Mismanaging Covid-19 News and Response Policies (updated 10dec20)

George Rebane

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 2 December 2020.]

The nation’s response to the Covid pandemic has been an episode of our history quite unlike anything that any of us have experienced before.  Those who pay attention know that most of what has been proposed, done, and reported has been wrong, either because the science was incomplete and politicized, and/or the news we received was purposed to serve a political agenda and not report what was really happening.  And all of it continues to this very day.  Americans remain misinformed and confused about literally every aspect of the Covid pandemic.

Today the news breathlessly reports on the new surge of infections telling us how many recently infected joined the total number of US Covid cases, which we are told are now north of 14 million.  To add emphasis to the dire situation, we are further told that this is the largest number of Covid cases of any country in the world.  On top of that, America’s Covid death toll is the world’s highest.  The message is clear, the Trump administration has mismanaged the country’s response to the pandemic, and it could have been otherwise.

Begrudgingly we are told that vaccines are coming, but there is no effective way to distribute them and properly prioritize who should be the first to be vaccinated.  Our schools are to remain shut because we don’t want to endanger our children or their teachers.  Lockdowns on small businesses are prescribed all over the land for reasons no one can provide – the mantra ‘follow the science’ should ring hollow in people’s ears for there is no definitive science that provides such backing.

Returning to the number of reported Covid cases – it actually represents an erroneous estimate of the cumulative number of people infected by the virus during this year.  The average person takes this to be the number of people still ill and suffering, especially since that number is reported in conjunction with the latest mortality count.  All of these millions remain in danger of losing their lives.  The better-read person knows that most of the infected are asymptomatic and therefore unknown to the counters.  And of the symptomatic, the disease runs its normal course in two to four weeks during which you either overwhelmingly recover or rarely die.  Furthermore, of the few who are symptomatic, a small fraction of those require hospitalization.

What is not reported are the rates which put into perspective that we are a large and mobile nation of at least 330 million people.  So what we need to hear is not the large gee-whiz numbers, but instead the rates of infection, hospitalization, morbidity, mortality, recoveries, etc per hundred thousand or per a million.  Comparing America’s raw numbers with those of smaller countries like Canada, Denmark, or Germany has sent the wrong, but perhaps desired, message to people deciding who to vote for during this election year.

We should remember that reaching herd immunity – naturally or vaccine aided - is how every infectious epidemic peters out and ends.  Politically incorrect scientists have been telling us for months that the real number of Covid cases is enormously higher than those recorded by the healthcare establishment.  It turns out, as reported in the prestigious journal Nature, that the real number of cases should include what is called sero-prevalence.  The sero-prevalence survey of a population reveals the vastly larger number that have been exposed, and available antibody testing data show that this number is over 50 times higher than those symptomatic and recorded clinically.  This finding is so critical that the World Health Organization has now a program to establish sero-prevalence rates worldwide.

These important findings, based on already available data, indicate that the Covid mortality rates, instead of being in the reported 3% range, may actually be an order of magnitude lower in 0.2-0.3% range.  This makes the Covid fatality rate closer to the flu season that we encounter annually.  Recognition of this fact alone should impact response policies and eliminate business lockdowns, stay-at-home quarantines, and shuttered schools.  There are many more important aspects of this pandemic that have been politicized beyond recognition.  While there is not enough time in this short commentary for me to list them all, I strongly recommend listeners to look deeper into the reporting on the progress of the Covid pandemic, and not base their understanding solely on what they hear on the mainstream media’s daily six o’clock news.

My name is Rebane, and I also expand on this and related themes on Rebane’s Ruminations where the addended transcript of this commentary is posted with relevant links, and where such issues are debated extensively.  However, my views are not necessarily shared by KVMR.  Thank you for listening.

[Addendum]  According to John Hopkins University, the proportion of US deaths in the various age categories has not been visibly impacted by the C19 pandemic.  “Surprisingly, the deaths of older people stayed the same before and after COVID-19. Since COVID-19 mainly affects the elderly, experts expected an increase in the percentage of deaths in older age groups. However, this increase is not seen from the CDC data. In fact, the percentages of deaths among all age groups remain relatively the same.” (more here)

As I have attempted to explain, this result is not surprising since older people are already ‘scheduled’ to die from any number of causes in their sunset years.  Substituting C19 as a cause for one of the other causes doesn’t move the needle much on the total count.

