"I was waiting for a revelation that never came. Months went by and millions of tests were performed, revealing with increasing certainty that here was a virus with a very low death rate indeed. Exact approximations vary but the survival rate for Covid-19 is thought to be somewhere above 99 per cent, and maybe as high as 99.8 per cent.
The average age of someone who dies from coronavirus is 82.4, which, by the way, is nearly identical to the average life expectancy in Britain (81.1). Surely it is people in this segment of society we should be focusing on protecting, I thought, as schools closed and businesses went bust up and down the country.
It looked vaguely promising in July when restaurants, hotels and shops reopened, and when most of Europe opened its borders to international travel, but this break from the tyranny of lockdown was short-lived.
Between mid-June and mid-September – even as we socialised, holidayed, and swapped germs to our heart’s content – influenza and pneumonia contributed to more weekly deaths than Covid-19. Sweden, one of the only countries on Earth that refused to lock down, had by this point proved beyond reasonable doubt that its tactic had broadly worked; even with such little intervention, the nation had not collapsed into the sort of apocalyptic health crisis predicted by the likes of Neil Ferguson." Telegraph
————
Once again, our cousins across the way are demonstrating that our hearts beat as one, unfortunately. Their government is even nuttier than ours on the subject of locking down the economy over a fever epidemic that kills so few people among the vast masses of the population. The hysteria involved in COVID-19 lockdowns is a phenomenon that we see often now. The mass media have the ability to whip public opinion into a frenzy over any issue, any issue at all. Politicians here and in the UK have learned that they can mount that tiger but they have not learned yet how difficult it is to dismount. pl
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/comment/almost-starting-think-whole-pandemic-really-conspiracy/
All:
The following story is by a German person travelling Wuhan, Beijing, Germany and Beijing. The essence is his observation o life with and without Covid-19 [=Der Spiegel article with open access:
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-berliner-in-beijing-what-life-looks-like-in-an-almost-covid-free-country-a-28cc9e94-e9d3-490d-ae56-3011976da738
I challenge anybody to discuss the whole COVID-19 subject without using the word “conspiracy”. There’s a point at which normal stupidity doesn’t really explain it any more.
Mr. Armstrong:
If you, Sir, agree with my assessment that the COVID-19 panic is caused by the agents of the ELITE{a.k.a. MAIN STREET MEDIA] with the objective to hide the problem of national economics, especially in USA, then I submit that the hype is caused by a conspiracy
Ireland has imposted a 5 km (3 mile) travel limit, which is very effective in disrupting the social fabric of the country and further destroying the economy.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/19/ireland-to-impose-5km-travel-limit-in-strict-new-covid-lockdown
“A total of 1,852 people are listed as fatalities of the virus, but as Ivor points out in the video, during the worst of the epidemic, when fatalities were rising almost vertically on the graph he shows, 95% of the people diagnosed with Covid were not given treatment (!) because they were considered too ill or weak for ICU treatment,…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRu6Mgb49Uk&feature=youtu.be
On further ‘supress the story news’:
“Dr. Michael Levitt, winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize for Chemistry was cancelled from a biodesign conference, a specialty he practically founded, because of things he as published about Covid-19. Read that again: the conference had nothing to do Covid-19, he was cancelled because conference organizers had received ‘too many calls’ from other speakers ‘threatening to quit’ because of his views on Chinese coronavirus. He has long maintained that the threat is overblown and that ‘we’re going to be fine.’ ”
…. ” After around a two week exponential growth of cases (and, subsequently, deaths) some kind of break kicks in, and growth starts slowing down. The curve quickly becomes “sub-exponential.” Pretty much everyone who has analyzed the numbers has seen this pattern, and – Newsflash! – it’s so common among viruses that it has a name, the Gompertz curve. ”
Details are at multiple sites including Breitbart, but I found it here:
https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-virus-response-goes-far-beyond.html
So the creator of the field of field of Computational Biology and Biodesign is being cancelled to save the narrative. To paraphrase Trump: Joe Biden could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue and not lose a signle media supporter.
