I need to sell these scientists my new book.
Posted on 11/28/2022 4:50:06 AM PST by MtnClimber
I need to sell these scientists my new book.
It happens
Gee what could is possibly be??
Indeed rates are high and low, comparatively. And yet, all the "rates" are lost when compared to the average death rate for a society / nation / people. In that frame, "Covid death rates" are indeed small throughout. It is amusing that, even so, the "rate" for the US is so much higher than South Africa in particular and sub-Saharan Africa in general.
I place this all within the larger frame of the thread, "Medical ‘experts’ struggle to explain...." For almost three years beginning with those few Chinese videos showing people simply dropping dead in the street, we have see "medical experts" say so much. And now they struggle? :)
Also higher median age, but much lower than the US:
Higher cumulative death rate than most of Africa, but much lower than US:
So, SA is a bit less like the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, and a wee bit more like the US. It's more developed than the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, but less developed than the US.
This article is mostly just a rehash of that article that was repeatedly posted here on FR last year. The headline is clickbaitish. "Experts" were and are not "mystified" or "confused". They find it interesting and are curious about it, and have offered various plausible theories.
And the article makes a wrong assumption here: "I have yet to see an establishment source mention the high rate of use of Ivermectin in Africa to fight parasites as a possible source of protection against Covid infection or severity."
As I have proven, there is not a "high rate of use of ivermectin in Africa". In those areas where it is used to combat river blindness and/or elephantiasis, it is taken once, sometimes twice per year, and then only a single dose, sometimes a five-day course for river blindness. There is no correlation between the areas where ivermectin is taken and Covid deaths or severity at all. When used for roundworms, it's a single dose one-and-done deal.
I know many here on FR really believe in ivermectin, but one has to look elsewhere for proof it actually works. Africa ain't it.
‘It is not “just a cold”
sure it is; ‘just a cold’ in the past has killed a lot of people who were poorly prepared to suffer upper respiratory virii...it’s no superbug allowing tyrants to further chain their citizens, it’s simply another repiratory complication that ‘could’ become lethal...
don’t make it something it isnt...
I might add, those who didn’t die in early childhood probably have a very active immune system. Without sounding too cynical, maybe the scarcity of doctors might have helped.
I have seen all these graphs and graphics so you're preaching to the choir. I made no argument for a drug. I am uninterested in the various drugs per se, and in my part in our exchange have merely noted that the actual mortality rates are what they are. Subsaharan Africa's is less than South Africa's, which is significantly lower than the United States. So the Covid policies and recommendations of the US players have a factor -- I suspect a large factor -- in the US doing so poorly compared to so many "poor" nations.
Citing rates of diabetes and obesity within the overall frame of SARS CoV2 seems not enough to consider this all a true pandemic -- with a worldwide mortality rate of 0.0836 percent mortality rate over almost three years -- which declares that Covid has been in these same last 35 months 99.916 percent survivable. Such hysteria as has been generated and the economic destruction wrought by Covid lockdowns -- not lockdowns over obesity or diabetes -- are a scandal. Probably as time goes by a crime of racketeering worldwide.
Oh, I did not intend to imply you were an ivermectin fan at all. I was commenting on the article. It seemed to me the author had dug up that old article about Africa so he could jump on the ivermectin bandwagon. It’s become ridiculously political.
You are preaching to the choir about the lockdowns, overreaction, etc. I could not agree more. More harm than good.
As to lockdowns and gaslighting, "more harm than good" is an inadequate though often used phrase. I would argue "all harm and NO good."
Yes, it was handled very badly, here and worldwide.
There is much disagreement on Covid deaths. Whatever, the case fatality rate at the beginning was supposedly 0.9%, way higher than flu’s typical 0.1%. Now, Omicron numbers are still argued, with some claiming it’s as high as 0.6% while others say it’s about like the flu at 0.1%.
It was initially predicted to be much higher — remember the scramble for ventilators? The gurneys lined up in hospital hallways with the patients lying on them dying of Covid?
Recall how at first Trump was criticized for travel bans, called racist? How Pelosi encouraged people to join the crowds celebrating Chinese New Year? Then Trump was criticized for not placing earlier and stricter travel bans? This thing was so politicized from the get-go. And it’s only got worse.
It turned out the hospitalization and fatality rates were not as high as predicted, but our hospitals were still strained, and many died. Patients in nursing homes were dying in alarming numbers.
I can’t really fault those in charge at the very, very beginning, other than those who sent Covid patients to nursing homes. This was a new disease, the news out of China was horrifying, no vaccine, no cure.
