Posted on 04/05/2020 3:56:58 AM PDT by Kaslin
Predicting the future is a tough racket. If people were any good at it, we’d all be multiple lottery winners. Since we aren’t, that’s a pretty good indication that we have the ability to guess what will happen, but possess no clairvoyance. That brings us to today, when the country and the world are shut down over what is expected to happen with the coronavirus. Like everything else, the predictions aren’t panning out. Were this just $2 wasted on a lottery ticket it wouldn’t matter. But are we hurting millions of people and spending trillions of dollars on nothing more than a hunch based on computer models that are wildly inaccurate?
There’s no question the coronavirus is deadly and dangerous, but is it going to kill hundreds of thousands in the US and millions around the world? We have no idea. All we have are guesses. But if you’re going to destroy the economy and severely restrict people’s lives, you’d better have some damn good information backing up your actions. There are questions about the computer models being used to impose just that.
One prominent model in the shutdown is from the University of Washington, from their Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), funded by Bill and Melinda Gates. How closely does what they predicted track with reality so far? Turns out, not so well.
While the reporting data from some states are lagging, others have provided information that calls into question the validity of the whole model, and with it, all the actions taken by government.
On April 4th, for example, the IHME model predicted there would be between 120,963 and 203,436 Americans requiring hospitalization, with the average of that range being 164,745. In reality, there were 18,998.
Before your jaw goes through the floor, it must be noted that not all states have reported their numbers, so the actual total is incomplete. The largest states have reported, so the missing numbers from places like Kansas or even Michigan will add to that total, but still will not get it anywhere near the projections.
That’s just hospitalizations, when it comes to intensive care beds, the difference between the projections and reality show an equally large gap. The average projected ICU beds needed on April 4th was 31,057; the reality was 4,686. That’s across the country, not just New York. Even after factoring in the caveats about missing states, that’s a miss akin to swinging and striking out on a pickoff to second base.
So what other models are federal and state authorities using that justify the actions they’ve taken? The simple, horrifying answer is we just don’t know. The government isn’t sharing their models and data with the public, which is odd.
Mitigation efforts like social distancing and the like may be a factor, but these models supposedly took that into consideration.
Are the modelers making assumptions based on the horrific numbers out of places like Italy? That doesn’t make much sense when you consider the difference between our countries – quality of care, number of ICU beds, average age of citizens, etc.
As of this writing, there are 7,810 deaths in the United States attributed to the pandemic. More than 7,000 Americans die every single day, on average, of everything. Over the course of this pandemic, this has amounted to a noticeable but still mild uptick above that average over the course of it. Add to that the directive from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to count any death tangentially related to COVID-19, and you have to wonder if that number actually holds. That directive reads, “COVID-19 should be reported on the death certificate for all decedents where the disease caused or is assumed to have caused or contributed to death.” (The emphasis in bolding is theirs.)
So what is going on? Where is the truth? Are we on the verge of a massive crush of cases and deaths, or are we destroying ourselves over the equivalent of tarot card reading gone wrong? I don’t know, but I do know we need answers and we need them now.
If we had a media capable of doing their jobs, Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx would be pressed on all of this, hard, at the White House daily briefing. Since we don’t, we get Jim Acosta pulling months old quotes from President Trump attempting a “gotcha” moment that CNN’s audience and Jim’s ego craves. So-called journalists are attacking Fox News for allegedly spreading misinformation, even though they were sounding warning bells back in January, while the rest of the media were busy calling the president a racist for banning travel from China and wasted a week arguing with Republicans over how it was supposedly racist to point out a virus that originated in China originated in China.
Predicting the future is near-impossible. Shutting down a planet based on predictions is crazy, especially when the predictions aren’t coming true in real-time. If in the next week, these numbers from the models don’t start to jive with reality, President Trump needs to seriously consider not only reopening the country but also firing everyone involved in advising him based on those models. If they do start to line up, then may God have mercy on everyone.