Thank you Norbert, for the Der Spiegel link describing life in “covid free China”. The capacity to instantly monitor 1.3 billion people with obviously sophisticated software boggles the mind, even more so than the willingness of 1.3 billion people willing to conform to this new protocol. Track and trace.
The Chinese, they are obviously different from thee and me. In the US we can’t even get a “national identity card” or ask for a photo ID to vote. Ironic last statement- in China we are free because we are willing to be less free.
I suspect this is Biden’s Plan to stop covid. Needs more publicity.
I challenge anyone to not attach the word partisan, when they use the word conspiracy. Look no further than the Los Angeles Director of Public Health who admitted they would re-visit school closures ……after election day.
There is a pervasive gut feeling “covid” will go away if Democrats win on election day. …”The oceans will start to recede and the earth will begin to heal.”
Meanwhile we are also told to prepare for at least a two week siege and to discretely start stocking up on essential now to avoid panic, in the event Trump wins. The long survivalist list includes bottled water, batteries, soap, TP, sacks of beans, and at least one ten pound bag of oatmeal.
Expect all systems and services to be shut down if Trump win. Thank the partisan media again for even more hysteria. I am sticking with movie star Matthew McConoughy – no matter who wins, accept the transition with grace.
If Biden wins, he has two years before his pack of crazies who are really driving his campaign so thoroughly disgust America that profound buyer’s remorse will retake the House and Senate by 2022. Then we can drift back into bipartisan dysfunction, just like after 2018. We Americans are a peckish lot.
Everyday I thank my lucky stars that I live in Florida. It seems about 90% normal here. Our problem remains restaurants running at full capacity but not full at all due to the scaredy cats still hiding out at home. Oversea travel also remains severely limited. Our schools have now been open for almost two months with no real problems.
Northerners (snow birds) are starting to arrive. Around Christmas we start getting loads of vacationers from up North and they bring the flu down to us. So, there is some worry going forward.
Norbert,
I don’t think your ‘hidden problem of national economics’ is any more relevant than your assessment of Peak Oil. The propaganda campaign utilizing Covid 19 is one more last grasp at election manipulation in line with fabricated evidence that launced the Russia Collusion witch hunt, the Stormy Daniels ‘scandal’, the 25th amemendment suggestions and the Ukrainian phone call. The mounting evidence of multiple parties being systemicly corrupt and under Chinese or other influence (not necesarily the same people) is too obvious to ignore.
On a related note Ghislaine Maxwell’s unsealed deposition is now public:
https://twitter.com/Techno_Fog/status/1319259382065016833
Meanwhile Jefferey Epstein still did not kill himself.
Fred:
Your analysis is something I missed, thank for the point
Anyone want to speculate on the reason the CDC says we have ~300,000 more deaths in the US than normal?
Via the WaP:
“The novel coronavirus has caused about 285,000 more deaths in the United States between Feb. 1 and Sept. 16 than in an average year, according to a report Tuesday, released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.’
Or is the CDC lying?
@ Fred
“Dr. Michael Levitt, winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize for Chemistry was cancelled from a biodesign conference, a specialty he practically founded, because of things he as published about Covid-19… [T]he conference had nothing to do Covid-19, he was cancelled because conference organizers had received ‘too many calls’ from other speakers ‘threatening to quit’ because of his views on Chinese coronavirus.
Ain’t cancel culture grand?
The fast road to ignorance and tyranny. Surely the attendees at such a conference are among the most educated. Do they not understand this?
smoke,
They know which side of the bread their federal grant money is buttered on, thus they get with the narrative. Trump will cut out even more of the fraudulent research grant funding in his second term. These folks will then have to get results the marketplace will pay for.
saw,
Either because the WaP are a bunch of idiots, their in on the conspiracy, you can’t read, the CDC is disingenuous.
My pick is all of the above.
“Overall, an estimated 299,028 excess deaths occurred from late January through October 3, 2020, with 198,081 (66%) excess deaths attributed to COVID-19. The largest percentage increases were seen among adults aged 25–44 years and among Hispanic or Latino persons.” CDC
Yes, the lockdowns have caused a lot of deaths (CDC apparently thinks more the 100K) due to inability to access medical care, suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, lack of care visits to elders. That sort of thing. Don’t believe me. Read the CDC breakout on excess deaths by condition.
