By Robert Willmann
Posted on the Internet yesterday is a study dated 11 April 2020 that finally addresses a type of investigation avoided by the energetic creators of hype and fear on television and elsewhere about an illness resulting from a virus called SARS-CoV-2. Using a sample from Santa Clara County, California, home of Stanford University, the study tested the blood of 3,330 people, using a new testing technique to look for antibodies that are expected to exist if the virus has been inside a person, whether they had any symptoms or not.
In this case, by using the math of statistics, the attempt is made to extend the observed results to the population of a specific area, to try to figure out how many people in the area had the virus in them at some point, even if they have shown no symptoms. Then — using the population of the area, the statistical number of persons who had been exposed, the number who are thought to have the virus by other testing and clinical observation, and the number whose death was caused by the virus (a difficult determination) — better opinions can be developed. This use of statistical sampling can try to describe reality in a more correct way than the so-called "mathematical models" promoted in the media that whipped up hysteria about the virus, and those models could politely be called wild speculation. The models were used to justify draconian and illegal orders by governors and mayors that destroyed incomes, closed businesses, and did not accurately and constructively address the problems that may be caused by the virus.
When you have an idea about how many people have developed antibodies and are still alive, whether having had symptoms or not, you can begin to see the status and effect of the virus. Furthermore, people who have naturally developed antibodies have usually become immune. You can also calculate the fatality rate of the virus in a better way.
One of the authors of the study is John P.A. Ioannidis, who is a professor at the Stanford University Medical School [1]. He kicked up some controversy in an article in March when the hype about the virus was escalating by saying, "The data collected so far on how many people are infected and how the epidemic is evolving are utterly unreliable" [2].
Santa Clara County, California, is said to have a population of about 1,943,411. The study estimated that between 48,000 and 81,000 people had been infected there. And, "The reported number of confirmed positive cases in the county on April 1 was 956, 50-85-fold lower than the number of infections predicted by this study". Using the results from the sample, an estimate was made about a fatality rate (page 7)–
"If our estimates of 48,000-81,000 infections represent the cumulative total on April 1, and we project deaths to April 22 (a 3 week lag from time of infection to death [reference note 22]), we estimate about 100 deaths in the county. A hundred deaths out of 48,000-81,000 infections corresponds to an infection fatality rate of 0.12-0.2%. If antibodies take longer than 3 days to appear, if the average duration from case identification to death is less than 3 weeks, or if the epidemic wave has peaked and growth in deaths is less than 6% daily, then the infection fatality rate would be lower. These straightforward estimations of infection fatality rate fail to account for age structure and changing treatment approaches to COVID-19. Nevertheless, our prevalence estimates can be used to update existing fatality rates given the large upwards revision of under-ascertainment".
Dr. Ioannidis has said that the death/fatality rate for seasonal influenza is about 0.10 percent. Thus, if this study presents the situation realistically, the fatality rate for COVID-19 is similar to a flu season, at least in that part of California.
The text of the study is eight pages long, before the references and graphics. It has detail like a study of its type should. As in all statistical studies, there are side issues, such as how complete and representative the sample of persons is, how valid the testing method and statistics used are, etc. In this one a new testing technique was used that has not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but the article describes how the test kit was tested for the study. Even though it contains some statistical terminology, the study is worth reading–
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1.full.pdf
A respected scientist in Germany became so frustrated with the lack of scientific discussion about the virus and the restrictions imposed in the country, that he wrote an open letter to the Chancellor of Germany and discussed it in a video on 29 March. Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi states that he is a microbiologist and infectious disease epidemiologist who for 22 years was chairman of the Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene at Mainz University, where he researched the pathogenesis, diagnosis, and therapy of infectious diseases. He presents five questions. Dr. Bhakti speaks in German, but if you click on the "cc" button at the bottom of the video display area, it will show some subtitles in English–
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsExPrHCHbw
In his video, Dr. Bhakdi says that two years ago there were 20,000 flu deaths in Germany (a very large number for that country), and no stringent preventive measures were implemented at all. Germany's population is around 80 million. The U.S. population is estimated to be around 330 million.
Around the second week of March, the situation here about the virus changed into one of bureaucratic, media, political, and financial interests. The presentation in mass media has shifted into a version of agitating propaganda (agitprop). Politicians and bureaucracies do not want to admit they made a mistake or did something wrong. Because mayors and governors jumped to conclusions and issued unnecessary and destructive orders, they are now stuck, and do not want to cancel their decisions that destroyed incomes and harmed the well-being of people. I tried to figure out unemployment insurance claim numbers, but charts by the federal Department of Labor are unclear and numbers in similar categories do not match. And of course unemployment insurance claims are less than the number of people who have lost income, business, and work.