Once it became apparent that Covid was very dangerous for the elderly, the obese, those with diabetes, etc., but only somewhat worse than flu for young healthy people, yes, policies should have changed and the lockdowns should have ended. Absolutely.
So why didn’t they? The majority of Americans wanted them. Blame Fauci and Birx and the media, sure, but that was the reality. This was true worldwide, too. Yes, bureaucrats and politicians seized an opportunity to become more powerful, but at the same it was popular.
Had our leaders been brave enough to go against popular opinion and ended the lockdowns very soon, yes, we would be far better off. We would still have supply chain problems because China and the rest of the world locked down, however.
It looks like the extended lockdowns caused more deaths than had they been stopped much earlier. People not visiting their doctors, their chronic diseases not being properly monitored, new diseases including cancer going undiagnosed until it was too late, cancer treatments and surgeries delayed, and on and on. There is still a backlog for needed surgeries, cancer screenings, etc. The left does not want to talk about this, and don’t. The most vocal on the right blame every illness and death on the “€lot $hots”, never the outrageous lockdowns and policies.
So, are we doing a rational “lessons learned” assessment of how it all went wrong? Nope.
Here on FR, there is much sound and fury over imaginary ingredients in the vaccines (itty bitty razor blades, parasites, snake venom, etc.) and people who supposedly “died suddenly” (even if the person died after a terrible fall on slippery rocks or overdosed on fentanyl). No one is interested in the real scandals.
The extended lock downs and the harm they caused should be more discussed here and in our media, but ... not happening. Not even conservative media.
Things we really need to change are rarely brought up. For example, our reliance on China for essential goods including pharmaceuticals and PPE. No one seems interested. Even here on FR. I posted repeatedly about the shortage of blood vials (not enough to go around for needed blood tests) this year, but no one was interested. They are only interested in the “bio weapon vax”.
No one seems interested in stopping gain of function research or banning outsourcing of dicey research to countries like China. No one seems interested in stopping our sharing of dual-use research and technology with China and other questionable countries.
So, here we are. Everything has become totally politicized. The left is nuts. So is much of the right, who would rather rail about imaginary ingredients in vaccines (vaccines hardly anyone is getting any longer anyway) than the very real dangers and problems we could and should do something about.
It’s all nuts.
I post below that which I posted to another thread after another article this day. It allies equally to our discussion.
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--- "More than 300 people are still dying each day on average from covid-19, most of them 65 or older, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...roughly two to three times the rate at which people die of the flu... Today, nearly 9 in 10 covid deaths are in people 65 or older — the highest rate ever, according to a Washington Post analysis of CDC data." A little simple arithmetic to place the prose into a manageable frame:
( "300 people are still dying each day" x 365 days in a year ) = 109,500 as a year's estimate per the CDC and Washington Post.
Worldometer tallies the US population at 335,665,703 as of today. About one percent per year die as is easily observed. ( 1.027 percent according to the CDC.)
Source: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm
( 335,665,703 US population x .01027 ) = 3,447,287 deaths per year in the US. Naturally, so to speak, from all causes. Placing the CDC/WaPo prose into the larger frame, then:
( 109,500 mostly elderly "Covid" deaths / 3,447,287 all-cause deaths ) x 100 = 3.18 percent Covid deaths estimated through "official" data and reporting.
Note the verbiage. "Plague of the elderly." Given the inadequacy of the tests, the reporting and the factors of rating co-morbidities, the larger picture suggests that some gaslighting is going on.
If 3.18 percent is a "plague," what is the remaining 96.82 percent? A mere mention in the article? Actually NO mention at all.
Given that "% of Population receiving at least 1 dose - 81.18%," then "the plague of the elderly" is likely ALSO a plague of the elderly who are injected with mRNA experimental therapies.
Source: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/united-states
Therefore, the "plague of the elderly" must include about four out of five who have been injected with a "safe and effective" experimental mRNA therapy, making the "plague of the elderly" about 80 percent "safe and effective."
Effective at what, exactly?
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CatHerd, as a PS to this, I add that there has NEVER been "informed consent" throughout this event, and none seems in the offing. As you said most aptly, "It's all nuts."
As the Lancet study showed, the vaccines stopped being effective at all in the elderly 120 days out:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8816388/
So it’s no surprise they are dying of Omicron. It’s horrible and sad, but not a huge surprise.
The flu disproportionately kills the elderly, too:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/spotlights/2018-2019/hopitalization-rates-older.html
There has been much argument about Covid death figures and about excess deaths. It’s all become so politicized that if somehow perfectly accurate figures could be produced with incontrovertible evidence to back them up, no one would believe them and everyone would just keep on arguing.
