Four graphs prove the utter failure of lockdowns and masks
The data is now in. Not only is the coronavirus nothing more than a very bad flu, harmless to the vast majority of the population, the bad policy imposed by almost all governments worldwide has done nothing to alleviate it, and in fact has probably helped kill people, from both the virus and their bad policy.
This conclusion is starkly illustrated in the following four graphs (source), all of which show the history of COVID-19 during the entire 2020 epidemic, now clearly ending. All four graphs are updates of graphs I’ve referenced previously, but now they take us through the epidemic’s present waning, and give us a better context of both the virus’ flu-like nature and the terrible policies imposed by governments in their panic over it.
First to the right we have the daily mortality numbers for the entire United States. The steady drop in deaths since epidemic’s second peak on August 12th is very evident. The epidemic appears to be winding down, though very slowly. Furthermore, it had an unusual summer peak that is almost never seen in such respiratory diseases. The reasons for both the slowness of the virus’s decay and its second peak will become clear as we look at the next three graphs, covering the epidemic’s peak in New York, New Jersey, and California.
To the right are graphs showing the entire history of daily deaths from COVID-19 in both New York and New Jersey. Both show almost the exact same pattern, a quick rise and then a steady but relatively rapid fall to almost zero.
Note that the spike of deaths on May 7 on the New York graph is because New York suddenly added on that day a whole slew of new deaths, under suspicious circumstances. Similarly, the below zero numbers on August 24 in New Jersey are because that state has been revising its totals repeatedly, also under suspicious circumstance.
Regardless, notice how neither state had that second peak during the summer. In fact, the data shows that for both states, the epidemic has been over for months.
What apparently happened is that both states have a high density of population, which means their lockdowns were pointless. There was no way to prevent their residents from interacting closely in any number of ways, from riding the subways to walking on crowded city streets. Thus, the epidemic did what these respiratory diseases always do, it quickly spread through the population, with the vast majority of people either showing no symptoms, or becoming sick for a week or so but then completely recovering. At that point the population had reached herd immunity, making it difficult for the virus to infect more people, and thus the death rate quickly dropped to almost zero.
In fact, since mid-July in both states the number of deaths per day has exceeded ten only a handful of times. Considering the size of both states’ populations, these numbers are truly trivial. You have more chance of dying in a car accident, by many multiples. Furthermore, though I have not researched it, I am willing to bet, based on the nationwide data, that almost all those deaths were among the elderly sick.
In these states the general population was not threatened by this disease during its peak, and was even less threatened by it in the months since. The lockdowns and mask mandates made no difference at all.
Meanwhile, the lockdowns elsewhere across the U.S. had some effect, none of which was positive. The national graph above suggests that these government mandates did succeed in slowing the disease’s spread, but the consequence was not fewer deaths, but a second wave of deaths and likely more deaths overall because herd immunity was prevented.
The lockdowns also caused that second wave in the summer, probably because too many Americans were forced to stay indoors, when they would have normally been outside. One of the reasons these respiratory diseases peak in the winter and die in the summer is that they prosper when people are indoors, avoiding the sun (and the ultraviolet light that kills such viruses) while breathing confined indoor air where such pathogens can prosper.
The lockdowns locked people indoors, and thus helped to keep the virus alive, as the national graph above shows.
Moreover, the slow decline of the epidemic nationwide is probably because much of the nation is only now reaching herd immunity, though the continuing lockdowns are probably preventing this from occurring as fast as it should. As we move into the winter months we might even see another peak, only because the lockdowns prevented herd immunity from occurring in too many places.
Thus, because of this wrong-headed and panicky government policy, the elderly sick across much of the nation will remain unnecessarily threatened by this flu-like disease. Fewer will die as they did in 2020, but more will die than should have.
In New York and New Jersey, however, I am confident we will see no significant rise in COVID-19 deaths this coming winter. When it comes to coronavirus, of all places in the U.S. those states are probably the safest places to be.