[1] https://profiles.stanford.edu/john-ioannidis
[2] Article on the statnews.com website by John Ioannidis, 17 March 2020.
Israeli scientist observes a definite corona pattern in various countries, regardless of mitigation protocols: peaks at 40 days, disappears after 70 days: https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-vaughn/2020/04/18/israeli-professor-compares-rates-of-infection-in-ten-countries-and-makes-a-stunning-discovery/
What happened to all the other seasonal virii that afflict humans this time of the year? Did they all go into self isolation?
Now that we have new vocabulary terms like “panic porn”, this author provides a thoughtful analysis of “What is really fueling the Wuhan virus hysteria”: https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/17/what-is-really-fueling-wuhan-virus-hysteria/
Talk about bureaucracies fumbling the ball when things were at Game Speed:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/contamination-at-cdc-lab-delayed-rollout-of-coronavirus-tests/2020/04/18/fd7d3824-7139-11ea-aa80-c2470c6b2034_story.html
A real confidence builder, eh? Aargh. Hope they run their Level 4 labs a bit better.
So probably an ifr more or less the same as the seasonal flu, as many people suspected. Here in the UK, the government is stuck in a trap of it’s own making. Aided and abetted by an irresponsible and sensationalist media, they have whipped the general public into a frenzy of panic and hysteria. Even young, healthy people who generally have little to fear from this virus, are now terrified of normal, everyday interactions. As a result, it’s going to be quite difficult for the government to coax people out of their homes to start the process of getting back to something like normality.
So if you accept the conclusion of this report and add the following what do you get?
“Le coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 responsable de la pandémie de Covid-19 qui a déjà fait plus de 120 000 morts dans le monde serait un virus manipulé, sorti accidentellement d’un laboratoire chinois à la recherche d’un vaccin contre le SIDA. C’est l’incroyable révélation que le professeur Luc Montagnier, prix Nobel de médecine en 2008 pour la “découverte” du VIH, fait aujourd’hui à Pourquoi Docteur au micro du Dr Jean-François Lemoine.”
What’s the agenda?
Robert
An excellent post which goes to the heart of this matter.
The media’s obsession with reporting the number of “confirmed positive cases” as a proxy for the progress of the epidemic has always frustrated me. Even worse is estimates of mortality rate using this figure, a methodology with makes the breathtakingly unscientific assumption that only those who we test have the virus. I see this as analogous to the Rand Corp’s body count measure in VN as a proxy for progress in the war: If you can’t count what is important, count what you can.
This study counts what is important. It applies the correct approach of estimating the likely true infected population via extrapolation from a random population sample. Lo and behold we find that an estimated 50-85x more people in Santa Clara Co. have probably been infected than have actually tested positive. A far lower real mortality rate follows logically.
Your final paragraph highlights the real problem now. Face and careers must be saved, even if that means perpetuating the pseudo-science underlying the decisions to lock us all up. One must hope that a few decision-makers will have the guts to admit they were wrong and if necessary fall on their swords, so we can shake ourselves free from the mass hysteria.
His statistical analysis may not be accurate. If they are, to what should we attribute need for temporary morgues in Spain Italy and NYC?
All
“if this study presents the situation realistically, the fatality rate for COVID-19 is similar to a flu season.” think about that pilgrims, think about it. Perhaps what is needed is a bonfire of the epidemiologists and politicians.
Mark Logan,
To hold the bodies of the people who die every day, just like they died every day last year, and the year before and the year before that and every year going back to the origin of humankind .
The bodies have to be held because funeral related operations are shut down; not because there are extra bodies above what would happen in a normal bad flu season. The difference is this year they are are taking extra precautions around bodies and services cannot be held, etc.
This is tricky stuff: https://medium.com/@balajis/peer-review-of-covid-19-antibody-seroprevalence-in-santa-clara-county-california-1f6382258c25
Sir,
First it was the Russian collusion witch hunt, then it was the shampeachment and now this virus BS. Pitchforks and torches are definitely in order before they pull something this November. It getting old real fast watching them try one scam after another and knowing it’s a scam from the day they introduce it.
