Posted on 06/18/2020 9:16:49 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Dr. Richard Cross, PhD, provided us the following information related to the China coronavirus. We have been given his permission to share sections of his report:
When it comes to the COVID-19 event, we have been experiencing a serious case of tunnel vision. As we focus on the day to day increase of COVID-19 things could look pretty grim, but as we take a step back and look at the comparative total mortality here in the US, things aren’t much worse than a bad seasonal flu, like that last seen in 2017-18. If you take the New York City region out of the mix, the rest of the country is cumulatively well within the expected mortality.
The estimated death toll from COVID-19 is on track to exceed 120,000 US deaths in the next few weeks. Yet, the majority of COVID-19 related deaths have been concentrated in the New York/New England region which to date includes nearly 50 percent of all COVID-19 deaths nationwide; the hospitals in this region were strained but not overwhelmed in the middle of April. The coronavirus’ effect on New York City has been especially telling if you examine the departure from expected cumulative mortality trends over the last four years in the CDC fluseason cycle.
We avoid looking at the COVID-19 counts, and rather focus on total mortality (by all causes) since this perspective avoids the diagnostic uncertainty of determining the exact cause of death, and does not rely on sampling problems associated with COVID-19 testing or potentially inflated death estimates from the virus.
This study is brilliant because it takes out the CDC’s confusing directive that stated that all deaths should be counted as coronavirus deaths, even if the cause may have been another condition. By counting all deaths, no matter the cause, we can clearly see the impact of the coronavirus on the nation and based on these results we see that the coronavirus was ‘not much worse than a bad seasonal flu’.
The NYC/NJ contributions to total mortality have been so high that if they are removed from the current total mortality and replaced with levels proportional to those found in the rest of the US, the current total US death toll would be equivalent to the death toll from the 2018 seasonal flu. Even including the NYC/NJ mortality, throughout the entire US, the CDC seasonal cumulative total mortality (death by all causes) for the week 30 of the 2019-2020 flu season is 1,750,703, contrasted with the nearest ‘moderately bad’ CDC flu season of 2017-18 which came in at 1,711,357 total deaths at the same point (week 30) two years earlier. This constitutes a 39k mortality increase, most of which can be accounted for by the New York City area. If the annual mortality inflation of 2 percent per annum is taken into account, total mortality for the current flu season will be marginally beyond the normal expected increase, but well within increases that have been seen in previous flu seasons.
Apart from the New England region, there appear no evident effects/deviations from the main expected increase line for states that locked down early and with more stringent requirements, compared to those who had few lockdown restrictions (e.g., AR, IA, NB, SD, ND, WY.) States who opened sooner, (e.g., FL, TX, and GA) are all similarly situated somewhat beneath the prediction line. By this metric, there is little obvious difference across the entire country except for the Northeast.
The relative impact on total mortality of the COVID-19 event in the New York City region was in a class by itself… NYC is so far outside the mortality space of the other regions that it inhabited a different mortality universe altogether. It is well known that New Jersey experienced a high level of excess mortality, by a factor of 8 times its own expected increase, but yet it was still far below NYC, which is over 6 times greater than anywhere in the country.
The NYC mortality outcome is a strong indicator that powerful additional hazards were operating in New York City region, and it also suggests that the actions by the government on confinement contributed to this “perfect storm.” One of the documented government actions that appears to be a major factor is the forced admission of COVID positive patients into high risk facilities with extreme confinement regimens.
Dr. Cross’s study goes on to suggest that the mortality rates across the nation are not much different in normal years because “the vast majority of COVID-19-related deaths occur in people who from an actuarial perspective would have died this year or soon thereafter from a pre-existing morbidity.” This makes sense because the elderly by a large percent were the ones who died from the coronavirus. If the elderly are proportionally expected to die anyways, the fact that they died from the coronavirus rather than another cause, kept the overall mortality rates similar to other years.
The study concludes that the media was responsible for the fear caused during this time period:
Much of the COVID-19 fear was sustained by media repetition and focus on daily and weekly COVID-19 infection rates and putative COVID-19 mortality that spiked in April. Daily and weekly mortality changes are quite variable, and the COVID-19 mortality estimates are partially confounded with total mortality, whereas cumulative weekly estimates of total mortality are highly regular. The growth pattern for COVID-19 mortality was shown day after day, but it was never placed within the context of the total cumulative mortality, and this gave rise to the impression that all the COVID-19 deaths were in fact directly caused by the disease, along with an additional false impression that the COVID-19 mortality was pushing the total mortality well above average for the year. These impressions turn out to be false.
