terrible relapse bringing on the worst symptoms for 2 weeks. I fully believe I would have completely recovered had I not breathed in the germs and carbon dioxide rather than maximum oxygen. I base this on a conversation with my software tutor who had it (she and her husband, each in their early 60’s) and it was a couple days in bed with a fever and then all better, no residual issues. Somewhere between what our government did (didn’t do) regarding ebola and now COVID-19 there exists a proper response. I would like to add that my husband was with 2 people from our office in a closed-door meeting, no windows at a table in close proximity within less than 2 hours of his first symptoms appearing. Neither one got it. I did get it exactly 2 days after and had the exact same initial symptoms, coughing during the night–but able to sleep and waking with a fever. But I had spent the one night in the same bed when he was coughing. We thought he had come down with an allergy-induced cold, never imagining it was the SARS-CoV-2 virus as at that time we didn’t know anyone who had it or was exposed. In the aftermath, we discovered that a subcontractor had gone to the ER 2 days before as he was having chest pains but got the A-0K and went to work. He ended up showing other symptoms a little later on and tested positive. We are reasonably certain he was the source. My husband did suffer some damage to an artery and had to have an angioplasty (no heart damage) but again it is completely reasonable to assume the cytokine storm was the cause. Had he received proper, timely care, I am certain he would have been completely fine–no residual issues. There has been so much disinformation about this virus, a lot of people are clueless and we are the worse for it. Ebola or COVID-19 could have served to teach people how to practice good hygiene and be careful. Instead this time around fear was loosed and instead of people properly responding to the fact that germs can be dangerous and infections may kill you we went off the deep-end. (And I speak as a known germaphobe!)
Assistant Village Idiot:
You say you read my links, but I wonder if you missed the part about the 1968 flu season, which was worse than a “regular” flu season but was barely a blip on the radar screen of almost everyone alive at the time who remembers. We didn’t miss a beat.
And I cited a death toll that was NOT three years’ worth. Here’s the quote:
The 1957 “Asian” flu – which I also lived through and remember, and which was a little bigger of a deal but which was nothing even remotely like the brouhaha of COVID, killed the equivalent of over 200,000 people in the US in a single season.
Re: Arizona. As noted, I have a lot of friends/family there. I heard reliable info in the last few days that the numbers are not real. There are things being counted as “cases” which didn’t come from a positive test. (This came from an inside source. There’s a lot of profit, financially, politically and otherwise, from checking that COVID-19 box.) I don’t know what to think of that, as I have heard about some shady stuff but not outright falsification. However, the % hospitalization of confirmed cases dropped like a rock during the time the % positive jumped from 5-ish to 15+.
Their fudging the numbers previously has lost them a lot of trust so now a lot of people aren’t going to be so sheep like.
Once you lose a big enough portion of the public’s trust it’s hard to get it back.
Griffin:
True that.
It will be interesting to see the response to King Jay’s latest edict will be here east of the Cascades (land o deplorables) this weekend. Will I have to mask up to enter the big box stores (Home Despot) and Wallyworld? Open carry (N-95 that is) and don when necessary?
OT Red Cross has required mask use for donations for about 2 months now, but since 6/15/19 they have been doing Winnie the Flu antibody tests. I tested negative, so they don’t need my plasma.
om,
I’m sure every business will require them starting Friday for liability reasons if nothing else.
It’s so nice that King Jay negotiated with COVID to pause infections from yesterday (Tuesday) until Friday when apparently infections will resume.
Phony power hungry idiot.
I heard someone today describe the actions of all these mayors, governors and bureaucrats as ‘confident incompetence’. Sounds about right.
‘confident incompetence’
There’s a name for that.
Dunning-Kruger effect
“In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from the inability of people to recognize their lack of ability.” – Wikipedia
If this identical pandemic occurred during the Roman times, say at the time of Caesar, would it be significant enough to be in our history books?