” Politicians and bureaucracies do not want to admit they made a mistake or did something wrong. Because mayors and governors jumped to conclusions and issued unnecessary and destructive orders, they are now stuck, and do not want to cancel their decisions that destroyed incomes and harmed the well-being of people. ”
That’s the understatement of the year. They are also immune from the destrcution not having lost jobs or income. Given the level of agitation in some regions of the country I give the politicians and bureaucracies about three weeks before a bunch of James Hodgkinsons start taking individual action. I also find it very interesting that Antifa and other groups have been silent for months. Blanket orders to wear facemask will give them great cover when they swing into action again.
Eric, now we know why Nancy Pelosi wanted us to be talking about her ice cream freezer instead of the implosion of Democrat’s corona-gate and Democrat’s Russia-gate, occurring at the exact same time. Nancy knew what she was doing. Look, a squirrel over here! Grotesque.
As usual you lay out the facts in the style of Joe Webb. Bravo Bravo.
It’s the flu and all we have done is maybe not overwhelm our medical capabilities at best. But then the cost is horrific in lost jobs, mental anguish and an economy that will take time to rebuild.
Time will flush out whether this was a bio weapon used by China or their intentionally running shoddy bio lab practices that allowed the virus to escape. Either way it will result in a highly diminished economy that their leadership will be held responsible for by the people of China.
The false positive issue makes this study all but useless, as pointed by several other scientists.
There are plenty of data around that are slightly better to stablish COVID-19 letality.
Meanwhile, the USA is pointing toward what Trump said would happen a few days ago (65K deaths), and that WITH quarantine and social distancing. Just be patient for a while longer. Your politicians, scientists and industry do have plans and the means to come out of the worse of this crisis stronger.
Unfortunately, not all other places in the world can say the same.
Eric,
Perhaps that is a factor, but there are significantly more deaths than in a normal year in NYC.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/nyregion/new-york-coronavirus-deaths.html
I don’t think you will find an ER employee in any of those three places who believes is just a another flu season. That this is just another flu.
I think this was a metaphysical Ides of March orchestrated to remove President Trump from office. Was it not the fifteenth of March that he decided to shut down the U.S. economy? If it turns out that this was basically a hoax(I’m not denying this is a legitimate health concern), then Mr. Trump may be finished.
egl
Good to see a peer review of this paper already, no doubt more will follow as well as more rigorous serosurveys in other places. It makes some valid points, not least one suggesting the sampling process being done via FB invite may have been flawed.
An embedded link to a tweet explains well what I was getting at in my comment above in rather unscientific language – i.e the often important distinction between case fatality rate (CFR) and infection fatality rate (IFR).
https://twitter.com/SRileyIDD/status/1220465337113640960
Brian
He would be finished because of a hoax perpetrated against him?
Mark Logan,
The ERs in NYC were overwhelmed by the 2017/2018 flu as well (which killed something like 69K Americans). I dispute there are “significantly” more deaths in NYC this year. I’m using the term “significant” not as small effect at p= 0.05. I’m using it as “a heck of a lot more”. if there is some small effect it will will normalize by the end of the year; meaning 2019/2020 won’t be more deadly than 2017/2018. Many of those who were killed by the flu/covid were on the way out anyhow
NYT huh? A source we can trust. Right then. I like how NYC added 3.700 deaths “presumed” to be covid. Well, there were emergency room visits back in Oct 2019 that the CDC says presented with covid like symptoms (see it on the CDC website). Lots of flues have the same symptoms. As someone else said, the politicians are trying to cover for their stupid overreaction and their tyranny.
“Preliminary results from government lab experiments show that the coronavirus does not survive long in high temperatures and high humidity, and is quickly destroyed by sunlight, providing evidence from controlled tests of what scientists believed — but had not yet proved — to be true…
The National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center, which conducted the experiments, has traditionally kept a low profile because of its classified work on biological warfare defense and bioterrorism. Fineberg, in his letter to the White House, did not go into detail on the planned experiments, noting that the lab shares its findings with the interagency task force on the coronavirus.”
https://news.yahoo.com/sunlight-destroys-coronavirus-very-quickly-new-government-tests-find-but-experts-say-pandemic-could-still-last-through-summer-200745675.html
I am going to hang my mask on a clothesline after use
Brian, Cities, counties and states shut themselves down, well before Trump made any federal decision. Particularly in the blue states like California who were the most eager to commit “panic porn”, and egregious over-reach under the rubric “public health and safety”.
