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CDC confirms COVID-19 tiny death rate, comparable to flu

Are you enraged yet? The CDC has confirmed that the death rate for the Wuhan flu is probably less than 0.4%, slightly higher than the flu’s 0.1%, but when all factors are considered, including the data that shows it is almost completely harmless to everyone but the elderly who are chronically sick, the disease is essentially just another new flu epidemic, requiring no extreme measures other than acting to protect the vulnerable.

Plus, ultimately we might find out that the IFR [infection fatality rate] is even lower because numerous studies and hard counts of confined populations have shown a much higher percentage of asymptomatic cases. Simply adjusting for a 50% asymptomatic rate would drop their fatality rate to 0.2% – exactly the rate of fatality Dr. John Ionnidis of Stanford University projected.

More importantly, as I mentioned before, the overall death rate is meaningless because the numbers are so lopsided. Given that at least half of the deaths were in nursing homes, a back-of-the-envelope estimate would show that the infection fatality rate for non-nursing home residents would only be 0.1% or 1 in 1,000. And that includes people of all ages and all health statuses outside of nursing homes.

There’s more. Read it all.

What infuriates me the most is that the early data (not the fake models) all pointed in this direction, quite clearly, as noted in detail in this March 17 post, just when panicked state governors were beginning to impose totalitarian rule by edict. Even then it was clear that lock downs made no sense, and would only worsen the situation.

I repeat: Any disease like this requires a rational aggressive and focused response. We can’t ignore it. People need to voluntarily self-quarantine if they feel sick, or if they have older and sick relatives living with them. We should also wash our hands regularly, and avoid unnecessary physical contact with many other individuals.

At the same time, we mustn’t waste our energies doing things that are unnecessary, foolish, or downright counter-productive, such as releasing entire prison populations into the general population.

We also should be outraged by politicians who are using this situation not to deal with it but to impose their pet totalitarian rule over the population, such as passing entirely irrelevant gun bans and shutting down businesses willy-nilly and imprisoning everyone in their homes.

These actions will do little to ease the epidemic. Instead, they might worsen the situation by causing panic (as they have apparently done). Panic is not what this situation warrants. Instead it needs a calm rational response, something that only civilized rational people can give it.

Are we that? Watching what is happening I must sadly say I have my doubts.

In retrospect, it appears if many of our leaders have any rationality, they apply it exclusively to creating schemes for increasing their power and ability to oppress everyone else. Serving the nation and its citizenry appears the last thing on their mind.

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15 comments

  • LocalFluff

    At least, most countries seem to have done a good job in containing the spread of this virus, to the nursing homes…

  • Col Beausabre

    Yes. Murphy and Cuomo did a great job containing the spread. They have blood on their hands for ordering nursing homes to take in Wuhan Flu cases, thereby exposing the most vulnerable population to the disease. You’ll never hear the media mention it – according to those paid for flacks, the two are heroes

    This data from Britain’s National Health Service is interesting
    https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgxwHNVzMLbzsnMSFlqnWBGqDJLSH?projector=1

  • Col Beausabre

    Note, please page down to “Datawatch” to see the chart in question

  • Col Beausabre: Your link requires people to sign in to Google. I will not do this. Do you have an open url not controlled by that corrupt company?

  • Phill O

    Here are a thought on the Canadian health care.

    The government controls doctor’s payments.

    If one goes outside the system (like to the USA) in a private clinic, the doctors (in the system) will not touch you (due to government influence) except in Quebec.

    In fact, if the government is giving you money or tax breaks, think of the pressure they can put on you.

    If the government wants you to wear masks, the doctors Must enforce or they do not get paid. If you want any doctor’s service, you are hooked.

    Free health care is not free.

    For all its problems, the US medical system has a lot of benefits. Many of those have been degraded by the lockdowns.

  • Andrew-M-Winter

    He asks, “Are you enraged yet?”

