Posted on 04/16/2020 5:39:12 AM PDT by Liberty7732
It’s looking more like the experts got the handling of COVID-19 wrong. Maybe really wrong.
In analyzing the data from countries who took dramatically different measures in response to COVID-19, from the most severe restrictions to very few restrictions (countries that keep and share good data, not China or Iran) it appears they are all showing essentially the same spread, spikes, flattening and decline. This includes Sweden and others that did not shutdown.
The same phenomenon is playing out among individual states in the U.S. Some went into Stalinist lockdowns (Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer) while others never locked down at all and only encouraged social distancing (South Dakota Gov. Krist Noem.) Florida technically did a lockdown, very “late” as Gov. Ron DeSantis is constantly lectured, but even then DeSantis exempted so much it was really not much different than the voluntary social distancing. And Florida’s numbers, which were supposed to be the next hotspot after New York, are tracking ballpark with those that took the most draconian measures.
So again, as with nations, the states are at different timeframes on the graphs, but all looking very similar in a timeframe to timeframe comparison — similar to each other and, this is critical, similar to previous coronavirus outbreaks. That’s a head-scratcher.
Another data set is adding to the suspicions.
Denmark, Scotland and Germany have done thorough antibody testing in specific locals and found infection rates between 12 and 27 times higher than they thought and models had projected. And a majority of the people were either asymptomatic or had very mild symptoms. This means that the death rate might be wildly lower than is currently suggested, as low as 0.2 percent — which would be very near to the normal flu. It could be close to 1 percent, but that is seeming less likely now, and still way below the 3.4 percent the World Health Organization put out that was used in the Imperial College projections of death totals.
“Many magnitudes more people have been infected with it than we realized,” Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor of medicine at Stanford university, said on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show. “That means the death rate is lower than we thought, by orders of magnitude.”
It’s important to remember that because it is so contagious, the overall numbers may be higher, but then they may not be because of how quickly the peak is reached and the downside starts — much faster than anticipated even with the full lockdowns. Again, that is according to the models.
None of this was jiving with what the experts had said.
And then journalist John Solomon interviewed Dr. Knut Wittkowski, a biomedical researcher, statistician and modeler at Rockefeller University in New York, on his Just The News podcast. And a lot of bewilderment came into clarity. The numbers began making sense if, IF, Wittkowski is right.
First off, he is obviously an expert, but he also is a major outlier among the expert class. However, he mentions in the interview that more and more of his colleagues are agreeing with him and his bottom line, to wit: We not only did not need to shut down economies, we should not have. We may have made it worse by creating a second wave — which coronaviruses in the past did not have.
Wittkkowski said the first big mistake was closing the schools. If they had been left open, it would have gone through the children, who are least affected by the virus, and their parents, who also have low impacts from it. That’s a big way towards herd immunity of 60-70 percent. And the people who are vulnerable to it should stay away from children for the duration, which is a few months.
He said the threat continues to be for the elderly and those with underlying health conditions — something we’ve known almost from the beginning. In that way, he said it is just like all of the previous respiratory viruses such as MERS and SARS. They all differ some in both contagiousness and fatality rate, but the similarities are strong.
Here’s the key: Wittkowski said the shut down probably did not slow the spread because herd immunity would have started kicking in now, or soon, as has been the case in the previous coronavirus outbreaks. However, by truncating the opportunity for herd immunity, we have set ourselves up for the feared “second wave” — something that did not happen in previous coronaviruses because we did not prevent herd immunity with the shutdown.
If Wittkowski is right, at least to some degree, these shutdowns may well have destroyed the strongest economy in history and ultimately made the virus impact worse. That would be a failing of the expert class in truly epic fashion.
Now I do not blame politicians from either party without more information. They relied on experts and did what they were told they should do. DeSantis and some other governors pushed back, but the pressure was great. However, I do blame the experts and the media’s near idolatry of the expert class. Just do what they say!
In reality, we will know by probably mid fall if the expert class made a colossal mistake. And if so, a lot of heads should roll, because mistakes of this magnitude cannot be tolerated.
Not a random sample, not a controlled experiment, but evidence nonetheless. You have a large “vulnerable” population and every single individual was infected and remained asymptomatic.
This is not the Spanish Flu.
” In the future when we have a REAL health crisis, no one will listen.”
They just demonstrated that their hired help don’t give a damn about your rights. They’ll use guns.
Everyone now knows that the data-less mathematical models built by the pretend “mathematicians” at the CDC proved to be worse than useless, predicting millions of deaths, then hundreds of thousands, then . . . who knows. Nevertheless, D.C. always worships “models” and numbers regardless of how truthful they are — as long as they can be used to “justify” more power, money, and control over our lives by D.C.
Even the surgeon general, a careerist “public” health bureaucrat, has condemned the CDC models as essentially useless. He now boats that his decisions are now based on real data, not contrived mathematical models constructed by the same kinds of ideological leftist fanatics who create all those bogus “climate change models.” But his “data” are every bit as useless as the CDC models, as anyone who has been paying any attention knows. It is now widely known that the CDC has explicitly instructed all doctors to falsify death certificates by labeling the cause of death COVID-19 even if the deceased suffered from numerous other diseases such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, kidney disease, tuberculosis, etc., as long as it is “surmised” (not even proven with a blood test) that he or she also had coronavirus in his or her system. My guess is that the real number of deaths from COVID-19 is probably less than one third of the reported number, if that. Even the reported number is still less than deaths from the seasonal flu this year as reported by the CDC itself.