Finally we have California to the right. Unlike New York and New Jersey, the daily death rate throughout this entire epidemic has never risen very high, mostly because the deaths in New York and New Jersey were unnecessarily inflated because those state governments forced infected individuals into nursing homes, thus spreading the virus among the most vulnerable, killing thousands unnecessarily. Though California’s government has not done well, it at least did not make this blatant and incredibly incompetent error.
The graph however does illustrate the pointlessness of Governor Gavin Newsom’s draconian lockdown mandates. As soon as he imposted both mask and lockdowns rules, the number of COVID-19 cases began to rise. Either his policies encouraged the disease’s spread, or were completely irrelevant to it.
Masks especially appear useless, based on this graph. If anything, their requirement in June apparently contributed to the virus’s spread, probably because people routinely use them improperly and in ways that make them spreaders of disease.
What the California graph however shows more than anything is that the epidemic is truly ending, without a vaccine and completely irrelevant to the government policy imposed during this year. Cases, the sudden bugaboo of the partisan liberal press when deaths began dropping, are dropping now as well.
The worst is over. We all didn’t die. In fact, almost no one did die, who wasn’t expected to. The young and healthy are still here, immune to this virus as they are to the flu.
We should throw away the masks, end the lockdowns and absurd rules that accomplish nothing but make us fearful puppets and slaves, and return to normal American life, a life that is courageous, happy, and above all, free.
What we have now is none of those things. As Americans we need to demand an end to these ugly government-imposed “feel-good” empty mandates that are destroying our great nation.
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In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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Medcram says cases are rising in Europe. France is higher than ever. What if flu season enables the virus to spread more than it has done over the summer?
https://youtu.be/2wJdB5tTKeg
The question is, are those rising cases in Europe leading to rising deaths? The chart I saw for France from the end of August showed cases rising steadily starting a little after a mask mandate went into effect (suggesting it was having no or negative effects) while deaths continued steady or decreasing.
You should plot the two events on the CA graph: Death of George Floyd and Start of Riots in CA. Two weeks after rioting began, you can see a change in the first derivative of the daily totals.
I saw a graph (sorry, I’m not going to dig it out tonight) that showed the mortality of the generally northern states, which graph roughly follows the ones presented here for New York and New Jersey. There was a second graph for the generally southern states. The mortality curve generally followed what is presented here for California. But neither of those graphs showed a 2nd wave.
Look at the timing on these graphs. Northern states had an earlier mortality peak occurring in spring, while southern states had a later peak, occurring in summer. When overlain atop each other for the whole US, it looks like a second wave in summer. But in fact no location had a second wave: the northern states peaked a couple months before the southern states did.
Something is VERY wrong with the first graph that calls it into doubt. Why is there the up-down variability? Do people only die every other week? And the swings are not trivial. Most of the up swings are 100% greater than the previous data point.
Archie: The up and down swing reflects the weekday/weekend reporting that various state health agencies do. On the weekends the numbers always drop, because many states do not do reports.
If you look close, this will become clear. The numbers are high at the beginning of the week (because some states report their numbers for the entire weekend on Monday) and steadily drop as the week progresses.
What you should look at is the overall trend.
According to the UK government today, the 6,500 new cases yesterday are believed to represent 10,000 new cases total, while back in April 6,500 cases a day were being found out of 100,000 cases.
A few obvious points that readers should consider.
1) Mortality rates decline as public awareness and medical preparedness rise. To the surprise of literally no one, more patients survive when patients seek care earlier and doctors have some experience treating it.
2) Mortality rates were high because it was assumed that patients had pneumonia or flu. Because covid is far more lethal, treating it as a less serious disease caused more patients to die.
3) If you’re going to make claims about herd immunity, back it up with some authority other than your own misreading of a few charts that say nothing of herd immunity.
4) Counterpoint: NY and NJ lockdowns flattened their death curves, and high compliance with mask mandates contribute to the slowed spread.
