Posted on 11/29/2020 8:41:35 AM PST by Hojczyk
It is curious then that governments opposed to the liberal, progressive hegemony, many openly hated by the US MSM, also take this seriously.
Brazil (Bolsonaro), Poland, Hungary (Orban), India (Modi), Singapore, Philippines (Duterte), etc.
They all differ on the measures taken. Some are more extreme than most of the US, some are more lax. But they all acknowledge that this is real.
There are a couple of doctors in Bakersfield, CA that gave a press conference on April 24 saying this is what is happening.
Here is a link to the full video that was yanked by big tech.
Thank you.
After transporting people with serious respiratory ailments to the hospital for 25 years and volunteering and being paid for work at long term care facilities... no one needs to lecture me that this type of ailment is real. My wife is a retired nurse and was a department head at long term multi-level care facilities for decades.
The thing that is not real is the characterization that this ailment is something out of the ordinary or that it is in any way similar to the pandemic in 1918. During our careers we went through other flu seasons that were as bad as last year and this year. One of my wife's primary priorities every year was to make sure those she cared for received their flu shots. Places that she worked for often lost dozens of people during a bad flu season. The difference is that these deaths were not hyped by the media and were not politicized.
I told people here last March that my wife and I had both volunteered and been paid for work that we had done over a period of years at the Life Care Center in Kirkland... I seriously doubt whether you even have any understanding what that means. Since you are so smart you can look it up. While you are at it look up The Dunning-Kruger Effect as well.
The Life Care Center of Kirkland was maligned by the media and authorities, but it was one of the finest facilities in our area. The reason that it was hit so hard is that offered a higher level of care than any other care facility in the area. They had dozens of people on respirators who were very vulnerable to begin with... they provided long term care for very sick people.
The statistics that you have invested so heavily in have not been compiled this year the same way that flu deaths are normally tallied. How many times have people who were murdered or been in motorcycle accidents been called "flu deaths". Yet there are numerous examples of this for coronairus that are completely compliant with CDC guidelines. Governments around the world have been imposing draconian restrictions on their people that are causing great harm. Even the World Health Organization has acknowledged for months that the "lockdowns" caused more harm than benefit. The fact that you do not understand or acknowledge the significance of this makes you a useful idiot for the left.
“The thing that is not real is the characterization that this ailment is something out of the ordinary or that it is in any way similar to the pandemic in 1918.”
It is out of the ordinary. The death rates are substantially above any “normal” flu season. Interestingly in the US this has been happening outside of any normal flu season. Look at my links. I mean really look at them. Take this seriously.
It is NOT similar to the 1918 flu. Its much less deadly. The measures being taken against it are, moreover, IMHO, largely unjustified and they are worse than the disease.
“The statistics that you have invested so heavily in have not been compiled this year the same way that flu deaths are normally tallied.”
But that’s the point - I am speaking of deaths, plain and simple, and the value of this is that there is a very long historical series based on civil records so it is possible to compare. Pre-retirement I was an engineer working in data acquisition and manufacturing quality control by trade. That’s wall to wall data series analysis. This is a mass phenomenon, not something limited to one small place. Context is everything, and that means numbers, and only numbers.
US total deaths have been running well above trend since March. That is undeniable. There is no need to ascribe a cause to this or to depend on people who may be doing that in some questionable way. People have been dying at historically exceptional rates, and moreover that can be seen in the same data in dozens of countries.
That is not accurate... and demonstrates only the extent to which you have bought into leftist nonsense.
Approximately 56 million people out of 7.7 billion currently die each year worldwide. And as the world's population continues to grow that number continues to increase. It is claimed that approximately a million people have died WITH coronavirus this year. The number of people who actually have died FROM coronavirus is probably closer to a tenth of that. Either way it is statistical noise from an historical perspective. You are basing your hysteric conclusions on breathless leftist media sources and numbers that have been manipulated for political purposes.
The total number of deaths is no doubt up from the nonsensical actions of governments which are restricting meaningful medical care for health problems which are the real killers, nutritional choices, and activity levels, along with increasing poverty, the largest source of real early death in the world. In addition the lockdowns are creating economic, physical, and emotional stress that are all unhealthy for people. This is why in October the World Health Organization came to the conclusion that the lockdowns are causing more harm than good.
“The total number of deaths is no doubt up”
It is, and that is exactly my point. And, moreover, the timing and pattern of excess deaths (daily, weekly, monthly) nearly exactly matches the medical reports. In some cases the actual excess in deaths is under or over that from medical reporting, but we are talking +/- 20% or so max.
This is not statistical noise. Noise would be if the track of total death count per period falls within a “normal” range and just buzzes around in there. But it most certainly doesn’t fall within a normal (say a decades worth of data) range, as you can see for yourself.
You can, as I said, check this stuff out for yourself. If you distrust US reporting you can look to Europe. Every country there has different politics and different internal incentives. Check Spain for instance, as it has the most accessible statistics and an excellent civil registry system. This is a global pandemic and as a phenomenon of its own falls entirely outside US politics, or any countries politics.
The reactions to it and the policies taken to address it in any country are political, but each within its own context.
Of course the lockdowns are doing more harm than good. It doesn’t mean that the Covid-coronavirus pandemic isn’t real, nor that its magnitude isn’t in the ballpark as reported.
I suggest you argue one thing at a time.
I suggest you argue one thing at a time.
Why? You throw in one nonsensical point after another in your posts. What exactly are you trying to accomplish here? The media and leftist politicians have already created huge amounts of fear and panic, destroyed multiple businesses and trashed even Thanksgiving and Christmas. Do you just want to be a part of that? What is it that will make you happy? We already have vaccines coming out that have been shown to be very effective.
