Odd Numbers on Covid Deaths
As the world stumbles deeper into the second year of The Siege From Inner Space, the numbers get more and more inexplicable. For several months Belgium led the world in per capita deaths attributed to Covid-19, but over the last month a surge across middle Europe has dropped that country all the way down to tenth place.
I "learned" on this board that the relatively high numbers of Belgian fatalities was due to that country's elderly population. No other explanation is permissible.
Always there is only one variable to explain relative numbers during this pandemic -- it is 100% human actions that determine everything. Low numbers mean effective human behavior. High numbers mean stupidity and a rejection of science.
So as we head toward the month of May, Czechia, Hungary, Bulgaria and four Republics that used to be in Yugoslavia have zoomed to the top of the chart. Meanwhile, the percentages are not so jarring yet in India, but there is a massive surge building across the subcontinent.
Now that Czechia (aka The Czech Republic) is in First Place, you can find a description of the mysteries of "new variants" that are bedeviling middle Europe. I even saw one hilarious article that Czechia had moved to the top of the per capita death chart as Europe was contending with a new, more contagious strain of the virus. In the next paragraph, the Scientific Genius writing this article attributed the high death rate to "1000 missteps."
.
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Looking at the latest reported numbers, a few things jump off the screen.
First, within the USA, most of the states with the highest death rate are in the Washington -- New York -- Boston megapolis: New Jersey leads the nation, followed by New York with Connecticut Rhode Island and Massachusetts all in the top seven. Those five states have a combined population of about 40 million. If it were one country it would lead the world in percapita deaths attributed to Covid 19, just ahead of Czechia.
Taking those five states out of the USA stats, the remaining country would come in 20th place.
.
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The gross numbers for the US currently put the fatality rate at 1756 per million -- still well below two tenths of one percent of the population.
I still don't know what a "case" is supposed to mean, but there have now been 32 million of them in the US. The global stats show that the USA had now administered 430 million tests to 330 million people. Obviously some people are tested more than once -- many are tested dozens of times for their work.
Whatever a "case" is supposed to be, the same chart shows that 25 million people have recovered, whatever that is supposed to mean. No matter how you slice those numbers, they suggest that more than 75% of the "cases" are now "closed." What if anything does this have to do with "herd immunity?"
Beats the hell out of me.
There is another stat of interest -- total deaths as a percentage of cases. I have seen published stats that are far less onerous than what you get from doing the arithmetic on this chart. Less than two percent of the cases lead to death.
So far.
I have seen and heard the argument about Other Long Term Effects of Covid 19. Oddly, you do not see much on the Main Stream Media about this dimension of the crisis.
What do the numbers show as of April 19, 2021?
This ain't over.
Human intervention has not had any measurable effect on the spread of this virus, which is still growing in its reach. There have been two discrete waves of infections, as widely predicted, and there is no way to know if more waves will come.
There is still no proof that anything humans can do will stop this thing. More and more "experts" are starting to use the term endemic.
The political decisions about how to react to this threat, including evaluating how damaging the virus can be, are not science -- no matter how many internet experts order everybody to believe it.
Comments
Welcome to the scientific view.
Read:
New Variants of Coronavirus: What You Should Know from Johns Hopkins.
Having no Public Health Care System, the US does not have the ability to track variants in a meaningful way. You should probably exclude US data from your study you want a clear view.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
You're sure right about not using science
I continue to think this is a pandemic managed for profit.
As to deaths, we are missing the elephant in the room.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7014e1.htm
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Don't Understand
What elephant in the room? That cancer and heart disease were worse?
Human intervention undoubtedly kept those covid numbers below those other two.
The better comparison would be to influenza. In the past decade in the United States, the *worst* influenza year resulted in ~60,000 deaths. The fact that with all that human intervention, covid last year resulted in 345,000 deaths shows how bad it was and had the potential for being. And that wasn't even a full year, considering the disease really only started to gain hold in March 2020.
Really, if you start March 1, 2020, there were 42 recorded cases of covid in the US and 2 deaths. One year from that point, on March 1, 2021, there were more than 487,000 deaths in the first full year. With human intervention.
I guess my point is...
we promote behaviors which drive heart disease and cancer from McDonald's to water pollution, but nary a word. Not to minimize COVID deaths, just that we don't seem able to look at our over all health. There's too much profit in keeping people sick.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
hmmmmmmmmmmm
Human actions (and inactions) aren't a single variable, but, potentially, a vast universe of variables. Just sayin'. FWIW, however, I've never been a fan of mono-causality.
Probably very little. Community immunity recquire a certain percentage of the population to have acquired immunity by illness, vaccination or non-symptomatic infection. They estimate that for covid-19 that percentage is betweem 50 and 67%. The US population is somewhere around 330 million, so we're looking at at least 165 million vaccinated and or recovered. This does not account for certain religious sects who are immune by god's grace, because one can't tell if they really have the spirit or not until they die.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Thanks for the laugh in the midst of such an avalanche of
"we don't really know what is going to happen" information....