According to more updated data, US mortalities this year are not materially different from the previous 5 years:
But the media and the CDC and the WHO thought we should shut down the US economy this year based on their brilliant predictions.
(Dr. Rick Cross is a retired university professor, consulting psychologist, and research director in test development.)
Even the government admits that the fatality rate is no more than 1/4 of 1%
“The CDC estimates for planning purposes that the .... overall infection fatality rate of 0.26 percent (as of 20 May).[389][390] “
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic#Deaths
Cuomo, the murderous, incompetent dictator of NY.
Flubros! Flubros ! Flubros !
this is - not surprisingly - not RESONATING with the FakeNewsMSM so far:
18 Jun: NY Post: Gov. Cuomo ignores House call for documents, briefing on nursing home deaths
By Bernadette Hogan
ALBANY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo has refused a request by Congressional Republicans to provide documents and a staff briefing regarding the state’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis in New York State nursing homes.
“The nursing homes, is just pure politics,” Cuomo claimed during a radio interview with WAMC News ‘The Roundtable,’ Thursday afternoon...
On Monday, Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the top Republican on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, sent a letter to Cuomo and five other Democratic governors requesting several categories of documents pertaining to nursing home data.
Scalise and the other GOP congress members that also signed the letters — no Democrats signed on — gave the governors a Thursday deadline to provide information including the total number of COVID-19 positive residents transferred from hospitals to nursing homes during the pandemic and the total number of resident deaths that occurred in hospitals...
The state Health Department stopped publishing that data in May...
Scalise and upstate Rep. Tom Reed (R-Corning) also held a Zoom press conference demanding those documents, arguing decisions made early on in the pandemic by Cuomo’s health commissioner Howard Zucker potentially increased the death toll — now at 6,200 — in nursing homes...
Rich Azzopardi, a Cuomo senior advisor, argued the push from subcommittee Republicans is meaningless without Democratic support.
He also personally attacked Reed, a known-critic of Cuomo.
“Nothing can cover for the fact that specific federal guidelines were issued and followed by more than a dozen states, and that present state law, Section 10 N.Y.C.R.R. Section 415.26 states that a nursing home shall accept and retain only those residents for whom it can provide adequate care – specifically outlawing nursing homes from accepting patients they cannot care for,” he seethed.
https://nypost.com/2020/06/18/cuomo-ignores-house-call-for-docs-briefing-on-nursing-home-deaths/
even Politifact admits Cuomo’s mob are not being truthful!
13 Jun: Politifact: Andrew Cuomo stated on May 20, 2020 in a news conference:
“Why did the state do that with COVID patients in nursing homes? It’s because the state followed President Trump’s CDC guidance.” ...
Our ruling
We rate his statement Mostly False.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jun/13/andrew-cuomo/new-yorks-nursing-home-policy-was-not-line-cdc/
19 Jun: ABC: Nursing homes represent more than 1 in 4 COVID-19 deaths
Nursing homes residents account for nearly 1 in 10 of all the coronavirus cases in the United States and more than a quarter of the deaths
By JUSTIN MYERS and RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR Associated Press
WASHINGTON: Nursing home residents account for nearly 1 in 10 of all the coronavirus cases in the United States and more than a quarter of the deaths, according to an Associated Press analysis of government data released Thursday...
Nationwide, nursing homes reported nearly 179,000 suspected or confirmed cases among residents and 29,497 deaths...
But CMS chief Seema Verma has said that “trying to finger-point and blame the federal government is absolutely ridiculous.” She says nursing homes with poor ratings on infection control are more likely to have high numbers of cases, a claim that academic researchers say they have not been able to substantiate.
Republican lawmakers also have blamed some Democratic governors who issued orders requiring nursing homes to take recovering coronavirus patients. New York rescinded its directive after Gov. Andrew Cuomo faced an outcry...
The AP has previously reported a higher number of 45,500 deaths, but that count incorporates assisted living facilities, not just nursing homes, and includes staff. The federal data reported Thursday is for nursing homes, since CMS does not regulate assisted living facilities...
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/nursing-homes-represent-covid-19-deaths-71333340
not much at Wikipedia - not RESONATING with the editors contributing to Cuomo’s page!
Wikipedia: Andrew Cuomo
Coronavirus response
In 2020, Cuomo received widespread praise from epidemiologists for his handling of the evolving COVID-19 pandemic in New York State, which includes a state-wide lockdown and a shutdown of non-essential businesses in an effort to help flatten the curve of the virus...