See what a two year avg (2020 + 2021) compared to previous two year averages says about loss of years of life due to covid. It won’t even be a blip. Those who died were near the end anyhow; covid or no covid. See lists of comorbidities, age of death stats, etc – see it at the CDC if you are more comfortable with the technocrats’ own data.
“Weeks when the observed numbers of deaths were below the average numbers from 2015 to 2019 were excluded from the total numbers of excess deaths above average levels (i.e., negative values were treated as 0 excess deaths).” CDC
Oh. Hmmm. Why would they do that? That would certainly skew toward more excess deaths this year, wouldn’t it?
It’s a scam.
Read the report yourself – https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e2.htm
@srw
Dropping down in that WaPo article, there is this:
Overall, the CDC found that “excess deaths have occurred every week since March, 2020,” with a peak during the week of April 11 and another during the week ending Aug. 8. Those dates roughly coincide with the virus’s surge into the New York metro area near the start of the outbreak and a second major rise across the Sun Belt when many states reopened too soon in an effort to revive flagging economies.
The article also makes clear that there are still many unknowns, in accounting for the “excess deaths” and the distribution across the population.
It would be interesting to see a running daily graph of excess deaths, considering that generally the IFR (infection fatality rate) of covid appears to have dropped significantly over time.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/coronavirus-excess-deaths/2020/10/20/1e1d77c6-12e1-11eb-ba42-ec6a580836ed_story.html
There is such a graph of excess deaths for the oft maligned Sweden. On a daily basis, since mid-July, with the exception of a couple weeks in August, total Swedish deaths have fallen at or below the average for deaths from all causes in the previous five years. (What is the opposite of “excess”?) In other words, currently better outcomes than the CDC reports for the U.S.
Last graph at the bottom of the page.
https://www.covid19insweden.com/en/deaths.html
No doubt, total Swedish deaths since March are still well above the total in previous years. The data may be more coherent and meaningful at the end of a year, both in U.S. and Sweden. It seems possible, for example, that, in some cases, covid hastens deaths that would have occurred from other causes later in the year.
Of course, Sweden did itself and its older inhabitants no favors when, fearing the predicted, overwhelmed, intensive care facilities, they initially failed to treat most elder patients with anything but palliative care, with drugs like morphine, which is itself a respiratory inhibitor. No hospital or intensive care was initially available to patients over 80yo. Overcrowded intensive care units never materialized in Sweden. Sweden changed its medical guidelines and control measures for elder patients, and deaths dropped.
Each country has different control and therapeutic tactics, which go on shifting. Each country, each state counts its cases and deaths differently. It will be years before medical science sorts through it for a solid understanding, if they ever do.
And there is that intriguing Gompertz curve, mentioned in Fred’s comment.
@srw, you ask: Is the CDC lying? No intention to be caustic, but I think your question is too simplistic. Sincerely suggest you spend time at twitter.com/ethicalskeptic for fact-based observations and eye-opening charts.
” Our problem remains restaurants running at full capacity but not full at all due to the scaredy cats still hiding out at home.”
Bill Wade – you put your finger on the problem. The “scaredy cats” are just not going to come out to play.
Who are the scaredy cats? A few hypochondriacs, no doubt. And a vast number of people who’ve coolly looked at the odds and don’t much like ’em. Overweight, other medical conditions, anyone much over 65 – with all those categories the chances of death rise, however slightly, and the chances of being hospitalised. And lots of us, nothing personal, don’t like hospitals and have no desire to spend much time in them.
And they’re the ones, the overweight, those with other medical conditions or who are much over 65, who are being told it’s all a lot of fuss about nothing and it really is only much of a danger to the overweight, those with other medical conditions or who are much over 65.
D’you see what I’m getting at?
And it’s their decision whether they come out to play or not and, it still being a free country, they’ve made the decision that they won’t.
A lot of these scaredy cats are wealthy. Isolating as much as is practicable they’re not spending. Hence cruise ships being beached for scrap in Turkey, restaurants and concert halls getting less trade, and Warren Buffet getting out of airlines. Hence a serious and unavoidable knock to the economy.
