Visualized data absent context and stabilizing influence of time is powerful narrative voodoo. Don’t you miss the good old days when we were all gonna die from Climate Change?
Remember when the state and the “scientists” told us that the coronavirus would kill up to 2.2 million Americans? Then in late in March, it changed to between 100,000 and 240,000 deaths in the U.S. The estimates keep coming in lower and lower.
The government attempts to take credit for this by saying it is because of mitigation and distancing orders. But, the awful six-figure numbers included and factored in mitigation and social distancing orders. Social distancing was always part of their high predictions.
The same model used to predict 100,000 or more deaths now tells us to expect something closer to 60,000 deaths. Of course, now they are artificially inflating their numbers. New York City’s Health Department is now counting “probable” COVID-19 deaths. As Dr. Deborah Birx put it, unlike other countries, “We’ve taken a very liberal approach to mortality . . . if someone dies with COVID-19, we are counting that as a COVID-19 death.”
Lockdowns don’t appear to be highly correlated with infection and death rates. California, our largest state by far, locked down only three days before New York. Per capita, California’s infection rate is 6% that of New York’s, and its death rate is 4%. Florida, also more populous than New York, locked down almost two weeks after New York. Per capita, Florida’s infection rate is 9% that of New York’s, and it has had 4% of its death rate.
Note: The rest of the country is not New York.
A recent Stanford University study reveals the virus is 50-85 times less deadly than initially thought. The infection/mortality rate of COVID-19 is not the 2% to 5% rate others have surmised, but more in the small hundredths-of-a-single-percent range.
We drastically transfigured over 55 million children’s educational and social lives to protect them from a virus that affects them less than the annual flu. As of this writing, a total of three children have died from the virus in New York City — each of whom had underlying health conditions.
Fewer than 10 children have died nationally from COVID-19, although about 80 have died from the flu.
What are we doing? 80,000 people have been hospitalized, however, the previous two flu seasons in America required nearly half a million hospitalizations.
As Dr. Jonathan Geach has written: “Our health care system is now underwhelmed and health care workers are being laid off and furloughed in droves as a result of health care centers having neglected patient care not related to COVID-19 in fear of a COVID-19 surge that failed to materialize on a nationwide basis. This means tens of millions of patients are failing to receive the medical care they need in a timely manner. Almost every hospital outside of the hot spots is empty.” At the Mayo Clinic, as one example, he reports “65% of the hospital beds are empty, as are 75% of the operating rooms.”
California Rep. Tom McClintock said this week: “How many of the 1.8 million new cancers each year in the United States will go undetected for months because routine screenings and appointments have been postponed? How many heart, kidney, liver, and pulmonary illnesses will fester while people’s lives are on hold? How many suicides or domestic homicides will occur as families watch their livelihoods evaporate before their eyes? How many drug and alcohol deaths can we expect as Americans stew in their homes under police-enforced indefinite home detention orders? How many new cases of obesity-related diabetes and heart disease will emerge as Americans are banished from outdoor recreation and instead spend their idle days within a few steps of the refrigerator?”
Also from the United Nations: “The economic hardship experienced by families as a result of the global economic downturn could result in hundreds of thousands of additional child deaths in 2020, reversing the last 2 to 3 years of progress in reducing infant mortality within a single year.”