5) If lockdowns caused summer spikes, why were nearly all the worst summer spikes in states with the weakest, shortest lockdowns and earliest, fastest reopenings?
6) You are advocating mass euthanasia of senior citizens. It makes me long for the days when even fake “death panels” were beyond the pale.
7) You focus entirely on mortality, arbitrarily stipulating that survival equates to negligible illness in low-risk groups. Hundreds of thousands, eventually millions, of Americans will survive covid with some degree of permanent injury or chronic, recurring symptoms. The virus’ interference with the endocrine signaling is capable of triggering self-perpetuating feedback loops. That signaling disruption is how covid indirectly causes symptoms ranging from flaky skin to neurological damage to renal failure. Chronic fatigue reported by long-haulers may in fact be thyroid damage or decreased hormonal sensitivity.
The disease itself is not a joke. Polio only crippled a tiny percentage of victims, and nearly all recovered like it was the flu. Covid is more like polio than the flu, if only because it’s becoming increasingly apparent that covid is capable of permanent injury and chronic illness in a small percentage of patients.
8) Does your liberal arts degree qualify you to opine on any of this? Particularly when you are recommending that readers casually risk their health and safety?
Very little attention is being paid to the fact that up to a third of any population, worldwide, is protected from Wuhan Virus by “Memory” T-Cells as extensively reported by Nature, German and Singaporean researchers and others. Making the masked lockdowns even more wicked and stupid.
Making “herd immunity” at 33% level via Lymphocystes, despite so few of a population testing as having anti-bodies to Wuhan Covid.
From Nature July” As data start to accumulate on the detection and characterization of SARS-CoV-2 T cell responses in humans, a surprising finding has been reported: lymphocytes from 20–50% of unexposed donors display significant reactivity to SARS-CoV-2 antigen peptide pools1,2,3,4.
In a study by Grifoni et al.1, reactivity was detected in 50% of donor blood samples obtained in the USA between 2015 and 2018, before SARS-CoV-2 appeared in the human population. T cell reactivity was highest against proteins other than the coronavirus spike protein, but T cell reactivity was also detected against (cornoa) spike. “
What do you do when a used car dealer changes the deal after you have shaken hands? You must walk away. Well, the original lockdowns were accepted based on the sound reason that we cannot possibly fill up all the ICU beds. That didn’t happen then and it is certainly not happening now. With excess mortality near zero, the deal has been changed. Now police in parts of Australia and the UK are arresting people for expressing opinions about the lockdown that point out this fact. The deal is changed. I have walked away.
The WuFlu has become like the Ring to Rule Them All. Few in power who pick it up can let it fall from their grasp. This for me has been a reaffirmation of how wise the Founders were with respect to government power and human nature. Above all we must be very jealous indeed of our liberty, for look at how many professionals find it so easy to destroy it, all in the name of keeping us safe.
If you really want to make those charts show how this is all a hoax, change the Y-axis scale to 330 million, the population of the US, and not 1000, or even 14k.
Watch how all of those scary looking curves turn into a straight line, indistinguishable from zero.
It seems that COVID-19 will kill the same folks eventually, no matter masks or lockdowns.
The lower than average excess deaths from 2019 were than up in the COVID 2020 excess deaths.
JD, you’re full of it. Well spoken, but still full of [deleted].
A few obvious points that readers should consider.
1) Mortality rates decline as public awareness and medical preparedness rise. To the surprise of literally no one, more patients survive when patients seek care earlier and doctors have some experience treating it.
Mortality rates are declining across the globe – irregardless of intervention technique or duration – at essentially the same rate. Clearly, this is independent of when a patient goes for treatment,. Given the media and Gov’t hysterics, I am certain no one is waiting to go for treatment. Further treatment modalities have been established for months.
2) Mortality rates were high because it was assumed that patients had pneumonia or flu. Because covid is far more lethal, treating it as a less serious disease caused more patients to die.
Rubbish. The spikes in death all occur well after the pandemic was realized.