And here are some citations to expand on the sero-prevalence points made in the broadcast commentary.  The interview with Dr Bhattacharya also presents data on the comparative death rates with other recent viral infections and the experience with our annual flu season. (here and here)

[5dec20 update]  We have heard almost nothing of anti-viral Ivermectin in connection to C19.  Teams of reputable medical and healthcare groups have studied the prophylactic and treatment performance of Ivermectin, and have published extensively on it. (more here)  But none of it has been picked up by the CDC, NIH, Trump administration, and of course, the lamestream.  The clinical evidence appears overwhelming that this medicine is effective in both preventing and treating the Covid virus.  Additionally, it seems to also be effective in treating some of the bad aftereffects that afflict some people who have recovered from the virus.  I add Ivermectin to the chamber of horrors from which politicians and nationally prominent medicos pull out their politicized and vacillating ‘science’ to recommend public response policies that vary all over the map and calendar.  Some coven of clinicians somewhere has decided that Ivermectin shall not see the light of day, even so that it could be countered were there any basis for such opposition.  And here is one outspoken scientist giving a summary of the drug in lay language.

[10dec20 update]  YouTube censored the above link to the summary video on Ivermectin.  A reader pointed to this Vimeo link that still gives access to information on the socialist proscribed anti-viral.  More signs of our time.

Comments

[Randy]

Dr. Rebane how dare you use science and facts to refute "such a wonderful crisis that shouldn't let go to waste!" /sarc

[L]

Don't know how much better it can be said.

[Bill Tozer]

Well said, with a delightful sense of wit, knowledge, and common sense.

"I’m Not An A**hole, The Governor Is’: Celebrity Chef Blasts Newsom’s COVID-19 Regulations

https://www.dailywire.com/news/im-not-an-ahole-the-governor-is-celebrity-chef-blasts-newsoms-covid-19-regulations?

[Bill Tozer]

Judge orders LA County to provide evidence for outdoor banning

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-12-02/covid-19-la-county-outdoor-dining-ban-judge

I would like to see the evidence too.

[Don Bessee]

All the small business who failed in the last months can thank botox nancy for using relief as a weapon against the prez in the election -

Pelosi on reason for shift to supporting smaller coronavirus relief: 'New president'

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pelosi-coronavirus-relief-new-president

;-)

[Bill Tozer]

‘State health departments across country failing to collect critical COVID-19 pandemic data’
"Cycle threshold" information for COVID tests remains largely absent from state data.

“......Investigations by both Just the News and the New York Times have revealed that many of the "positive" test results recorded throughout the country may actually denote nothing more than fragments of dead COVID virus picked up by overly sensitive testing equipment.

The issue hinges on the method by which many COVID-19 tests detect the viral load within a sample taken from a patient. Polymerase chain reaction — or PCR — tests are among the most popular diagnostic tools to detect the COVID-19 virus. They work by amplifying DNA from a viral sample to the point that an antigen can be detected and classified.

The "cycle threshold" is the number of amplification cycles a PCR test goes through before it determines the presence of a virus. The lower the cycle, the higher the viral load from the original sample; a higher cycle, on the other hand, means that the machine had to work longer and harder to detect a scant amount of virus in the original sample.

Higher-cycle "positive" tests potentially indicate that a patient is non-infectious and at little health risk from the virus; those results may also indicate that a patient need not subject himself to strict quarantine measures, given the potential lack of infectivity. “

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/state-health-departments-across-country-are-failing-collect-critical

[Bill Tozer]

‘Media Spins Kristi Noem’s Grandmother’s Death To Shame The Governor’s COVID Policies’
The mainstream media is exploiting the death of South Dakota Gov. Krist Noem’s grandmother in an effort to shame the Republican for her COVID-19 response.

According to the governor’s office, Noem’s grandmother, 98-year-old Aldys Arnold, died in her sleep on Nov. 22

https://thefederalist.com/2020/12/04/media-spins-kristi-noems-grandmothers-death-to-shame-the-governors-covid-policies/

“The dog psychic story had more journalistic integrity than this," conservative commentator Stephen Miller tweeted, alluding to about the pet psychic who claims to have communicated with President-elect Biden's dogs.” —another site.
————
Did you know? On Nov. 27, 2020, Governor Noem announced the birth of her first grandchild, just days after the passing of her 98 year grandmother. One leaves the family, a new one arrives. Her grief is turned to joy. Kristi was been blessed at this time of mourning.

[Bill Tozer]

‘CNN Criticizing China Is No Longer Racist. What Changed?’
It seems that mentioning the geographic source of the virus — Wuhan, China — and criticizing China’s responsibility for COVID-19 is no longer evidence of bigotry.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/cnn-criticizing-china-is-no-longer-racist-what-changed

[Gregory]

bt 850am

Let's remember that the names COVID-19/COVID-2019 were developed by the WHO to avoid blaming China.

https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/technical-guidance/naming-the-coronavirus-disease-(covid-2019)-and-the-virus-that-causes-it

It's Wuhan SARS, SARS being severe acute respiratory syndrome. The technical name given the virus by the organization that names viruses is SARS-CoV-2. It's Wuhan SARS to differentiate the earlier China virus, the Guangdong SARS or SARS-CoV-1 .