The truth is you have been scared to death or are fascinated exaggerated numbers and misleading statistics. You have no reference when it comes to caring for people with real health problems and encountering real death and destruction. It is very likely that you like most people do not have even one close friend or family member who has died even WITH coronavirus. In 1918/19 everyone knew close friends and had family members who died from the pandemic. Even now my wife and I own a car that belonged to the wife a Clinton Filson a man who died in 1919 from the flu. It appears that you are fascinated by questionable numbers and statistics, and you like to fantasize that we are suffering form a similar pandemic. You have let your imagination get the best of you.
“I am certain that the “lockdowns” have created additional deaths but the the total this year is still not likely to exceed normal statistical variation.”
They already have considerably exceeded normal (say last ten years) statistical variation.
I am arguing that this Covid plague is real and it is causing excess mortality. You said it wasn’t. I am not making claims about whether it is being addressed in a sane manner, or about politics, or about corruption in medical reporting, etc.
I have given you sources with charts and data (which can moreover be dumped and analyzed in Excel, etc.) that shows the timing, scale, and comparable mortality vs historical records. There is nothing misleading about them, as death is death.
My brother in law died last March and was counted as a “Presumptive Covid Death”. Granted, we live in the first place that was considered a hot-spot in the country. He had a cancerous brain tumor and was on hospice care. Tests were in short supply at that time in our area, so he was never tested. His symptoms were consistent with someone who had a cancerous brain tumor and was receiving hospice treatment. Would he have been counted as a flu death in normal times? NO, these are not normal times and there is nothing normal about the way that these numbers and statistics are being generated.
If you can't figure out that this has been being used as a political tool since the Democrats began to realize its potential last Spring then you sadly are very naive. No one is arguing here that this illness is not real.
Your understanding of the situation is obviously almost completely derived from numbers and graphs along with some breathless media coverage. But you seem to have little familiarity with how they have been compiled and the differences between their origins and normal data collection methods for similar respiratory illnesses like the flu. “Death is death” you say. This is not something that health care workers who have dealt with dying people for our entire careers would say.
The first confirmed known Covid case in the USA was in our backyard here Washington State on January 21. It was not until February 29 that we had a confirmed Covid case in Washington State resulting in death. This was at the Life Care Center in Kirkland WA, a place that my wife and I both were frequent visitors and both volunteered, and were paid for our work. We had not been there since Fall but after seeing the coverage about coronavirus in China we were extremely concerned for their residents and our friends who worked there, and with good reason. Our worst fears came true.
Health officials from the University of Washington said at the time that what we were seeing was “the tip of the iceberg”. We live in Eastern King County where thanks to the Obama administration we have half a million recent Chinese immigrants, both legal and illegal. These are for the most part truly good people who unlike some other groups tend to learn English mix with the rest of us and want to pursue the American dream.
But they also travel back and forth between China and the USA frequently. We had numerous nonstop flights between China and SeaTac airport up until the “travel ban” on January 31 declared by President Trump. But all that meant at that time was that all of the nonstop flights had to be diverted to Vancouver BC. From there people could take a commuter flight or ride the bus back to Eastern King County. Most people returning from China coming back here chose the two hour bus ride. Just the primary provider of this service gave rides bus rides to over 10,000 people who had just returned from China in February alone.
After watching the news coverage from China in January and given the reported contagiousness, the proximity, the number of Chinese care providers, the number of Chinese patients at the Life Care Center in Kirkland and the number of extremely vulnerable people already on respirators... my first comment to my wife was that I was surprised that it took over a month for a death to occur there after the first known case here in Washington.
Last February researchers at the University of Washington were correct when they said that this pathogen had been introduced and was multiplying at an exponential rate in our area since early January and possibly even in December. We had two of our major hospitals nearly overwhelmed in March. It seemed that we were having a bad flu season but I and many others suspected that Covid was playing a part.
In March a person who worked on the fire department that I retired from tested positive for Covid. Ten others who had been in contact with him also tested positive. Only the first person diagnosed experienced any symptoms... he thought that they were from his “hay fever”. All of them tested negative two weeks later. The person with hay fever symptoms still had hay fever symptoms.
Several studies were completed last Spring using antibody tests to try and determine what percentage of the population had actually been exposed to the virus in various parts of the country. All of them concluded that it was much more widespread than indicated by the number of reported “cases”.
Now that we are awash in tests for Covid and people with no symptoms are required to get them any number of reasons repeatedly we again have confirmation that the virus is much more widespread that one would assume from even the highly exaggerated “death rate”. And I call it that not because of the numbers, but because of the definition of what the CDC calls a “Covid Death” or formerly ala my brother in law, a “Presumed Covid Death”. Numerous people clearly dying from causes other than Covid fit the definition and these numbers are influencing the gullible who believe that they are “following the science”.
My objection to your comments are not that they do not have statistical evidence to back them up... it is that the statistical evidence that has shaped your opinion was manipulated and designed just for that purpose. What you are following is sophisticated propaganda. It has misled you about the true character of the threat which is and always has been almost identical to a typical serious flu outbreak... and I am not talking 1918/1919. I am talking about bad years when my wife and I lost a lot of friends and patients that we were caring for.
Over the years my wife and I have both been challenged by serious flu seasons. She has worked at places where dozens of people died as a result of the flu, and somehow no one at media organizations felt that this was very news worthy in the past. We did... we felt that the friends and patients we knew who and tried to take care of who died from the flu were newsworthy and that vulnerable people should get their shots. You probably didn't because “death is death”, right?
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