"This does not account for certain religious sects who are immune by god's grace, because one can't tell if they really have the spirit or not until they die."
"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin
Hmmm . . .
Except, vaccinations are just beginning now to get to the level where they'd show statistical impact. Many of those countries (including those in Europe) have had very little in the way of vaccinations compared to the United States, for example.
You can't really say human intervention has had no impact. Who knows the number of cases if the masks, social distancing, and other implementations were not in play. In fact, you can readily see where there were mass gatherings (political gatherings, etc.) there were large outbreaks of the disease. Me and my extended family and co-workers were pretty well locked down, except for going out for groceries, necessary in-person doctor visits, etc., and going for outdoor walks/hikes making sure to avoid people. None of us got covid (talking about 30+ people), while some of our more active friends did. Human intervention seemed to work in our cases.
Human intervention certainly worked
...for much of Asia, especially China, where infections are currently rare and aggressively hunted down.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
According to the Chinese government
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Same here
I have avoided all indoor interactions even with family because some members have been careless about how they view COVID. I personally know eleven people who have tested positive with one of those being asymptomatic. The other ten got varying degrees of the illness ranging from very mild to long term symptoms continuing over two months after contracting it. One family member got it from a co-worker, but being young, he recovered quickly.
I am doing everything I can to limit my own exposure as I tend to get upper respiratory infections such as colds and sinus infections quite easily. In the fifteen months I have been hunkered down and religiously wearing a face mask in public, I have not had one cold or flu. I attribute that to social distancing and definitely wearing a (double) face mask. Even if the pandemic subsides, I will continue to wear a face mask in public even though I have been vaccinated.
I personally do not think we will ever reach full herd immunity because even though the vaccine is helpful, it is not 100% effective against the corona virus which is in the same family as the common cold. However, the vaccine appears to slow the spread and to mitigate symptoms in those who catch the virus. I would never tell anyone that they must get vaccinated, but I urge everyone to keep using masks even if you are fully vaccinated.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
True
Vaccination will never be 100% effective, but the overall effect is (in the case of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines at least) it will not let the virus take hold in your body 95% of the time you run into someone who has covid in close quarters with you.
The net effect of this, of course, is "herd immunity", where the virus simply can't "find" enough people to successfully infect to keep spreading. Therefore, it becomes more rare over time, and therefore gives you less opportunity to get it.
They don't know for this particular disease where herd immunity will take effect, but the estimates range from 70% of people vaccinated (or having already been infected) to 90%. Considering in the US, about 20% of people won't get the vaccine, let's hope herd immunity will take effect on the lower end of that range.
Eventually, I think once levels have dropped, you'll probably be able to go without masking up.
The big misunderstanding about effectiveness statistics
is that they speak to the population with absolutely nothing to suggest about one particular individual. That is to say, while I might be vaccinated and/or a recovered COVID patient in a population that can expect 95% protection, the effectiveness of the vaccine for me is 95%. Individual variations, how effective the vaccination was for me individually, and the viral load or virus variant I may encounter might be very different than the expected 95% for the general population. That fine print can be a royal bitch.
The greater the number and/or the severity of known personal risk factors is important to take into account individually. Gulfgal is spot on in her approach. I'm sure living the life of the past year is any fun but it seems to me to be quite prudent.
Rigorous protective measures like she is following are important. So is environment. We moved to the Andes just over 39 months ago. Before moving I would have 3-6 colds, 3 or more sinus infections (I don't think we every really killed the bastard), had developed skin allergies that kept me inside most of the year (busting out in hives simply walking outside sucks no end), and I still have my tonsils. I was never well enough as a kid to have them removed. I got Cat Scratch Fever, yeah it's a thing you don't want, in January 1983 that caused the lymph node under my right arm to balloon up to 5 cm x 3 cm x 2 cm that required two needle aspirations yielding almost 130 ml of blood and pus. It had been gravelly and somewhat enlarged ever since. Hiding from hives and bad eating habits resulted in far more weight gain that I should have ever had on my frame.
All of those have been gone since June of 2018, five month after arriving in Cuenca. I haven't had a cold or a sinus infection since I got here. A couple of intestinal bugs have disrupted my tranquility but that's it. Clean air and water, better food, better habits including learning to walk miles at 9000', and the elimination of the shit in manufactured food also cost me almost 40# off my fat American ass. I feel better than I did 20+ years ago. No point really. Just saying.
"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..."
That is awesome, guy!
Wish i could move into your 'hood.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
No, it can't be stopped, but...
Yes, this (these?) are likely to be endemic, but normally the appropriate reaction would be 'so, what?'.