Not sure how you get people beyond their own self-inflicted sense of peril. They were already primed to believe the worst was finally upon them, after three relentless years of Orange Man Bad. The final word howver may be the one’s uttered by the dweeb in the TP line – I panicked because I saw other people panicking.
War babies had JFK shot. Boomers had John Lennon. Millennials had 9-11. Is this national corona shutdown GenX’s moment of mortality? The day the snug world one grew up in, was irredeemably over. In the larger sense.
This interview of Dr. Bhattacharya from Stanford prior to the Santa Clara study is very interesting. His hypothesis has proven to be correct with the study of a representative sample of the Santa Clara population.
https://youtu.be/-UO3Wd5urg0
Peer review of the Santa Clara article. Math heavy but not that hard to follow.
https://medium.com/@balajis/peer-review-of-covid-19-antibody-seroprevalence-in-santa-clara-county-california-1f6382258c25
Steve
What I mean, Col. Lang, is if this is a manufactured event(not the SARS-CoV-2 but the response), he may have been manipulated by those around him into making a decision that could imperil his success in being re-elected. That’s why this brings thoughts of a certain bard’s tale of a certain leader.
If the economy of the U.S. is seriously damaged by this decision, he will be held responsible, even if it turns out this was yet another coup attempt against him. The CCP apologists world wide are in overdrive trying to paint the CCP as a party of angels. Russiagate will be nothing.
An interesting finding was made with a wide scale testing at the Pine Street Inn Homeless Shelter in Boston’s South End. Of 397 people tested, 146 were positive for covid-19. All of those positives displayed no symptoms. The article didn’t say if this was a test of 100% of those at the shelter. The CDC is looking at this. I hope they’re following up with this population. Although the homeless population is considered at high risk for contracting the virus, my hunch is that the homeless have a more resistant immune system than the more pampered general population out of necessity. I’m reminded of the poem “The Antiseptic Baby and the Prophylactic Pup.”
Here’s a comparison of deaths due to covid-19 and deaths due to cancer, heart disease, car crashes and the 2017/2018 flu. The weekly covid-19 death rate seems to be twice as high as the highest weekly rate during the 2017/2018 flu season. It’s on par with cancer and heart disease, which is something I was wondering about. Certainly not an apocalyptic event threatening our very survival, although we will have to develop a much better medical surge capacity for future pandemics and a more fatalistic societal mindset.
https://www.businessinsider.com/chart-us-weekly-coronavirus-deaths-compared-heart-disease-cancer-flu-2020-4#covid-19-is-now-killing-more-americans-weekly-than-heart-disease-or-cancer-did-on-average-per-week-in-2018-1
Steve, that is hardly what would qualify as a “peer review”. Desperate to keep the fear alive much?
To the best of my knowledge, the largest national study to date came out of Iceland last week, where they tested just over 10% of the general population of 364,134 inhabitants.Some tidbits:
So they apparently have an overall death rate of 0.002% and a case fatality rate of 0.4%. Not too bad. And realize that Iceland, like Sweden, is not under lockdown. Very mild gathering restrictions only.
More about unknown long term effects of this disease, which I think could manifest in some cases in a « Lyme disease »-esque range of symptoms
“Do testicles make men more vulnerable to the coronavirus?”
https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-04-18/do-testicles-make-men-more-vulnerable-to-coronavirus
Speaking of Lyme, that’s another disease with a possible biooweapons-related etiology, does anyone have any info on this possibility? Scourge of New England.
https://www.cnn.com/cnn/2019/07/17/politics/lyme-disease-amendment-investigation/index.html
TTG,
I don’t see it. Here are weekly US deaths going back to 2013 to current.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRbcMMAOSEHlpuD1udbB4XAzS9qHSyXRTf4p9Jf1_r7VjxW0YegRRLIUwn3A_xZBgtJFInREyLQEBqf/pubchart?oid=768243559&format=interactive
Of course there is some lag in the figures coming in. The most recent data will increase, but based on known lag factors, will not go above the 2017/2018 flu season.
You have to realize that 7K to 8K Americans die every day. The addition of 17K deaths (according to the CDC – 36K according to wherever the media gets its data) aren’t going to create much of a blip on the trend line unless you monkey with the presentation to make it pop out.
Also, for sure some deaths attributed to covid are just the flu and if not for media hype and political opportunism would have been attributed to the flu (Look at the CDC data – they have “covid-like ER admissions going back to Oct 2019 – flues produce symptoms that overlap heavily with covid symptoms). So those deaths aren’t going to drive a spike in the trend line. They would have been there anyhow.