3) If you’re going to make claims about herd immunity, back it up with some authority other than your own misreading of a few charts that say nothing of herd immunity.
Herd immunity follows the same sequence for every virus on the planet. This is established by many metrics, RO being a leading indicator. The RO of covid was established months ago. The argument now is what impact T-Cell immunity has on covid, some studies showing a HI as low as 25%.
4) Counterpoint: NY and NJ lockdowns flattened their death curves, and high compliance with mask mandates contribute to the slowed spread.
NY flattened it’s curve by no longer sending the infected into LTC’s. Both NYC and NJ have been proven to be cooking the numbers. There is verifiable connection between masks and lockdowns.. the data is staring you in the face.
5) If lockdowns caused summer spikes, why were nearly all the worst summer spikes in states with the weakest, shortest lockdowns and earliest, fastest reopenings?
Data supporting this? Spikes coincided with geography and seasonal climate, but the actual infection and death rates are nearly identical.
6) You are advocating mass euthanasia of senior citizens. It makes me long for the days when even fake “death panels” were beyond the pale.
Childish.
7) You focus entirely on mortality, arbitrarily stipulating that survival equates to negligible illness in low-risk groups. Hundreds of thousands, eventually millions, of Americans will survive covid with some degree of permanent injury or chronic, recurring symptoms. The virus’ interference with the endocrine signaling is capable of triggering self-perpetuating feedback loops. That signaling disruption is how covid indirectly causes symptoms ranging from flaky skin to neurological damage to renal failure. Chronic fatigue reported by long-haulers may in fact be thyroid damage or decreased hormonal sensitivity.
The disease itself is not a joke. Polio only crippled a tiny percentage of victims, and nearly all recovered like it was the flu. Covid is more like polio than the flu, if only because it’s becoming increasingly apparent that covid is capable of permanent injury and chronic illness in a small percentage of patients.
Nonsense. Another meme whipped up by the MSM. All ‘source data’ is anecdotal and unsubtantiated. The overwhelming majority are asymptomatic and show no longterm effects.
8) Does your liberal arts degree qualify you to opine on any of this? Particularly when you are recommending that readers casually risk their health and safety?
Fear porn merchant…
There is is essentially one common threats among those who have died and it isn’t age as age stratification data shows the young are essentially immune.
It’s metabolic syndrome. Considering that you can reverse many metabolic syndromes with just a few months of a high fat, high protein, low carb diet, I have to wonder why Gov’t and health authorities do not mention this at all but instead tell people just stay inside – this is especially concerning given the main transmission vector is intrafamilial.
Thanks
to JD:
you say, “eventually millions, of Americans will survive covid with some degree of permanent injury or chronic, recurring symptoms”
you also say, “it’s becoming increasingly apparent that covid is capable of permanent injury and chronic illness in a small percentage of patients.”
Seems a contradiction.
you say: “Mortality rates were high because it was assumed that patients had pneumonia or flu. Because covid is far more lethal, treating it as a less serious disease caused more patients to die.”
The times of the highest mortality rates are clearly well after testing and wide spread communication of the disease was present. The highest rates were then end of April, beginning of May. At that point covid was on the radar big time. Lock downs had been ordered the previous month to ensure ICU beds were open for COVID patients. Makes no sense that hospitals would be preparing for covid patients the MONTH before….and then treating them as flu or pneumonia the month after. I know the facility I work at was not doing that in this time frame.
you said, “3) If you’re going to make claims about herd immunity, back it up with some authority other than your own misreading of a few charts that say nothing of herd immunity.”
Agreed. He should have used Sweden’s charts to SUPPORT his point.
you say, “4) Counterpoint: NY and NJ lockdowns flattened their death curves, and high compliance with mask mandates contribute to the slowed spread.”
Or maybe the numbers flattened in NY when they stopped sending elderly patients to convalescent homes?
“5) If lockdowns caused summer spikes, why were nearly all the worst summer spikes in states with the weakest, shortest lockdowns and earliest, fastest reopenings?”