    I absolutely can NOT indulge in rage. If I indulged in real “honest-to-God” RAGE I have enough arms and ammunition to stack up bodies like freaking CHORD WOOD!

    I can NOT indulge in rage. I have to stay as far away from rage as is possible. I am a responsible human being who really has no desire to acquire a “body count”. So, nope, no rage for me.

    Yes this is a mess. Don’t give in to Rage. Go to the polls in November and vote out every liberal/democrat/socialist/communist you can. That “shotgun” approach will at least mitigate some of the damage. You will have to do real homework to find the ones who have done this crap to us who are not a part of that liberal/democrat/socialist/communist combine.

    PLEASE Do not give in to rage. I have it on good authority that the resulting stench is unbearable. There are also rumors of some really difficult to cope with emotional problems that go along with generating a body count.

  • LocalFluff

    The total mortality rates will reveal the true impact of this corona virus. How will they compare to these numbers:
    https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

    Of course, the lock downs will kill 100s of times more, but that effect will came after this corona virus has been wiped out by our natural immune systems, and thus statistically easy to discern.

  • Andrew_W

    CDC and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) have developed five COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios that are designed to help inform decisions by modelers and public health officials who utilize mathematical modeling.
    Or was this foistered on the CDC by Robert Kadlec?

  • Cotour

    Well now, here is an interesting commentary on the subject of the virus and Trumps criminal responsibilities and the pending charges of murder that he will apparently have to withstand.

    https://youtu.be/t83ZlWkUJ0U

    Glenn Kirshner, I think he said that he was a government employee for 30 years in Washington, and to me that actually means that he is probably a part of the overall problem here. What I found very entertaining was reading the comments related to this silly and self righteous video that this guy posted. They made me laugh out loud.

    Could someone get Mr. Kirshner come to BTB and educate us all on the various subjects that are related to his vast Washington experience? He seems to be speaking to an echo chamber, and he likes what it is that he is hearing.

    It really gave me a laugh, mostly the posts commenting on his wonderfulness.

  • Cotour

    Some of my favorites:

    “I’m not a lawyer. However, Trump has declared we are “at war” with an “invisible enemy “. If we’re at war, and he’s Commander-in-Chief, then deaths from Coronavirus should be prosecuted as war crimes a la the Nuremberg Trials! The blood is on his hands!”

    “Glenn, Thank you for walking us through this. I’ve enjoyed watching your straight forward explanations on MSNBC. Now on this YouTube channel, Sir you are the BEST. We need you as our next UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL”

    “He killing off as many voters as possible, his targets are people of color. Whites? In his eyes, collateral damage”

    “As bad as it is now, I worry about what kind of crazy we’re going to see after he loses the election in November. Thanks for another superb video, Glenn.”

    As dopey and uninformed / half informed and emotional as they are, and I know many of them who sound exactly the same, they are entertaining. Getting a glimps into the mind of a committed Liberal Democrat is like looking through a kaleidoscope, look at all of the pretty colors.

    https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kiwico.com%2Fdiy%2FArts-and-Crafts-Ideas%2F1%2Fproject%2FKaleidoscope%2F2888&psig=AOvVaw1J5Tb9R-9JAadgIcf_iwcb&ust=1590362177433000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCIDbtveOy-kCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE

  • Andrew-M-Winter: I agree with you entirely. My comment was an attempt to get the voters enraged enough to go to the damn polls and do something. We have a problem with too many people disengaged, disinterested, uneducated, and too credulous. We have to wake them up.

  • Edward

    From the article: “Also, remember, so much of the death is associated with the suicidal political decisions of certain states and countries to place COVID-19 patients in nursing homes. An astounding 62 percent of all COVID-19 deaths were in the six states confirmed to have done this, even though they only compose 18 percent of the national population.