This time, it could be different because there is no precedent for the response - use of mass vaccination in the course of a pandemic - and there is at least a possibility that the response itself could drive the development of hotter strains that would otherwise have no evolutionary path to continued survival. (see Marek Virus PBS, 2015)
If the virus were spreading but not causing deaths or other serious damage it wouldn't make much difference if it spread or not, no?
There is evidence though, although censorship makes it difficult to find, even if you are motivated to look - of clear benefit from the use of available medicines as therapeutics in reducing the severity and mortality of Covid infection. Or even - with Ivermectin as prophylaxis - of preventing infection in the first place.
Why do people not question why there is been such active disinterest by the medical establishment in *treating* the disease in its early in its early stages? Dr. Peter McCullough of Texas A&M medical school essentially says that the failure to prioritize early treatment and to explore off-label use of existing medicines *even after they have been shown effective* has almost certainly led to tens, if not hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths in the US alone.
Very difficult to find the video of his April testimony before a hearing of the Health and Human Services Committee of the Texas State Senate. Can't embed, but it is available here on banned.video
McCullough (PubMed link to his 500+ publications here) also states flatly that there is no medical justification for vaccines to treat this disease.
Youtube keeps removing videos of the testimony of Dr. Peter Kory before the Senate Homeland Security Committee in December regarding therapeutics and Ivermectin, in particular. Wonder who benefits from our being 'protected' from such off-narrative influence?
This (somewhat shortened version) is still up there for the moment:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C293FxZBK9w]
Full video and much further information from the FLCCC Alliance here
A snarky negative "fact check" of Ivermectin claims from AP here
and a comprehensive analysis and response to AP's BS at trialsitenews.com
Also recommend this presentation by Dr. Byram Bridle - professor of Viral Immunology Guelph University, Canada. Although he is involved in Covid vaccine development himself he highlights potentially serious unknowns with the current vaccines and potentially serious problems with how they are being employed - and how the virus will respond.
Transcript, with most of the slides he uses in the presentation is available on Dryburgh.com
Or watch the whole thing here (until people do start watching and Youtube takes it down...)
A young colleague
lost his mother to Covid last weekend. So that takes my personal death toll among close friends and extended family to 7: 2 due to not going to the hospital when they should have for heart problems at the height of the initial pandemic, and 5 later on due to direct effects of the disease itself- all 5 died by drowning, while on a ventilator.
On the good side, I now have at least 13 friends and relatives who have had the disease and recovered: 11 recovered completely, one recovered to 90% after a week on the vent and a month on supplemental O2, and the last one looks to be a long-hauler and is still on supplemental O2 and long-term disability nearly a year into it (now age 35).
Funny thing about the coworker's mom- we were the same age. Her birthday was within a week of mine. So I'm glad that my wife and I now have our two jabs on board- but we're not planning on doing anything differently for the foreseeable future. It's not going to get any easier.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
As we get vaccinated we encourage more aggressive strains
We have 6,876,364 people currently infected in the US. They are producing trillions of Sars-Cov-2 viruses, mutating like crazy. All they need is a large population with some immunity from the current strain either from previous infection or from vaccination. It's just evolution. We have had about 32 million people infected, including myself and my wife who were meticulously careful. That's less than 10% of the US population , but a nice size to breed resistant strains. Likewise 85,365,180 Americans have been fully vaccinated, or 25.7 percent of the country's population as of April 19. Not nearly enough for herd immunity but a really nice size to evolve new, resistant, more contagious strains.
So how do you avoid this? You minimize the total current infections before vaccination, for instance China has reported 311 active cases in a population of 1.4 billion people. There really is no alternative to what China has been doing. The other possibility is to manufacture enough vaccines for the entire population and administer at once. Hardly seems practical and runs contrary to the whole strategy of vaccinating as many as possible as fast as possible.
Current thinking is that we will need a booster every 6 to 12 months including new strains. That means that we are going to have to do much better than the heroic 9 months to develop the current vaccines.
The State Department is discouraging travel to the rest of the world, even if you have had Covid-19 or the vaccine. They cite the facts that you still can get the disease, but also you might bring back new strains. Actual efficacy pf the current strain is about 90% in real life experience, not the 95% as claimed by the manufacturers. From what I can see, the test subjects were self reporting Covid, and were not being regularly tested. When tested once a week the number goes down to 90%. So if you have 100 people in a restaurant and a Covid positive person walks in and distributes his viruses through the HVAC system, then he will spread it to 10 people.
Let's just hope that we don't get a new strain that is both more contagious and has a higher CFR, case fatality rate. For instance, Covid CFR seems to be between 2 and 3 percent, whereas really fatal viruses are around 30-50 percent.
In any event we are doing everything wrong and relying on luck vs. evolution. My money is on evolution.
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.