I am staunchly against mandates. I do not think anyone should be forced to get vaccinated, especially when the vaccine is issued under EUA rather than after the usual decade + testing. I think there are legitimate reasons to be concerned. I have not been vaccinated myself.
Contrary to a very vocal faction on FR, however, I don’t think the vaccines are “bio weapons” meant to kill us off.
We have not been injected with the mRNA products. From my olive drab days, I have experienced plenty of vaccines. I agree with those who suggest the mRNA products are not vaccines in the decades-long sense, definitions having been since tailored to the sometimes devastating con / racketeering "events" -- plural -- since now these same companies want carte blanche to rush more mRNA products to market under EUA tricks.
A very high mortality rate virus would not have a pandemic now nearing its fourth year, for the killing off of hosts would have occurred too quickly. As repeated, the mortality rate for this "event" focus is a meager 0.0836 percent mortality rate based on three years of official data.
As a pandemic cause or a bio-weapon, the mortality rate of this defeats both suppositions. What awaits then is the begin to tally the "costs" in injury and death of these mRNA products and the idiotic lockdowns cheered on by the ChiComs and Fauci and his ilk.
“with a worldwide mortality rate of 0.0836 percent “
What gets left out of these discussions is what data was available to compare Covid-19 with at the beginning before its own mortality rate was known.
C-19 is a SARS virus and there is only one other known SARS outbreak, 2002-2003. That one had a mortality rate of 9%. The other similar virus was MERS in 2015, that one had a death rate of over 30%.
In light of those numbers the reaction of the medical field in early 2020 looks a whole lot less hysterical. They had no way to know what C-19 mortality rates would be. And the early reports coming out of Italy and China were far from encouraging.
Excellent points, Pelham. The case fatality rate was calculated as being much higher at the very outset of the outbreak as well:
*****
For example, the COVID-19 fatality rate for China (without correction for the upward bias inherent in looking at observed rates) was initially reported to be 5.6 percent (95% CI, 5.4–5.8).23 By February 20, 2020, however. the crude fatality rate for China was estimated to be 3.8 percent.24 The fatality rate outside China was estimated to be 15.2 percent (95% CI, 12.5–17.9),23 which may be due to the more considerable upward bias during the beginning part of the pandemic within a country. The same patterns occur in the United States, with observed rates being much higher during the initial part of the pandemic. A recent estimate of the CFR using individual-level data from Wuhan residents and from international Wuhan residents who repatriated on six flights found it to range from 0.66 percent to 1.4 percent.
https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00455
*****
Again, I don’t fault the initial reaction to the Covid outbreak. Based on the previous SARS outbreaks and initial CFR estimates, it appeared far more dire than it turned out to be. The lockdowns went on way too long, though, in my opinion.
China now experiencing “record numbers” of Covid cases. Why? I recall how they bragged their draconian lockdowns had “worked” and gleefully claimed they had come out better from Covid than the rest of the world, bwahahaha. It was obnoxious, but was it true? It is impossible to get anything approaching reliable statistics out of China. As for the current outbreak (if you can believe China):
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-63739617
I cannot stand Paul Krugman and disagree with much in this piece, but he does have a few points:
The bits where I think he may have a point:
“China’s leaders, however, seem to have believed that lockdowns could permanently stomp out the coronavirus, and they have been acting as if they still believe this even in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence.”
“At the same time, China utterly failed to develop a Plan B. Many older Chinese — the most vulnerable group — still aren’t fully vaccinated. China has also refused to accept foreign-made vaccines without unreasonable conditions that were rejected by the manufacturers, even though its homegrown vaccines, which don’t use mRNA technology, are less effective than the shots the rest of the world is getting.”
“Not only have many of the most vulnerable Chinese remained unvaccinated or received inferior shots, but because the coronavirus has been suppressed, few Chinese have natural immunity, and the nation also has very few intensive care beds, leaving it without the capacity to deal with a Covid surge.”
How The Economist tallies excess deaths worldwide:
Would you care to support your assertions with sources? I fidn them assertions wildly incorrect.
Maybe they don’t live that long
Here ya go:
“The World Health Organization (WHO) today estimated the overall fatality rate for SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) patients at 14% to 15%, significantly higher than previous estimates. The agency estimated the rate for people older than 64 years to be more than 50%.”
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2003/05/estimates-sars-death-rates-revised-upward
“From April 2012 till October 2022, a total of 2600 laboratory-confirmed cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) were reported globally, with 935 associated deaths at a case-fatality ratio (CFR) of 36%. The majority of these cases were reported from Saudi Arabia, with 2193 cases and 854 related deaths (CFR: 39%).”
https://www.emro.who.int/health-topics/mers-cov/mers-outbreaks.html
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