Finally, many of the victims of covid were going to die anyhow in a month to six month to year time frame. They are elderly and frail. So they will not add to mortality rates to drive the rates above normal. You’re probably tired of hearing me say it, but I’ve been doing this kind of thing for a living going on 20 years.
As someone who survived two forms of measles, the mumps (on both sides), many ear infections, many sinus infections, and many bouts of strep throat; and as a person who was lined up in alphabetical order by my last name and received the polio shot, I was extremely skeptical of the supposed necessity of wearing masks and constant scrubbing of my hands. (After all I am not Lady Macbeth and have not killed a king.)
But, I was raised by good German parents who insisted that I respect “authority” and trust in God.
In this case, I did begin early to distrust all the “rules” we were given about social distancing and wearing masks. I am not a person who needs constant social interaction; so social distancing was not difficult for me, but it meant that I could not expect visitors who could make it past the guards in control of keeping strangers out of my building. And….I DID resent that I was being forced to do that, especially in regard to my inability to attend church. Wearing a mask made me feel that I was going out to rob a bank or something.
What was clear to me from the New York situation was that the danger came mostly from people living in such close proximity to each other and in sometimes less than clean environments.
I know; I know….we are all supposed to love New York. But when a person grows up on a farm outside of a small town and walks streets that are not rat infested but are kept clean I just plain resented that I had to be treated as if I was living in New York.
I hope the uprising of citizens in Michigan will spur others to in other cities and in all states to take their lives back.
I mostly resent that my sons, who are fathers of young children, have had to–perhaps unnecessarily fear for the lives of their children because of this virus. Neither of my sons lost a job; but the daycare situation caused one of them enormous trouble, since his wife also has a job she did not have to lose because of the virus.
Oxford University thinks the IFR is between 0.1% and 0.36%. A lot of studies coming out now suggesting so, the virus is a fast burner so it all happens in a dramatic fashion, but the end result is the same as a bad flu season. Neil Ferguson hasn’t been heard from for awhile, then again Imperial is a hard sciences place, not medicine, UCL is the top university for medicine in London.
The powers that be don’t want to admit they were wrong, so lockdowns persist.
“The ERs in NYC were overwhelmed by the 2017/2018 flu as well ”
Absolute total BS. What happened in NYC that year was nothing like what has been going on for the last month. 1/4 of my critical care staff trained at NYC institutions and one starting with us in August is there now. My critical care people and my APNs have been going there to help so they have sen it first hand. They didnt need to create hundreds of new ICU beds. The didnt have to double ventilate people. They didnt have to rent out extra morgue trucks. You didnt have the top academic institutions reduced to having only 2 or 3 functioning ORs because the others were turned into ICU beds, with 2 or 3 patients per OR. If you have any decency you would just admit you dont know what you are talking about.
Steve
Steve
“The Cambridge study also raised some new questions. The first strain isolated and reported by Chinese scientists was actually younger than the original type that caused the outbreak. Why the US had more strains genetically closer to a bat virus than Wuhan has prompted heated debates in the research community.
One explanation, according to Forster, was that the original strain may have first emerged in China but was more adaptive to the American population and environment.”
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3080380/coronavirus-outbreak-may-have-started-september-say-british
TTG
Of course, they are testing the hardy survivors of the homeless life.
https://twitter.com/trinhnomics/status/1250707427990728709?s=21
Read the whole thread of how many East Asian countries didn’t trust WHO and the CCP and acted in their own interests by shutting down travel from China. That wasn’t “racist” as Nancy Pelosi believes.
Steve,
Ok. I’m just a crank on the internet. What about all the articles that say otherwise? Here is just one from a serious publication.
https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/spotlight-flu-season-where-hospitals-are-slammed-hardest
Even the ‘Daily Beast’ noted the impact
https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-york-citys-2018-flu-was-the-near-death-experience-for-the-medical-system-that-andrew-cuomo-ignored
Steve, I feel your pain but why were the USN hospital ship and the Jacob Javits Center barely used?
pl,
“Of course, they are testing the hardy survivors of the homeless life.”
Tru Dat! The homeless life is about as close to being a field infantryman as you can get. You’re constantly exposed to the weather, cold, wet and searing heat. You eat like shit and live in constant filth. And you get no respect from those outside your family and brotherhood. I don’t know which is worse, covid-19 or the affluenza of our “me, me, me” society. Actually I do know. Affluenza will destroy us.