And a lot of them are Trump voters. Hence that drop in support for Trump that has knocked those polling figures back. For while hosts of people reckon Trump’s doing far too much on the virus a whole lot of scaredy cats, his core voters too, are worried he’s not doing enough.
And the more they get told that this is a fake pandemic and only the overweight, those with medical conditions, and those much over 65 are at risk the more they’ll stop at home and not spend on the things they used to spend on. And the less likely they are to vote for the man in charge.
There’s nothing much any government, US or any other, is going to do can persuade them otherwise.
Maybe rethinking the dismissive approach to the virus might be a good thing. Short of a vaccine herd immunity is only achieved by culling the more unwary or the less well protected of the vulnerable. There are a whole lot of scaredy cats who aren’t up for that.
English,
“A lot of these scaredy cats are wealthy.”
I think you need to look at the geographic distribution. Sarasota has no problem with filling restauraunts. Meanwhile 45 miles up the road in Tampa there are different rules in place. It is state by state and municpality by municpality as to capacity rules, diner rules, masking rules.
Cruise ships? In the US Trump had to take on the bureaucrats at the CDC and cancel their latest ‘no sail rule’. Many of those cruising now are in a younger demographic, including families as shown by all the Disney owned cruise ships.
“…. those with medical conditions” Yes, we need more fat shaming. But it would be politically incorrect to say that. Meanwhile what’s the death count from Mt. Rushmore, Daytona Beach or even the first BLM rally?
Fred – most of the early measures, or lack of them, I can understand, at least in the UK. We had a disease hit a country that was unprepared for it and for various reasons didn’t take it seriously enough to start with. Then the “Hail Mary” lockdown because no one could really think what to do and we had to do something.
Crude stuff. Most of it inevitable though one could wish otherwise.
It’s different now. I do feel that the lockdown/no lockdown argument is now getting in the way. Of course no politician can simply sit back and let the thing rip. Equally obviously lockdown will wreck the economy – and that’s no way to live anyway.
Instead of either of those two extreme courses I believe we need more intensive and more accurately targeted public health measures while we’re waiting for the magic vaccine. And after. Trouble is that means local and specific – and the UK is heavily centralised. And in your country and mine epidemiology is taking a back seat to political infighting.
This is not just playing merry hell with public health. It’s obtruding into policics. You don’t like this or that man in charge? Don’t get at him through direct argument. Knock him on his handling of Covid. There’s always something can be attacked there and it’s easy enough to attack if you’re not having to run the thing yourself.
So my particular interest over here, Brexit – yes, it’s still shambling on – is affected. We have a PM with an 80 seat majority who should in theory have no difficulty finally getting the thing done. But he’s vulnerable because of his unpopular handling of Covid so beat him with that stick, think the opponents of Brexit, and we can screw up Brexit indirectly.
And you’ve got Trump. He should walk it, given that opponent and given that he’s been, if not a successful President, about as successful a one as the Beltway and the media will permit. Yet he’s losing core support, it’s said, because of his Covid policy.
So I’d prefer to see epidemiology and politics kept in separate boxes. Fat chance and it’s a bit late now anyway. But when performing that difficult balancing act between public health measures and unsustainable economic damage I do believe that we’re not taking enough account of the fact I have ventured to point out above: that whatever the politicians do part of the economic damage inevitably arises from the fact that people don’t as a rule choose to be culled if they can avoid it.
English,
“lockdown because no one could really think what to do and we had to do something. ”
That’s a damning indictment of the leadership of the UK.
“Yet he’s losing core support, it’s said,…”
You believe fake news? Who said, and where and when?
” public health measures and unsustainable economic damage”
This has never been the issue, it has been a biological attack (accidentally started or not) by the Chinese; inflamed by propaganda, with a cooridinated response siezed upon by every enemy of Trump and the people he supports.
Damning indictment, Fred? And whose fault is that?
I’ve said several times on SST that we could do with Trump over here. Not only is that request studiously ignored, you greedy blighters are grabbing him for the next four years as well.
Hell of a special relationship that is.