Most, if not all of those states where in the South. What do you think of South Dakota’s performance?
you say: “You are advocating mass euthanasia of senior citizens. It makes me long for the days when even fake “death panels” were beyond the pale.”
How so? Why quarantine the healthy? Why not quarantine the vulnerable? Seems reasonable to me and probably most people.
you say: “Does your liberal arts degree qualify you to opine on any of this? Particularly when you are recommending that readers casually risk their health and safety?”
Well, governor’s with no formal applicable degrees or experience are making the calls in their states. And don’t say “oh but they are following the science”…b/c THAT is not TRUE. They are follow the sources that align with their POLITICAL beliefs. As are the GOP governors…..
JD is 100% correct. Our national and local government policy should mirror our Polio response, when we shutdown entire industries and arrested people at high-school football games for not wearing masks, for example, while we patiently waited 39 years* for the vaccine.
*While sporadic polio outbreaks predate history, I’ll say 1916’s major American outbreaks qualify as the historical equivalent to our own troubles. The polio vaccine was first available to the public in 1955.
Also, JD’s points are very persuasive in defense of strict lockdowns etc, though it must be emphasized that persuasion has nothing to do with our public health response, in which Some Measure of Public Health (SMPH going forward) is the ultimate goal. People simply do not need the right to assemble, run a business with employees and customers operating on a voluntary basis, go to church, attend funerals and weddings, have their children educated in schools or universities, celebrate or generally congregate in groups, vote in person, petition their government, or even go about their day without a mask on when SMPH is at stake.
It boggles the mind how some people (almost all of them without proper medical degrees) still mistrust medical authorities, including and especially the politicians putting policies in place to achieve SMPH. Don’t they understand that SMPH is far, far more dear than the so-called “rights” they keep blathering on about? Far better to trust the authority’s message (whatever it happens to be this week) and demand strict state-enforced punishments for people threatening SMPH, most especially for people holding non-medical degrees who dare opine on the biggest subject of the moment. After all, it’s more like Polio than a bad Flu.
Re: permanent damage from Covid.
In December of 2017 I was 64. Just a couple weeks before I was set to retire, I came down with that year’s flu. There was a lot of it going around. That was the first time I got so sick that I realized that it could kill me. When I went to the Kaiser physician neither he, nor I, nor anyone else in the waiting rooms had to wear a mask. I got over it, but the consolation prize for winning that year’s virus lottery was a set of hearing aids. Maybe we should have locked down the country back then. After all, if it saves one ear…
JWM
Joe: I deleted your obscenity. Putting a single * in a word is not a sufficient action.
Read the rules just above the “Last 15 comments” box. No obscenities are allowed on Behind the Black. You are warned. Do it again I will ban you for a week. Do it a third time and I will very reluctantly ban you forever.
The summer curve is typical of viruses. Hope-Simpson observed the seasonality of infection in the early 20th century. Northern latitudes are affected in the winter. Southern latitudes have curves of lower amplitude in the summer.
Search for “on the epidemiology of influenza”, Virology Journal, February 2008. Long read, worth your time.
I have to disagree with this. A bit of reading the entrails of a few cherry picked graphs is not convincing.
This “epidemic appears to be winding down” is the sort of conclusion that is probably wrong. Yes, cases have declined. But why? The author would have us believe that some unnamed factor is causing it to go down.
The “lockdowns did no good” hypothesis is also weak. It is true that it is hard to separate the effect of government mandates from voluntary behavior, but the most people arguing about lockdowns don’t even seem to be aware of the high degree of voluntary mitigations measures taken without government orders, or even advice.
The idea that the high population density makes lockdowns or their equivalent is also extremely weak – other countries with high population densities than the NE states have had *much* better success with the virus than the US. They have controlled their peaks early or had no peak at all./
I tire of people reading too much into graphs, especially without adding reasoning as to the actual causes. Anyone can look at a graph and conjure up all sorts of explanations. But without reasoning about the “physics” behind the graph – i.e. the causes – it is no better than superstition. I’ve seen way too much of this.