On March 25, 2020, Cuomo and the New York State Department of Health issued an advisory requiring the admission of patients to nursing homes who test positive for the coronavirus and barred testing prospective nursing home patients. This order was revoked on May 10 after widespread criticism from medical experts. Over 6,000 New York state nursing home residents have died of COVID as of June 2020...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Cuomo#Controversies
LATER
Just in case you or others are not aware...
USA coronavirus funding for the Wuhan Lab came from NIAID.
Dr. Fauci has been the Director of NIAID for 36 years!
In addition, the Director of the Wuhan Lab was the lead scientist for the “gain of function” research.
As far as I know, Dr. Fauci has never been questioned publicly about this remarkable coincidence.
The economic hurt was and is self inflicted. Shutting down the economy was a hysterical overreaction. Keeping it closed is beyond reason. Time to open up
CHINA MAY BE IN BIG TROUBLE!
Friends, This may be the most timely and IMPORTANT newsletters my friend Larry Klepinger has produced to date. I STRONGLY encourage you to read the entire thing. Larry doesn’t waste time making his points and this one contains some BLOCKBUSTER inside skinny on potentially disastrous events now unfolding in CHINA that you won’t see anywhere else. It took me all of 5 minutes to read this one.
And you might want to share it with friends and loved ones. The info on China gave me new hope that events described MAY cause the communists now destroying that nation much more trouble than we knew.
Thanks and be well and safe. And in the interest of keeping America clean, if ANTIFA or other rioters show up in your neighborhood, please police up your brass!
Click on the link below and scroll down the page to the 6/18 issue at the bottom and click on that link.
https://lawrenceklepinger.com/past-newsletters/
My wife was in our doctor’s office today and he told her that COVID-19 was totally overblown as a threat. And this is a highly respected doctor. He’ll wear a mask if you wear one. If you don’t wear one, he won’t wear his. We’ve had one death in our borough from COVID-19. One death in four months. And our population is over 100,000. That makes it tied for last place for all causes of death during the past four months in our borough.
By his advancement of ‘gain o function’ is not Dr.Fauci Dr.Murderer ?
Hat tip Bill Gates
Of course walked it back rather clumsily
This is important, as well as good news, and I commend the GP for its continued analyses of the situation. That said, there are still important points missing.
1. There are NO actual data on the mortality of seasonal flu - that’s right, NO DATA. The mortality of seasonal flu is based on models, not data, and we all know how bad modelling of illnesses really is.
2. Seasonal flu, at least, has somewhat effective vaccines. Vulnerable populations (I am among them based on my age) can, at least, elect to be vaccinated. That avenue is not available yet for the COVID-19 virus.
3. Though it was discussed in the article, in my view, this was not emphasized enough. Several states REQUIRED sick and contagious patients to be placed in units with vulnerable populations, sometimes even in the same rooms. This, greatly exacerbated the death rate. Just imagine if there were no vaccine available for the seasonal flu, and your state required that contagious flu patients were forced by the state into your home, and mostly vulnerable people lived there! That would be akin to murder.
Ridiculous
The mortality rate of CV is at least ten times that of seasonal flu.
I am not sure what the table at the bottom containing unspecified seasonal deaths is supposed to prove — I guess if we widen the cause of death sufficiently enough anything can be explained away.
Corona Virus is real and it is going to be a part of life for a while. It may not kill you, but if you’re real sensitive and prone to pout every time you see someone wearing a face mask at Piggly Wiggly then you’re going to have a hard time.
I agree, but initially it was driven by the unknown nature of what we were dealing with. The Chinese government was very stealth about the virus, and thus there were a lot of stories about how hundreds of thousands were dying in China, and about how the Chinese government was literally welding the doors of buildings in Wuhan shut - to force quarantine.
Further, as an MD you know that a fair number of patients, particularly early on, were developing ARDS and dying on ventilators. And, although most patients who die are from vulnerable groups, not all are, and healthy young people in their 20s and 30s also died (A fact. I saw some of them.). All of those things contributed to the perception that we were dealing with a uniquely deadly pathogen.
We've also learned a lot over the past several months, and I think we are much better at treating Covid now - including how to treat those patients who do develop a severe systemic inflammatory response.
So, I agree we overreacted, but I understand why. That the left is pushing for further shut-downs is political, and shouldn't happen.
The initial 2 weeks or so of shutdown I understand. I don’t agree but I understand. After that it is criminal and it needs to be stopped now
If what you say "at least ten times" is true, it should show up in the numbers of total deaths by all causes. What this is saying is compared to the 2017-18 flu season 2019-20 is only .3 million deaths worse, (out of approx 2 million). Most of the fear is of death, and that is not born out of this study.
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