Steve,
Did you see the local news in 2018 about the measures being taken:
“The Lehigh Valley Health System in Allentown, Pennsylvania, set up a similar surge tent in its parking lot on Monday, in response to an increase in patients presenting with various viral illnesses, including norovirus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and the flu. “We’ve put it into operation a couples times now over the last few days,” said a hospital spokesperson. “I think Tuesday we saw upwards of about 40 people in the tent itself.”
It was right in your area.
Did you read about the national policy of social distancing, stay at home orders, face masks being issued? How about Dr. Fauci and Birx’s recommendations of said policies being required:
Time, January 18, 2018: “Hospitals Overwhelmed by Flu Patients Are Treating Them in Tents”
https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patients/
Neither one made Time magazine and there’s not a single quote or mention of their expertise either. I wonder why? Neither were there any orders for funeral homes to close and remain close as “non-essential” businesses. That would have necessitated “rent out extra morgue trucks.” you mention in your response to Eric.
Time does quote other medical experts:
“We are pretty much at capacity, and the volume is certainly different from previous flu seasons,” says Dr. Alfred Tallia, professor and chair of family medicine at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center in New Brunswick, New Jersey. “I’ve been in practice for 30 years, and it’s been a good 15 or 20 years since I’ve seen a flu-related illness scenario like we’ve had this year.” (2017-18)
You know what was in the news in 201- “Russia” collusion; not the part about DOJ lawyer’s fabricating evidence for FISA warrants, but all the other parts. That’s what led to the democrats taking the house. Thanks to Comrade Xi and outright criminal malfeasance from the press, federal, state and local political officials, the good Dr. from NJ quoted in that 2018 Time aricle, and the rest of us, got a far worse repeat in less than 2 years. Lots of people should go to jail, they probably won’t.
TTG
I remember that when I was an infantry Lt. one of my future wife’s relatives asked me what I was going to do when I got out and got a real job.
TTG,
“field infantryman” Submarines my friend. Clean sheets, hot water – sometimes, flourescent lights, high adventure – visit strange and exotic lands – for 3 or 4 whole days, more adventure!, chase other targets, or whales, or schools of shrimp; 300+ days a year if deployed. If it’s raining inside that is a really, really bad sign.
First off to those who are reporting about the “peer review” of the Stanford study can you not at least examine the bio of the individual who did this phony review. This person is a bitcoin investor and not a “peer” and as everyone knows Medium openly claims it does not fact check it’s sources. That “review” is trash but hey throw in some numbers and a few charts. Just read a few of the comments after the article which dissect the inaccuracy of this so-called peer review. The Stanford study is solid and as the authors themselves speak to it is but one and more will come out and in fact have- so far all studies show the same thing- it is either massive incompetence by governments and their corporate lackeys in the health departments and they should all be immediately fired- and the MSM presstitutes- or it is something far worse than incompetence. In that case being fired is not adequate.
Upthread Brian asks a very important question:
“What happened to all the other seasonal virii that afflict humans this time of the year? Did they all go into self isolation?”
A statistical study will be released in the next few days that addresses that very important question. There is indeed massive fraud going here.
There are other good studies on the issue, the picture is that asymptomatic spread and presymptomatic spread contribute to a whopping 40% of the infection, even with testing and conventional tracing this happens.
One group of Jews has been especially affected by the coronavirus.
The following article describes that group, giving some very interesting details about the background of that group:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-coronavirus-the-greatest-challenge-to-ultra-orthodox-life-since-the-holocaust-1.8730678
The opinion of Walrus on that article would be particularly appreciated.
I have been wondering why Brooklyn has been hit so hard by the virus (and, of course, the NYT has been front-paging its travails, describing hospitals “under siege”).
I think I got my answer:
https://champ.gothamist.com/champ/gothamist/news/hasidic-funerals-crowds-ultra-orthodox-neighborhoods
Brooklyn is definitely not typical of America.
Mark Logan,
“what should we attribute need for temporary morgues in Spain Italy and NYC? ”
“An order by the State indicating that funeral homes were “non essential” and not allowed to operate, or placing regulatory restriction on how they can operate. That’s too hard to look up on the internet though.
But since a state of emergency was declared on March 14, funeral homes in Spain must follow strict measures to avoid further contagion, stripping Fernández of his normal duties and taking away the last chance families had of seeing their loved ones before laying them to rest.”