As for the “physics”… epidemics die out only when either the chain of transmission is interrupted by mitigation measures or the number of susceptible hosts drops to where the growth rate is negative (i.e. Rt 40%). On cruise ships, over 80% have been infected.
So herd immunity doesn’t explain it.
Mutation of the virus doesn’t eitherr.
That leaves interruption of the transmission chain – and masks and social distancing (of which “lockdowns” are a very strong measure) are the likely cause.
Also, deaths are not a good metric. Because many of the most at risk individuals were in congregate care facilities, and it wasn’t well known how to protect them, of course we had a high death rate early on. Also, treatment protocols weren’t as good as they are now .
I believe this is wishful thinking of the most dangerous kind, that will end up killing people who should not die. There. We’re both on the record. I will be back here on October 24 to see who’s wrong. Much as I have being wrong, I hope to God I am. Yesterday’s death rate was 942. We’ll see what it is in a month.
Let me point something out from my military experience. A couple of weeks after a basic training cycle started, all the trainees had colds or flu. We even had a name for it, “cat fever”, a name that is apparently hallowed by age. (when I mentioned the phenomena as a college student to my dad, a WW2 vet, his immediate response was “I caught what we called cat fever at Great Lakes in ’43” and he explained why it occurred)) After a few more weeks, everybody was healthy again and we had herd immunity . The same thing happened to a lesser degree at college. The reason is pretty obvious
“Military recruits are at high risk of respiratory infections.1 The congregation of individuals from diverse geographic locations in semi-closed settings, together with high levels of close contact, provide conditions that favor the introduction and transmission of respiratory pathogens.2 Studies among military recruits have found high rates of illness and infection with respiratory viruses.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6159564/
My point is, any spike in Wuhan Flu should have been anticipated with schools reopening and should be taken into account when you see panicky stories about “a new peak”. Especially since the achool and college age populations are among the least threatened in terms of lethality. It will pass in just a few weeks with few serious effects.
I wonder if the Founding Fathers of this country could have imagined the tyranny of “Public Safety”? For sure it does exist today. My fear is that Covid19 has demonstrated how easy it is to control society with declarations of public safety. Like trying to predict landfall hurricanes, each flu season is a guessing game of fatalities, only measured in true numbers, after the season is over. How will you respond or react to the next declaration of “Public Safety”, regardless of how virtuous it may be framed, for the good of all? You will not avoid death by living in fear. I will not live in fear!
Col Beausaber,
Saw the same when mobilizing troops. We called it the Mob station crud, normally took soldiers down for 4-5 days. Shots, big groups of people from multiple areas, and tight quarters in training.
To combat it, we normally scheduled the first week of training as all the admin/classroom training (paperwork, med records…..etc) which they could accomplish while being ill. The Troop Med clinics got used to being flooded in week 1 of our training cycle, and would send them back to duty with OTC meds. My father saw similar mobilizing for Korea, and my uncles saw the same in prep for shipping in WW2.
It never shut down the Army, you deal with it, mitigate through planning. and move on.
Reader SteveS referenced differences in Northern vs Southern states. If you check out Edgar Hope-Simpson who did a lot of research on viral lifecycles from 1930’s-80, you’d see the curves for southern states/countries flow a different curve.
I believe Fauci was right when he wrote this in March of this year.
He says: “If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.2”
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2002387
Bad news : Lefties don’t give a [deleted] about facts and evidence and will continue to spread fear. At least until Nov 3rd.
Good news: This thing will run it’s course by next spring, with or without a vaccine. Why? Because of science.
The left, however, will continue to look for covid, everywhere.
jimbox: I have deleted the obscenity in your comment. You are new here I think so you might be unaware of the rules. Look at the box in the right column just above the last 15 comments. No obscenities. This is a warning. Do it again and you are banned for a week. Do it a third time and you are banned forever.