    Six states have sent Wuhan flu patients into nursing homes? Un-freaking-beliavable! What morons. Here is the link that Horowitz supplies:
    https://twitter.com/boriquagato/status/1263846555007639553?s=20

    It shows that New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Michigan sent patients to nursing homes. I have seen that California did, too.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/us/nursing-homes-coronavirus.html

    Cuomo said that residents in nursing homes were going to die anyway.
    https://lidblog.com/cuomo-nursing-home-deaths/

    This may be true, though probably not as soon as they did die, but the point of the complaint about sending Wuhan ailing patients into nursing homes is that the residents there were relying upon the homes to take care of them, and yet they were intentionally put in harm’s way rather than cared for. They didn’t get their money’s worth, even if the state was paying.

    With a policy of sending Wuhan ailing patients to the nursing homes combined with the ban on asking whether they are Wuhan ailing, then how do the nursing homes have a chance of keeping the other residents safe from Wuhan flu? New York insisted that the nursing homes be able to protect the other residents, but then prevented the homes from knowing who are the ones that are the dangerous ones.

    Cuomo claims that They followed the CDC guidelines.
    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cuomo-probe-into-nursing-home-coronavirus-deaths-ask-president-trump

    Did theses guidelines really say that hospitals should send Wuhan ailing patients to nursing homes without telling them that they were Wuhan flu patients? If so, then why did Cuomo follow such stupid guidelines as state policy?

    Why are Cuomo and de Blasio so popular in New York?

  • LocalFluff

    Data from Italy shows that mortality with the corona vi.rus has been 0.04% for age group 40-49 and 0.01% for age group 30-39 (1% of 1%).
    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.15.20067074v3

  • Andrew_W

    From LocalFluff’s link:
    The Population Fatality Rate (PFR) has reached 0.26% in the most affected region of Lombardia and 0.58% in the most affected province of Bergamo. These PFRs constitutes a lower bound to the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR). We combine the PFRs with the Test Positivity Ratio to derive a better lower bound of 0.61% on the IFR for Lombardia.

  • Panicked governors? Oh, no. This was planned and coordinated.

    These governors are having too much fun cracking the whip and watching the peons jump, acclimating the peasantry to instant unthinking obedience regardless of how stupid or arbitrary this morning’s royal *diktats* are, brainwashing a generation to think of freedom as “selfishness” and dependence on the government dole as “the new normal,” and think they have to prostrate themselves and tug the forelock and beg representatives of the Nanny State for permission to work to support themselves and their families.

    As an added bonus, when they crater their states’ economies–and don’t doubt for a moment that this is the intent behind indefinite lockdowns–then they get to demand Trump bail them out. And then–or so they think–either way they win. They can boast and gloat about having held a gun to the nation’s head and walked away with a sack of loot, or they can blame Trump for refusing. They think this is going to get them reelected in November, especially since they also mean to cancel normal elections and force mail-in ballots only, destroying a three century tradition of secret ballots and burying Republicans in an avalanche of phony ballots from nonexistent people nationwide at a stroke. They think they’re about to win and consolidate power.

    And all this is part of the larger plan, the Cloward-Piven Strategy, which they’ve admitted to, multiple times, then when people ask about it, they tell us it’s a “conspiracy theory.” They want to bankrupt the US government, destroy the US economy, in order to allow “the Socialist Revolution” to bloom around the world without the mean old US government interfering with poor misunderstood Che Guevera and Pol Pot and Muammar Qaddafi, and in order to force “the masses” to accept their leadership in creating “scientific Marxist-Leninism” right here in the US.

    The Wubonic Plague is a minor, almost forgotten detail. If they could have ginned up this much panic about “global warming,” or the endangered lesser spotted tookie-tookie bird, or “racism,” or “terrorism,” or invisible dancing pink unicorns, it would have all been just the same.

    SHUT UP.
    DON’T THINK.
    DON’T QUESTION.
    DON’T HESITATE.
    OBEY, PEASANT.
    KNEEL AND OBEY YOUR RIGHTFUL MASTERS.

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