“Now, infected corpses cannot be removed from their sealed body bags and are placed straight into coffins. …”
Spain, as reported here: https://wgxa.tv/news/nation-world/coffins-in-the-parking-lot-a-spanish-funeral-home-copes
“Whether funeral homes are deemed essential businesses is determined state by state.”
conveniently left out of this ABC news report is which states deemed them essential. It’s almost like leaving out information like that is done on purpose, or that items like this that do get mentioned:
“Steve Karboski, who owns a funeral home in Utica, said most recent funerals there haven’t been coronavirus related.” never get highlighted in the nightly broadcast:
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/funeral-homes-face-heart-wrenching-normal-coronavirus/story?id=69789265
Fred,
See TTG’s post citing current mortality rates in NYC which compares them with a typical month. See Steve’s posts, which are field reports from the front. The article you cite states there have been 19,000 deaths in Spain from this bug. In just a month and a half? It’s not just another flu season, this is a particularly nasty bug.
The OP is a statistical analysis, anecdotal to Santa Clara and loaded with the author’s own caveats. Placing desired information above field reports is usually a mistake.
Mark K Logan,
Go to the link I posted on the 19th at 10:16 am. Observe that there are always major mortality peaks in mortality in Dec and Jan. Observe the peak that occurred Dec 2017/Jan 2018. Observe that the peak for Dec 2019/Jan 2020 is nowhere near as high. Observe that there is no peak occurring for subsequent months in 2020. This is really simple. CV19 isn’t killing that many people that wouldn’t be(or weren’t) killed by other conditions or other infectious diseases.
You’re trying to create a deadly epidemic out of thin air. Or your trying very hard to believe those that are.
Mark,
I commented on TTG’s post on the relevent thread.
” OP is a statistical analysis” Yes, with GIGO still meaning garbage in, garbage out. All deaths in which a dead body has Covid 19 is reported as Covid19 death, not death being caused by something else and covid19 only a contributing factor. Decision making suffers as a result.
” It’s not just another flu season, this is a particularly nasty bug.” I never claimed it was, nor that this bug wasn’t deadly. It’s not deadly to people under 60 with no “comorbidity” however, which has been apparent for a long time. Also apparent is the intentional spread of the virus into the West by the CCP as a result of the initial release (accidental or not) in Wuhan province.
“Placing desired information above field reports is usually a mistake.”
Field results Wyomiong, 2 dead YTD. Why is the same public policy as in NYC required? Montana, ten, West Virginia, eighteen; I could go on but “field results” show NYC as an outlier compared to other states or localites. National politics demands that national policy that is going to result in the destruction of the economy continue apace.
“Desired information” Thanks for the discrediting comment.
I desire accurate information; identifying all dead bodies with Covid 19 present in the blood as a Covid19 death doesn’t give accurate information. It produces a result desired by those directing that reporting requirment. Personally I think we should start calling it the Fauci and Birx statistics show. It’s going to be deadly to their reputations in the long run, but I’m sure they are true believers in the expertise of their models, modelers, and their own expertise based infalability, such as their opposing the use of Hydroxychloroquine and anti-biotics becasue of the lack of a regulatory required double blind study of efficacy. Field reports show how many dead from the use of said treatment? Zero?
Premising that each death is a tragedy, the mortality of this virus is not something that should animate your nightmares.
As a virus, Covid19 is real.
We now have very solid infection and mortality data from a sample of in excess of 15,000 individuals that were/are aboard 4 cruise ships and 1 war ship.
In all above cases, the data is consistent. Infections run at around 30% of the population whereas mortality was fewer than 15 individuals in all over the 5 ships (in the past few weeks there have been 6 more deaths of former passengers though we are not told whether or not they tested positive for Covid19)
A population of 15,000 passengers, crew and sailors, infections of around 4000 individuals and 15 fatalities overall. That makes it a mortality of around 0.1% (double it to 0.2% to be safe).
This, I remind you, in a population that for several days shared common spaces, shared sunbeds, danced and dined together, shared buffet food, shook hands, patted each other on the back and spoke to each other at close range whilst living in a confined space at sea with shared ventilation in their cabins before confinement orders were issued by the captain nuclear powered war ship, in the case of the Theodore Roosevlet, confinement was a non starter.)
Then we have Sweden.
Unlike its peers, Sweden adopted the approach based on immunising society as quickly as possible. Although Sweden sensibly asked its citizens to adopt a number of precautionary measures, but for a few exceptions, life carries on normally throughout the country.