Col. and ‘Dude,
Your exchange jogged my memory.
WW2 mobilization in Canada in 1939: Military District 2 assembled troops at the Exhibition Grounds in Toronto, housing them in the stables used for livestock exhibitions. My father referred to the disease as the “Horse Palace Croup”.
Mr Z.
May I recommend a copy of the rules posted just above the blank comment box, as a gentle reminder.
May save you time.
sippin_bourbon: I have thought of this recently. However, we first have to get the issues fixed that have been slowing the site for me (not you my readers). This will also include fixing the issues I have with the new visual theme installed this past weekend.
Once those are fixed, then I will see about getting the rules placed just above the comment box on every post.
JD is way off on his criticisms about herd immunity comments by the author. I had been doing spreadsheets using cases and deaths statistics and added in the effect discovered by the Stanford research which showed that for each case there were 50 to 85 infected people who hadn’t known they had the virus. Using an assumption of 50 infections for every case, I found that as of 05/24/20, 92.9% of people in New York State, and 52.0% of people in New Jersey had been infected; and as of 50/16/20, 100% of people in New York City had been infected. My analysis was a broad brushed approximation because as you approach 100 % infections, it will only approach asymptotically. But by the dates I gave, both New York State and the City were clearly in or close to herd immunity. This is consistent with the graphs in this post.
One month ago I posted this: “I believe this is wishful thinking of the most dangerous kind, that will end up killing people who should not die. There. We’re both on the record. I will be back here on October 24 to see who’s wrong. Much as I hate being wrong, I hope to God I am. Yesterday’s death rate was 942. We’ll see what it is in a month.”
Yesterday’s death rate was 903. I’m sorry to say I was right. I hope that we can stop squabbling and fight the virus.
“fight the virus.”
You do not “Fight” the virus, you manage your way through how the virus expresses itself in its host. In this case the human host.
The virus cares not about what you think you are doing, it does not give a crap about you, me or anyone else.
So, keep washing your hands, don’t touch your nose or mouth, stay generally away from others, wear a mask in conditions where you suspect it is wise to do so, and keep those who are more susceptible to being pronounced dead if they contract it, the older and infirm among us safe as best as you can.
And in time the virus, without concern for your, my or anyone else’s thoughts on what it is or is not will burn itself out and or will be adapted to the human host by developing an immunity to it.
PS:
I believe the true test of how this virus has in fact effected our country, and the world for that matter, since the death rate per year among our population is surprisingly generally consistent. It will be the actual numbers of people who actually die over and above that average generally consistent death per year number that will be the true evaluation about just how deadly Covid 19 actually is.
These death numbers I think we can reasonably agree to some great degree have been inflated for the numerous reasons that exist to do so. Which include: The active and ongoing presidential reelection of D.J. Trump which the media and powers that be need to cast in a negative manner, and the real capacity for hospitals and localities to inflate these deaths due to Covid numbers for financial reasons.
Time, like in most circumstances, will tell the truth about Covid 19. Not the MSM, not the “Experts” who consistently transmit false or contradictory and misleading information, not a politician on the floor of the Congress or the Senate, not on social media, not ANY report that comes through the now full Left leaning MSM.
We wait for actual truth.
One would think that the guy who put his bowling ball on the hatrack while bending down to tie his shoes, would count as +1. But occasionally some guy somehow avoids being run over by his own car on his garage driveway, so it evens out. The death rate remains pretty constant.
BUT, in the face of what has to be considered an anomaly, a world wide contagion virus event (Compliments of the Communist Chinese conveniently) would be seen in the “Normal” rate of deaths which appear to be fairly consistent, to increase that generally consistent average number considerably.
The general “Normal” differences between deaths per year from what I have seen are within the tens of thousands, so if the deaths related to Covid are in fact as reported and not wacked up within the “normal” count then I would expect the differences to be in the hundreds of thousands and not in the tens of thousands.