Evidence of how the novel coronavirus affects street bums. As a vulnerable population they've survived every infectious disease that has come along, with minimal if any medical care and living in unsanitary conditions; natural selection ensures that live bums are the hardiest people around.
Math is kind of hard for you?
A lot of people didn’t listen this time and still aren’t listening.
The successful containment of Ebola, SARS, MERS, and the management of the less lethal H1N1 left many people claiming this was a hoax. Never mind that all of the above were real threats that were managed.
Many are still in denial.
If we manage this, they will say the next pandemic is a hoax too.
It was the only way to beat Trump in 2020.
In 10 days, at that rate, it will have caught up.
Not particularly hardy, street bums have an appalling mortality rate. Their bodies are already overstressed by the their life style. The last thing they need is a virus.
Very interesting read.
1. “If I hear the name Jay Bhattacharya one more time I will vomit.” Go ahead. I have no idea who in the h Jay Bhattacharya is.
2. “Normal seasonal flu kills 30,000 per year in the US.” No. The average of the last to seasons together is closer to 48,000, and has been as high as 61,000 (2017-2018 season).
3. “But more than .1% of New York City has already died of Covid19 - 10,000 out of 9 million!. A. Wrong. Maybe you lumped all of NY state into NYC. B. National averages always include locals that have higher than average rates and lower than average rates, and they often relate to population density. C. Just because a locale has a higher rate than is expected for a national average does not make using the national average wrong. With NYC’s population density its expected rate of the seasonal flu itself is higher than a national average, on a per million population basis. Communicable diseases move faster in more densely populated places. That does not make them the standard to use, nor does it make national averages wrong.
“All kidding aside, I see lots of people around here with no protection in the grocery. Most of the old folks are wearing masks.”
I’ve been seeing the same. I often hit HEB after my chemo and radiation treatments and the majority of the younger folks aren’t bothering with masks.
Old farts like me are masked up with at least a bandanna or a crap home made mask. Very few have a top grade N95 or equivalent mask.
What I see most is the fear and oppressive atmosphere around me. People are scuttling around head down and shoulders hunched like they’re waiting for a blow to fall. Not what you expect from everyday Texans!
Texans smile a lot and shake hands a lot. That’s the culture and the history. Take that away and things change pretty drastically and not for the better.
30,000 is an old number. The CDC counted over 70,000 flu deaths in 2018-2019, and around 80,000 in 2017-2018.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/past-seasons.html
Deaths Range Death/ symptomatic case
Season Estimate 95% U I
2010-2011 37,000 (32,000 – 51,000) 0.176%
2011-2012 12,000 (11,000 – 23,000) 0.129%
2012-2013 43,000 (37,000 – 57,000) 0.126%
2013-2014 38,000 (33,000 – 50,000) 0.127%
2014-2015 51,000 (44,000 – 64,000) 0.170%
2015-2016 23,000 (17,000 – 35,000) 0.096%
2016-2017 38,000 (29,000 – 61,000) 0.131%
Preliminary estimates*
2017-2018* 61,000 (46,000 – 95,000) 0.136%
2018-2019* 34,157 (26,339, 52,664) 0.096%
Average . . . .37,462 . . . . . . . . . . 0.132%
street bums have an appalling mortality rate.
Which supports my statement that the ones who survive are hardy.
“2500 people died from Coronavirus yesterday in the US, but 30,000 died of the flu each year. Not even close.”
Not a true statement. The accuracy of the CDC annual flu numbers is very questionable and is based on estimates that have a range of double from low to high. They are nowhere near as accurate as the death numbers for this virus, which probably do err on the high side for people who would have died in the normal 8,000 per day death rate in the US.
The worst flu year (17-18) had a tally from two non CDC sources of 15,600 deaths for that flu season. My take is our count now is closer to the way that count was made ( see Fluvu numbers ).
When this is over the US Covid 18 death total will be close to 50,000, and more than a third will have been over 65 with other issues. It will have been the worst world-wide illness to date, but not the one predicted from the early Italian and NYC numbers.
The left will issue blame numbers and try to dump Trump while using the virus to refinance the top 8 0r 9 states that were hit the hardest; those being all Denocratic strongholds. The rest will have to pay from a very weak economy.
“But more than .1% of New York City has already died of Covid19 - 10,000 out of 9 million!”
Umm...10,000 ÷ 9,000,000 = 0.0011. Thats .11%. Even with the giant blue text.
98% survival = 2% death.
At the 50% confidence level, survival rates are greater than 99.5%.
I think many people assume that “experts in government” are cream of the crop. They most certainly are not. The actual top dog experts do NOT work in government. The best-of-the-best work exclusively in private industry, for lots more money.
I’ve worked with “experts” at the NIH. Top dogs there. They were just average at best. One project, doing cutting edge research on MRI’s at Hopkins, privately funded, had several REAL top dogs on it. They all, without exception, laughed at the guys at the NIH, who were a short drive away. They were, and are, a joke, to real scientists. We had to deal with the NIH guys, as regulations required their signoff on certain aspects. Arrogant, little Kings, kiss the ring crap. Little big shots making 1/10th what the actual science guys pulled in.
Fauci and Brix may be experts in the government, but they wouldn’t last a month in private industry, even working in their field on projects targeted at their expertise. They may get accolades, and high praise from other government people and the media, but that closed world isn’t where the real science guys hang out.
There are at least 100 actual experts, brilliant people, in private industry or high academic positions (who get $ from private industry, on their boards) that are so much better in their field than Fauci and Brix. Those two clowns are mediocre, at best.
He actually did?
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