Coronavirus is serious and deadly, especially to vulnerable people, but just how serious and deadly is one of many questions we need an answer to, and we need it now.
YES.
About 7,000 die a day in the US under circumstances other than the new virus. When they give the number of deaths now, are they strictly from the virus? Who is giving the numbers and can that number be trusted.
Could they.. the left... use this for the coming election .. hoping they can work what they could not do in 4 years.
Folks, what you are told by government is always wrong. If you saw how data is manipulated or even worse, distorted by incompetence, by the people who work in government, you would understand my initial statement.
JoMa
I am a senior and living long enough, we learn things.. and this is not real.. this is not what it seems.. this is not to shut our country down. If it were not for the internet, there would be no shut down.. people would deal with whatever it is... but we live in an instant world today and it’s making us go off half cocked....
Excellent piece. This C math student looked at the numbers from Italy and just could not square them with the huge body counts in their projections. Now even the experts have scaled back to 80-90K.
If we had real journalists they’d be asking hard questions of Birx and Fauci. Instead they just aim gotchas at Trump.
Could all of this not be solved, and the economy restarted, with massive, ongoing testing?? Or would that solution make too much sense? Where the hell are the test kits?
How do you know?
Making this more deadly is the rat governors and mayors of states. Opening jails, not arresting criminals, withholding medications that may work, overloading hospitals to use as political fodder while makeshift hospitals and boats remain empty. The entire country now is getting daily news on gov and mayors of different states and their antics. We are finding out how corrupt, criminal, incompetent, deliberately ill prepared, and inept most are and in many cases downplaying the seriousness at the onset of this virus by telling their citizens its just a normal flu continue your daily lives. They are NAGANIZING this event, remember what mayor nagan did to bush during the hurricane, he and the media hung this around his neck like a burning tire
Not QUITE the right question…
IF What We’re Being Told About The Coronavirus Pandemic is Wrong; how would we know?
And this does NOT count the almost 3,000 a day from CHOICE!
Seems to me at this time this game the Rats are playing is extremely dangerous. The guy who taught me how to place the caps in Gelignite smoke Pall Malls. Non stop. Freaked me the F out. He said, “Relax.”
“Figures don’t lie, but liars figure”
“More than 7,000 Americans die every single day, on average, of everything. Over the course of this pandemic, this has amounted to a noticeable but still mild uptick above that average over the course of it.”
How mild; How noticeable?
Could they be double counting a cause of death?
The lower than projected numbers mean that the control measures are effective, not that they are unnecessary.
The projections always assume no control measures in place.
Public health efforts are geared towards testing those who may have been exposed; what further information could you get from testing every person regardless of risk status? And it is not cheap to make or perform the tests.
The low numbers show, that even with the CDC promoting padding the number, this is Nothing like the hype
Ii was taught, when you assume you make an ass out of u and me.
When all else fails, look at it with thought and sense... knowing the government has lied to us for years and they spent the last 4 years trying everything they can think of to get the control back...
and the people.. they can’t control the people who voted for Trump and who will vote for him again in Nov... all they want is control... absolute control.. watch what they do with this virus..
I think, given past dire circumstances in our country, we are acting like we are scared and they keep feeding it with how bad it will get... Trump is between the death count and the country’s economy.... it’s a better trap from the left than impeachment was..
We’ve been receiving information developed for children in order to prevent panic. Few people know what it really does to people and how many. But yes, some people know.
Have a look at this chart.
You should be able to see that if we turn everyone loose, things are going to get far uglier. Who would go out shopping for nonessential items and being entertained in indoor groups, if they were to suddenly realize that the virus is more sneaky, insidious and dangerous than an army of snipers?
It’s the disease—not the information. Turn it loose, and it will shut down the economy in more ways. That would apply, even if everyone were silent about it.
Oh, and look at the number of recoveries here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic#Epidemiology
Turning it loose, though, would certainly leave a population with a higher average IQ in the end, however smaller the population would be.
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