The interesting thing about the data we have out of Sweden, is that the progression of infections and mortality, mirrors the progressions of infections and mortality achieved in countries that have instead opted to completely shut down their economies.
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
(You want to look at the chart entitled: “How rapidly have [deaths] been increasing; 2nd chart from top”).
To view the Sweden line, hover your mouse over the caption “Europe” in the top right hand corner of the chart. Sweden is in the middle of the pack.
How can that be?
As a virus, Covid19 will propagate throughout the population before anyone realizes what is happening. In fact, from data gleaned over the past 3 months from our respective countries, we already know that the number of individuals that have already been infected is far higher than what is being reported. We are talking orders of magnitude higher.
Someone already thought they should analyse infection and mortality rates by studying the Diamond Princess
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-outbreak-diamond-princess-cruise-ship-death-rate
Angelo Borrelli Director Italian Civil Protection tells us it is probably the case
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-idUSKBN21B1CC?taid=5e7a51d4e370aa00016220f4&utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter
The Reuters/Ipsos poll too tells us it is probably so
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-proximitypoll/how-many-americans-have-coronavirus-new-reuters-poll-might-offer-a-hint-idUSKBN21D2XJ?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter
The recent Reuters article on the Theodore Roosevelt adds to the evidence
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/coronavirus-clue-most-cases-aboard-us-aircraft-carrier-are-symptom-free/ar-BB12Jojz
The article opens with this breathless statement: “Sweeping testing of the entire crew of the coronavirus-stricken U.S. aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt may have revealed a clue about the pandemic: The majority of the positive cases so far are among sailors who are asymptomatic, officials say. ” One day late and a Dollar short guys!
Another study in the Boston area tells us so
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/04/17/business/nearly-third-200-blood-samples-taken-chelsea-show-exposure-coronavirus/
One more Boston study amongst the homeless says the same thing
https://www.wsoctv.com/news/trending/coronavirus-cdc-reviewing-stunning-universal-testing-results-boston-homeless-shelter/ZADQ45HCAZEVJAZA3OTCUR7M6M/
So the virus is already out in the general population.
AND THAT IS A GOOD THING. That is a very good thing indeed!
That is a good thing on several levels and as such, it should comfort you and put your mind at ease.
WHY SHOULD IT BE A GOOD THING FOR A POPULATION TO BE INFECTED.
On one level, it shows that the mortality of this virus is far lower than reported.
In fact, despite the statistical gimmickry driven by much higher insurance payments to hospitals in the USA if deaths are attributed to Covid19 rather than any other pathology, even in New York we are not going to approach anywhere near the numbers that had been bandied about by the experts. In fact, the models put forward by the experts that convinced political leaders to shut down our economies, have proven to be wildly off the mark, in some cases not even reaching the uncertainty error which, in itself, was very wide.
In New York for example, the emergency army hospital and the navy hospital ship that had been sent-in to boost bed capacity, lay idle and unused. Similarly, after demanding thousands of supplementary ventilators be shipped to New York, Mayor Cuomo now finds that he has spare capacity to send ventilators out to other states.
I reiterate here that each death is a tragedy. I am not attempting to minimise or trivialise the tragedies that have unfolded in some localised geographic areas.
In the context of the average mortality in the USA however, where, in 2020, 2.8M individuals will pass of various ailments, accidents and violent acts, what is happening with Covid19 is not remarkable.
On another level, the fact that the virus is already out into the general population, means that we are far closer to herd immunity than we thought.
This also means however, that by the time our leaders decreed we should shelter in place, it was too late. The virus had already propagated and the progression of the infections could not be significantly altered.
And this is the reason why the progression of the infection and that of mortality rates in Sweden mimic the progressions in other countries.
In other words. Ordering the complete suspension of the economy, may at best turn out to be a futile act with respect to attenuating the progression of this virus.
Someone already linked above to the study of Professor Yitzhak Ben Israel of Tel Aviv University.
The evidence is becoming overwhelming and difficult to ignore.
guidoamm,
Well said.
Also don’t forget that the deaths are being fudged upward to cover for the politicians’ bad lockdown policy and destruction of the economy. Others are trying to get maximum millage out of this to expand their power as our lords and masters
For example, In Illinois the governor has just declared that if one nursing home resident is diagnosed with Corona Virus and dies, then any other resident of the home who dies with similar symptoms is counted as a Covid-19 death even though they may not have had a test for the virus. And NYC retroactively adding thousands of deaths on which a test was never performed.